The fact that i had no problems with iTunes 6 and now have with iTunes 7 just prove Apple's diregard for their customers, not trying to make it backwards compatible to their systems.

If you go tho Apple's discussiom forums you will find out that most people are having a lot of problems like:

1) Song skip during playback.

2) Only 2 channels working.

3) Not compatible with old iPods.

4) iTunes 7 is a resource hog.

5) Not compatible with certain sound cards, etc.

If you go the Apple Discussions you will find people that are having problems, not "most people". "Most people" are not having any problems and don't feel the need to go on discussion forums and shout about it.

Umm, none of those things are new to iTunes 7

Exactly! People visit Apple Discussions if they have problems, while you never hear anything from those who dont have any problems.

My big problem with iTunes is that it seems to be more and more sluggish compared to past versions (version 4 and before), probably mainly because of Quicktime, and windows versoin of quicktime is slow and sux.

Other findings:
1. To update my podcasts, I'm used to have the button at the top. Now the refresh button is at tha bottom corner. Annoying.
2. Cover flow view is slow. When Steve Jobs demoed it, it flows very smoothly. On my PC (P4 2.6GHz HT, 1GB ram), iTunes only start loading the pictures when I'm looking at it, meaning that the picture would be empty at first, then I can see iTunes loading up the pictures. Scrolling is very slow since iTunes is loading the pictures as I move. It won't pre-load anything if I stay at one spot. Once all the album arts are loaded, scrolling is then very smooth. Problem is, once I close iTunes, and re-open it again, it repeats the same thing. Why can't it store a cache somewhere instead of loading the album arts again and again?
3. iTunes7 encoded AAC, although gapless with iTunes, apparently is not gapless with foobar. I probably have to use gapkiller to froce gapless playback. Weird since Nero encoded AAC is gapless with foobar, but might not be gapless with iTunes.
4. Scrolling through library still produces high CPU load (50%-100%).
5. To update my iPod manually, I have to right click on the iPod icon, and click sync. There should be a big sync button on the main screen somwhere.

I would say that these two things are due to your videocard memory/drivers. The pc seems to be good enough (heck! i'm on a P4 1.5Ghz! ) to not have such problems.


If you haven't yet read about the Ipod gets gapless playback thread, i advance you that it is using its own tagging scheme to mark the gapless tracks. This means A) it is not recognizing nero aac way. B) others don't recognice iTunes' way. Both quite logical. (ok, they could have known about nero's way)

You missing the point here. I will summarize my complains in one phrase for you:
Apple's is disrespectful to customers, not trying to make it backwards compatible to their systems.
I forgot to tell you. I have an iPod Nano 4 Gbyte that broke down after only 7 months of light and careful use and Apple wants US$ 45.00 for s & h!
With low quality software and hardware products and a monopolistic domination of the music download market Apple became the Microsoft of the New Millennium. However Microsoft was always criticized and had lots of opposition while Apple has a religious cult of followers that live in denial and are always ready to shovel money up Steve Jobs' pocket.

I will correct myself now: Apple is not dropping the ball. They already dropped.

There may be some bugs in iTunes 7, but I'm not seeing where you're getting "disrespectful." Unless there is a language barrier that I'm not understanding. Disrespectful would be if Apple released a statement saying, "take our iTunes 7 and shove it--now we're working on iTunes 8, so don't bother us." The software hasn't even been out a week yet. There will be bug fixes.

That is exactly what they did. Without saying it.

Okay...

You know that most other versions of iTunes have had at least 5 point releases, right? Patience.

And is it any difference with other manufactures? Have you ever tried talking to Sony/Connect tech support? (I have) Samsung? iRiver? At least with the iPod, if it's still within warranty, I can just go to an Apple store and have it replaced. Of course, that is assuming that the device is actually malfunctioned. Scratches due to usage is not considered malfunction. All manufactures will have the same policy. You can always become a Costco member and buy from there. Costco has a very good return policy.

On that topic, and not to change the current one, but WMP 11 Beta is several times worse.

Pity something good like foobar2000 doesn't have album art support where cover images are downloaded off the net automatically.


You know that when the iPod first came out, there wasn't anything you could do when the battery died save for buying a new iPod?

Patience wouldn't have done jack unless several people didn't make an issue out of it.

Light-Fire is right. Apple is disrespectful to their customers. Whether they say it or not.

dunno if any body has tried yet but LAME 3.97 works on itunes 7, without the end being cut off. It still times it wrong with the timer reaching zero before the song ends but the song continues until its meant to finish. This is good news for anybody like me who wants to use LAME but wants to use itunes as there main media player.