LifeHacker has a first look at iTunes 8.0. As of right now iTunes can be downloaded from Apple, but not through Apple Update yet. Doesn’t look as revolutionary as many people have been saying but it seems to be a logical update for Apple. I will update in a little bit if it works with Windows Vista x64, but I imagine given iTunes 7.0 that it will.

BEWARE!
Everything went find with the iTunes on Windows 64-bit except for the fact that iTunes turned on 1-Click buying for the iTunes store for some reason. If this is not your current setting you probably want to specifically check for this under. Edit – Preference – Store in iTunes. I don’t know if this is a plan for Apple to get extra revenue or if the settings just got reset because of the install of iTunes 8, but I have never had this happen before. Luckily for me I was just buying some of their Free HD Episodes.

iTunes 7.7 has been released!

Windows Vista x64

I am happy to announce that iTunes 7.7 and Windows Vista x64 work well together. The Apple downloader even chooses the correct 64-bit version of iTunes through every browser that I have tried, so they obviously fixed something where you don’t need to download iTunes through the 64-bit version of IE. No word yet if the iPhone 2.0 or 1.0 will work with the 64-bit version of windows.

Whats New?

As far as I can see nothing is really new with the application.  The only noticeable things is that the “Games” menu item has now been changed to “Applications”.  So if you were expecting a huge jump forward in functionality you are going to be bummed.  Most of the changes probably went to support their new Mobile Me platform, push applications, and the iPhone 2.0.

Download

You can download iTunes in the normal places, either through your updator or from their website.  My recommendation is to wait to see, if you don’t need the new functionality.

Common courtesy is very important for all application developers to follow especially when they are dealing with users settings. Especially for common file formats, where the user has probably already set up their preferences how they like. And most importantly to not piss off your install base.

As you might have gathered from the title Apple has screwed up in this area yet again. In their never ending battle to try and forcibly get an install base, from some of their crappiest application. The Apple developers must taken the same “Our shit doesn’t stink”-attitude as many of their users, and started taking over the preferences on the users machine with out asking.

Like any good .NET developer I had the XML file format being opened by Visual Studio, it has a nice viewing, and editing interface that is hard to beat. Today I saw their was a QuickTime update while watching the Facebook Conferences presentation in anticipation of my previous post today. So as I decided to do the update, what a nightmare that has turned out to be. First of all it was 70 MB download, because Apple also decided that iTunes and Safari needed to be downloaded with Quicktime, and bundled them all together. Then it decides to take over all my documents in my system, including HTML, XML, and a bunch of other web related documents. See below.

Then to boot their XML “Rendering” sucks.

Hey news flash Steve Jobs this is how a real browser renders XML, and does a damn fine job at it.

At least if you are going to take over my system, and forcibly put your software on my computer, the very least you could do is not make it suck. Is that too much to ask.

Steve Jobs has to learn that Windows users don’t put up with the same amount of shit as Apples users do, because one we don’t bow down at the alter of Steve Jobs, and two we have other options. I am not going to let Steve Jobs take a steaming pile of shit on my PC, change all the settings, install one of the worst browsers on earth, and then forgive him. He is going to have to do something grand with Safari to get it back on my PC.

I am really pissed that I now have to uninstall a program that I never wanted installed in the first place, and then go through the registry and clean up after an Apple Developer that couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag.

Maybe they should spend less time trying to achieve an ACID3 milestone that won’t be standard for another couple of years and work on the basics that IE for the better part of a decade now.