Posted on 16 September 2009, at 9:11 pm, by Wayne Schulz

Until version 9 of iTunes I was a wonderfully satisfied user. My library of 2,800+ songs rarely slowed when I’d select a song or playlist. My iPhone synchronized in the background without any slowdowns. I used to wonder about this Apple icon people called a “beach ball” because I rarely saw it. Then along came iTunes 9 and everything changed.
iTunes 9 added some wonderful features – most notably in the area of re-organizing applications on my iPhone (about time!) and throwing us a bone by making it easier to copy iTunes files from one authorized computer to another authorized computer on a network.
So don’t get me wrong – I enjoy the benefits that have been added.
The problem is there are two prices to be paid for these new benefits – namely speed and stability.
Meet Mr Beach Ball
For those of you on Windows computers, the beach ball is the Apple equivalent of Windows’ rotating hourglass. My iMac hardly ever had the beach ball or “please wait” indicator appear while I was working within iTunes prior to version 9. Now I’ve started to see the ball make a regular appearance.
It’s still only at the merely annoying level but I’ve started to wonder what will happen when Apple rolls out iTunes 9.5 or 10. Will the Beach Ball have an ever increasing presence on my computer?
There’s not enough benefit in iTunes 9 for me to put up with lengthy pauses and slowdowns on my computer. Based on the slowdowns introduced with iTunes 9 I might be hesitant to upgrade to the next version of iTunes when Apple releases it .
My iTunes catches the flu
Before iTunes 9 I could could count on half of one hand the number of times that my iTunes crashed. Since Apple upgraded to version 9 crashes have become a daily occurrence. There’s no rhyme or reason to when iTunes will take a dump all over my screen either. Usually I’ll notice problems changing from one section of the program such as my songs to another section such as my iPhone applications. And other times it will just up and quit in the middle of song selections.
I think I’ve been luck so far because none of my files have experiencing any data corruption and iTunes has faithfully re-started (after a lengthy beachball display).
Funny enough I was emailing the Geardiary team when Dan captured a screenshot of his iTunes crashing as he was reading my email where I described how I thought Apple really missed the mark with the iTunes 9 upgrade.
For now I live with the slowdowns and stability issues. I’m hopeful that Apple improves both the stability and speed of their iTunes program in future releases or they may see people becoming more reluctant to blindly update to the latest and “greatest” iTunes.
No related posts.
My iTunes 9 caught the flu http://ff.im/-8fiWS
My iTunes 9 caught the flu | Gear Diary http://bit.ly/3oCaH6
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September 16th, 2009 at 11:10 pm
Welcome to the joys of Microsoft Internet Explore– oops, wrong OS.
Are you running Snow Leopard, by chance? I’m wondering if the changes to the OS, which included some modifications to the IPv6 stack, may be involved with this… since iTunes 9 also has to reach the Apple servers to do most of its non-local features, and usually connects just to get cover artwork, among other things.
September 17th, 2009 at 5:07 am
I’m on the latest Mac OS — and I don’t know if there’s any relation to what I perceive as slower iTunes speeds and increased bugs.
I thought it funny that while Dan was reading my message about how I felt iTunes 9 was buggy — that his iTunes crashed.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I’ve not updated to Snow Leopard yet, nor have I had an iTunes crash … but I have to admit being mostly in WinXP this week for gaming related reasons. Red Faction, Batman, Resident Evil 5, Dawn of Magic 2, Steam re-release of the whole Jedi Knight collection … all in one week?!?
September 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I am running iTunes 9, but not Snow Leopard (but that will change in a day or two). So far, though I have not had any problems with iTunes 9. I like the new features relating to the management of content on my devices, but the jury is still out on the store reorganization – some good some bad.
Performance wise – it seems ok to me on my 2007 Macbook Pro. Not any slower or more prone to failure than iTunes 8 – so far.
September 17th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Mine has crashed a couple of times – both times when I was trying to play a preview in the iTunes Store. I’ve also lost the ability to sync contacts and calendars with my Nano 4G – iTunes insists that I have none, offers to start iCal (or Address Book) for me to create some, and, there they are, in their glory, unable to sync.
I do seem to recall that there were similar problems going to iTunes 8. I was going to wait a couple of weeks to switch, but, for some reason, I always do this . . .
Anyway, so far it’s not been that bad – no lost data, everything else is fine.