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Media (Apple) Businesses Media Apple

iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5 467

usr122122121 writes "iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5 were released today, available by Apple's Site and Software Update (respectively)."
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iTunes 4.2 and QuickTime 6.5

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:41PM (#7757288)
    ".. shortest news item, ever"
  • Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JoeLinux ( 20366 ) <joelinux AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:41PM (#7757292)
    I wonder...could they have fixed the hack that Mr. Johanson made? Even on the windows version?

    Just a thought...
    • not for the long run at least..

      it was more of a proof of concept type of a thing anyways.

      .
    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by JeffTL ( 667728 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:27PM (#7757769)
      Well, actually, he didn't do anything except insert a loopback somewhere up in Quicktime...you could already do about the same thing with any audio capture utility, or for that matter a CD-RW drive.
    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by minus_273 ( 174041 )
      ugh its not a hack. using the API is not a hack. heck its been done so much before "dvd jon" wrote his little program, i was amazed slashdot had it as "news"... geez some people here are such sheep.
    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tgibbs ( 83782 )
      I wonder...could they have fixed the hack that Mr. Johanson made? Even on the windows version?

      Do you think they care? I think Apple's protection is intended to be closer to the chain on your front door than to Fort Knox: not intended to stop the experienced thief, but simply to reduce temptation to passersby.

  • Quicktime 6.5 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) * <jhummel&johnhummel,net> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:41PM (#7757299) Homepage
    Hm - hopefully this will fix the problem of "No One Lives Forever 2" not being able to function in Quicktime 6.4. Otherwise, I'm going to install Jaguar to my iPod and boot off that when I want some "Cate Archer" sneaking action.
    • Re:Quicktime 6.5 (Score:3, Informative)

      by morcheeba ( 260908 )
      Right-on! I got to play that game for about a week before I had to install panther to play with xcode. I can't believe that the retail Apple store I bought it at has been selling a game for the last two months that won't work on an up-to-date system (I had to downgrade QT on jaguar) - Apple should have pulled it until macplay got it working (even if it was apple that broke quicktime). Good idea with the ipod - I hadn't thought of that, thanks.
    • Re:Quicktime 6.5 (Score:5, Informative)

      by jpkunst ( 612360 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:24PM (#7757747)

      Quicktime 6.5 does not fix the No One Lives Forever 2 problem with QT 6.4. I just tried it.

      Back to rebooting in 10.2.8/QT 6.3 for Cate Archer action.

      JP

    • Re:Quicktime 6.5 (Score:5, Informative)

      by Fred IV ( 587429 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:51PM (#7758033)

      Otherwise, I'm going to install Jaguar to my iPod and boot off that when I want some "Cate Archer" sneaking action.

      You might consider checking with Apple first to see if it will screw up your warranty.

      iPodHacks [ipodhacks.com] warns that booting off your iPod might be considered "abuse" by Apple if you have problems later.

      FIV
      • Um.. Apple publicly states that one prefered way to image xServes is to boot from your iPod and then copy an image from it. Apple had the Genetech guys up on stage at WWDC hawking iPods because they use them to configure their clusters.
        so.. Apple says it's OK to boot from it and iPodHacks says Apple says you can't boot from it.

        Hmn.. who to believe, who to believe?
  • Really what has been changed?
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:49PM (#7757383)
      Here it is:

      * Change version number from 4.1 to 4.2
      * ????
      * Profit!!!
    • Re:Changelog? (Score:5, Informative)

      by adamwright ( 536224 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:04PM (#7757535) Homepage
      What's new in iTunes 4.2

      iTunes 4.2 allows you to sign in and buy music from the iTunes Music Store using either your AOL or Apple Account, view the iTunes Music Store in a separate window, and includes a number of performance improvements.

      (And yes, that really was the extent of the changes listed in the help and readme after I downloaded it).
      • Re:Changelog? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mcc ( 14761 ) <amcclure@purdue.edu> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:35PM (#7757859) Homepage
        Performance improvements are a serious thing, though. I seem to remember the main gripe when iTunes for Windows was first released was mediocre-at-best performance.

        How big are the performance improvements, has anyone gotten the chance to try this under windows?
        • Re:Changelog? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Quikah ( 14419 )
          My crappy P3-500 256MB system at work runs it about the same as before, still pretty slow, but it works. They changed the Maximize button behavior, now it actually maximizes the window instead of toggling the mini-player. I actually liked the previous behavior, I rarely maximize windows, don't see the point usually.
    • Re:Changelog? (Score:5, Informative)

      by hpavc ( 129350 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:12PM (#7757623)
      forget about AOL support ... you can group tracks now! awesome
    • Re:Changelog? (Score:2, Interesting)

      It still doesn't minimize to the tray (single most common complaint on Windows), but maximize does make it full screen now. Otherwise there's no discernible diffeence.
    • Re:Changelog? (Score:5, Informative)

      by allgood2 ( 226994 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:57PM (#7758088)
      Apple's Read Me's are always notably lacking information on specific changes, possible because parts of the read me display in the software update and installers. Anyway, Apple often releases specific details as part of its knowledge base.

      My quick review of changes in iTunes 4.2 on Mac OS X (sorry won't have access to a Win2k machine until next week), these are the immediate changes I notice:

      Hot Tips
      http://www.apple.com/itunes/hottips/
      Apple introduced hot tips on creating Smart Playlist, keyboard shortcuts, copy song, artist, and album urls from the iTunes Music Store, etc.

      Grouping
      Under song details, there is now a new ID3 tag called grouping. I'm not certain if this will allow for subcategories, or can be used for things such as Celebrity Playlist so songs from multiple albums can be grouped. I'll have to play with it. Also added to Smart Playlist queries.

      Artwork
      Added scaler to artwork, so images can be scaled up or down to fit album space area.

      Playlist from Selection
      For those who complained about queue-ing songs, I imagine this feature will come in handy, as well as for other purposes as well. Allows you to Command-Select (Click) on random songs in your library then create a playlist from them, immediately.

      Music Store in New Window
      Double-clicking will launch the music store in a new window (yeah).

      iTMS: Music Essentials
      Like Celebrity playlist, but collections of "iTunes Essential" music in categories I wouldn't have imagined, including Disco Ball Essentials and Coctail Party Kitsch--yet more ways to spend even more money.

      iTMS: AOL Sessions
      Added more music "exclusives" basically various performances by artist for AOL can now be purchased.

      iTMS: AOL Users
      Tons of direct access stuff for AOL users. Which, if they can do this for AOL, maybe they could do it for other venues, like artist who do live concert releases.

      iTMS: Artist Self-Released Albums (Return of the EP)
      This was there before, but some artist like Pearl Jam who are self published are and can now release stuff directly to the iTMS. I also noticed John Mayer's "As Is" is not attributed to Sony or any music label (which may indicate that it was also self-published). Ben Folds have also been doing a number of quick EPs, but they are all still published attributed to EPIC. It will be interesting to see if more artist start releasing EPs with 4-5 songs exclusively for iTMS or other music stores, and then have regular albums published every 1-2yrs.

      These were the things I noticed immediately. Now I need to go and play and see what else comes up.

  • just wondering (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dreadlord ( 671979 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:43PM (#7757312) Journal
    any plans of a Linux version of iTunes? Since Mac OS X kernel is BSD, I guess porting to Linux wouldn't be that hard.
    • jTunes (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:49PM (#7757381)
      There's a good java clone of iTunes complete with Rendezvous support.

      http://sourceforge.net/projects/jtunes4/
    • Re:just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)

      by .com b4 .storm ( 581701 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:52PM (#7757411)

      any plans of a Linux version of iTunes? Since Mac OS X kernel is BSD, I guess porting to Linux wouldn't be that hard.

      This is kinda like saying it would not be hard to port Internet Explorer to DOS. There are a number of problems with porting iTunes to Linux, mainly:

      • iTunes relies heavily on QuickTime for playback and importing/encoding audio. Since QuickTime does not (officially) exist for Linux, this would be a big problem.
      • It would be a pain in the neck for Apple to support even just the major Linux distributions. Odds are they are not going to just release a source tarball for people to compile for their distro. Different kernel versions, libraries, etc. would complicate things a lot, especially with regards to burning CDs from inside iTunes.

      Granted, iTunes was successfully ported to an OS that has no real UNIX underpinnings in common with OS X (Windows), but the fact that QuickTime already existed in a mature state for that platform eased things a great deal I'm sure. It's not impossible, but there is little incentive for Apple to put the rather gargantuan effort required into porting iTunes Linux.

      • good job... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Stevyn ( 691306 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:59PM (#7757487)
        You've basically summed up why a lot of good commercial software doesn't exists for linux. Photoshop anyone? This isn't meant to be a troll, but he makes the point that companies want to release closed source software without jumping through hurdles. However, this is not an attack on Linux, but more so on the distros for not agreeing on standards. Make standards, then compete. This is why people hate internet explorer so much, it broke away from standards and tried to make the www a microsoft application.

        But I'm not trying to be negative, things are improving...
      • Re:just wondering (Score:3, Informative)

        by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
        I thought I just read on /. that one of the new Linux based "Smart Phones" has Quicktime support? Apple doesn't need to release the GUI, just the backend processes to work with iTMS and a binary release of QT libraries. Though I doubt Apple will do something like that since their goal is to have you purchase their OS : (
    • Re:just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zulux ( 112259 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:52PM (#7757421) Homepage Journal
      any plans of a Linux version of iTunes? Since Mac OS X kernel is BSD, I guess porting to Linux wouldn't be that hard.

      I kind of doubt it.

      They *could* do it - but probably won't for marketing reasons.

      Apple makes it's money selling Apple hardware - if in their eyes they think that there are a few Linux users that will buy an Apple just to have Quicktime, iTunes, iMovie etc - then they'll just refuse.

      Apple has to have a Windows version of Quicktime - othewise the movie studios woulden't bother trying to use Quicktime for Apple's 8% market share.

      Apple make itunes for Windows to expose Windows users to the iPod and to the Apple "expeience" - they're hoping to get some coverts. "This iTunes is pretty cool - I really would like a whole computer that behaves this nicley, instead of all this windows crap."

      • Re:just wondering (Score:4, Interesting)

        by molarmass192 ( 608071 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:49PM (#7758017) Homepage Journal
        Ummmm, Apple does *not* have an 8% market share. They may have back in 1997 but they now have 2.9% COE (client operating environment) market share to Linux's 2.8% as per IDC. Linux is expected to overtake Apple for the number 2 spot on the desktop early in 2004. To me that means Apple should refuse, now more than ever, to release Quicktime for Linux since that would only help Linux grab and extend it's lead. The good news for Apple is that Linux is only taking market rank from it, not market share, that's coming from the MS piece of the pie. All that market share crap aside, I still want a 17" PowerBook for x-mas!
        • Re:just wondering (Score:3, Interesting)

          by zulux ( 112259 )
          Ummmm, Apple does *not* have an 8% market share.

          Depending on the survey - Apple has anywhere from 2% to 6%.

          I put 8% as it's my hunch that Apple has a larger effective market share when it comes to people who play MP3 and watch movie trailers.
    • Re:just wondering (Score:2, Informative)

      by Gilesx ( 525831 ) *
      To be honest, your best bet right now is to check out the Rhythmbox project at http://www.rhythmbox.org

      It has an interface similar to iTunes, supports Ripping, as many audio formats as Gstreamer can handle (including mp3, and ogg), and will soon be able to burn to CDs as well.

    • Re:just wondering (Score:5, Insightful)

      by vruba ( 652537 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:14PM (#7757643) Homepage

      The kernel (Mach [cmu.edu], in Mac OS X's case) doesn't matter much to a media player. Obviously things like hardware support and i/o latency make a difference, but more or less any modern OS will support something that supports MP3 playing. It probably wasn't a matter of a quick recompile, but iTunes works fine on Windows, which has a completely different hardware and low-level software architecture.

      What makes the difference here is having a media architecture. iTunes floats on QuickTime, which Apple trusts to work really well with various audio codecs (and their DRM schemes). Besides that, it's (")just(") some GUI, network, security, and disc-burning code. QuickTime is the central issue here; Apple would not make iTunes for mpg123/ALSA/whatever.

      But if you're asking "Why haven't they ported QuickTime to Linux yet?", I agree. I suppose they might be thinking like this:

      1. We want to sell Macintoshes, and, if possible, software.
      2. Let's make a killer app so people will want to buy Macs, and call it QuickTime.
      3. But wait ... if we make it Mac-only, not even Mac users will want to use it, because it'll be outnumbered by whatever Microsoft comes up with the stamp it out.
      4. So let's port it, and make it a model citizen in the Windows envirnoment, so most everyone will be able to use it while associating it with Apple.
      5. Port to Linux? Why? We want these people to moan and whine about not being able to watch .mov trailers, and talk themselves into buying a tibook. Obviously they're already vulnerable to Unix. Mwahahahrahra!

      In other words, they have to port to Windows if they want it to survive at all. But they're the powerful ones in comparison to Linux, and they can just try to borg its users.

      Disclaimers: (1) this is pure speculation, (2) I use Mac OS X considerably more than Linux these days, and (3) I'm feeding a troll.

    • by denzombie ( 561408 ) <.dev_null. .at. .warriorpoet.org.> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:44PM (#7757966) Homepage Journal
      Support Nightmare:

      Caller: iTunes segfaults when I execute it.

      Phone Agent: What distro are you using.

      Caller: Gentoo.

      PA: Oh, we only support RedHat 7.2

      Caller: Well can you tell me what the dependencies are. I'll just emerge them.

      PA: Ummmm. We only support Red Hat.

      Caller: What about Fedora? I've got a boxen running that.

      PA: Ok, ummm, is that a version of Red Hat?

      Caller: Grrrr. Never Mind

      and so on...

  • Worthless (Score:2, Insightful)

    by mackman ( 19286 )
    If you're going to post release notices on /. there either needs to be compelling new features (which should appear in the /. article) or it needs to be the reslease of Duke Nukem Forever.
  • AOL integration, too (Score:5, Informative)

    by radicalskeptic ( 644346 ) <x@gCOFFEEmail.com minus caffeine> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:43PM (#7757316)
    Now people with AOL can just use their screen name to buy songs on iTMS, and it'll be billed to their AOL account.
    ...
    Not that I would know personally now!! I read it on the website, I swear!
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:46PM (#7757345)
    when it plays ogg, runs on linux, is devoid of patents, is open source, is GPLed and can first post for me.
  • by radicalskeptic ( 644346 ) <x@gCOFFEEmail.com minus caffeine> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:47PM (#7757352)

    Quicktime info [macrumors.com]

    iTunes info [macrumors.com]
  • So... (Score:5, Informative)

    by phreak03 ( 621876 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:47PM (#7757365) Homepage Journal
    Here are the "new" features.
    For itunes, you can now use your aol login, and aol
    wallet to pay for stuff.

    Quicktime now supports the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards
    These standards are usefull for Third generation cell phones. They allow transfer of scalled video, sound, text, and just about anything as the yare track based formats.

    (anyone know if the itunes breaks the support for mytunes <www.cowpimp.com> the program that lets you download thru mytumes)**
    • The thing that baffles me with Quicktime is that you still have to PAY to have the privilage of doing what every other free player out there already does... show a movie in fullscreen.

      I'm all for Quicktime charging to be able to author quicktime movies, but to be able to watch them in fullscreen baffles me.

      (And I love how on their website they demonstrate it as some amazing feature to be able to do so and call it their 'Theatre' mode or some such crud...)
  • and 10.3.2 (Score:5, Informative)

    by scrotch ( 605605 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:48PM (#7757373)

    A new Panther update - to 10.3.2 - is also available from SoftwareUpdate.

    hopefully I can finish downloading it before it gets apple-slashdotted...
  • by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <slashdot&suppafly,net> on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:52PM (#7757414)
    If we are going to keep up with every point release of apache, bsd, linux kernel, etc.. we might as well start keeping track of point release updates of quicktime and itunes as well..
  • by savetz ( 201597 ) on Thursday December 18, 2003 @03:53PM (#7757427) Homepage
    QuickTime 6.5 delivers a number of new features and important updates, including:
    - Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the new 3GPP2 format.
    - Creation and playback of mobile multimedia in the popular AMC format.
    - Improved text track support.
    - Enhanced DV playback options.
    - Enhanced support for iMovie, iDVD, and Final Cut Pro.
  • Another 50 megs to download! Yippee!
    • Re:WAHOO! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Funksaw ( 636954 )
      If you're on a dial up, keep in mind that these aren't exactly "must have" updates if you're not an AOL customer. 50 megs is alot, but let's face it, you can easily wait till 10.4. The only stuff you really NEED are the security updates.

      And since you can set this thing to download overnight, unless you're so rural as to be paying toll-calls to a dialup ISP, 50 megs can be done in 1 or 2 nights, since Apple Update supports resuming (TTBOMR)

      -- Funksaw
  • However, if you go here [apple.com], you can download the installer package for iTunes 4.2(Mac and Windows).
  • The installer is now a web-based installer package, the kind Apple has been using for Quicktime for a while.

    I have installed the last couple of iTunes updates without any problems, but this one encountered a number of errors.

    It forced a restart, so we'll see how it turns out.

    The point: I think there will be another release fairly soon to fix this problem. You may want to hold off on this update until then.
  • For those of us less informed, what are 3GPP2 and AMC formats? What uses them?
  • Update spree (Score:4, Informative)

    by krray ( 605395 ) * on Thursday December 18, 2003 @04:23PM (#7757727)
    With the recent up to 10.1.3 the application load time has gotten even _faster_ (among other things :). Now these updates. It's usually FUN to update the Mac the see what's new.

    Throw in the Linux 2.6 kernel and it's going to be a fun Christmas.

    Isn't it ironical that at the same time I'm dreading the next Windows update that is always coming down the pike (being the sysadmin over seeing all such systems on the network :).

    At least Apple makes this SEEM fun. New in the iTunes application menu -- a link to:
    HotTips [apple.com]
  • ...I guess this [apple.com] will be the most popular download within the next few days.

    ~Philly

"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"

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