iTunes 11 – Hands On

It’s been an exciting week for all the iTunes users out there, with Apple announcing the release ‘in days’ and then the final release yesterday…

But was it really worth all the fuss?

Sure, there’s the new layout, and everyone appreciates a new face every once in a while, but have Apple really managed to pull it off with version 11 of their ‘jukebox’ software?

Well, I decided to do a review on the matter, and here it is:

Setup

The installation files of the new iTunes 11 doesn’t really weigh much. At just under 90mb (upgrade) it downloads in seconds (100mpbs connection), ad the installation itself was surprisingly short that, for a minute, I wondered if it had failed somehow. Alas, my fears were dispelled when I restarted and found a brand-spanking new icon sitting on my start screen!

Problem is…

It wasn’t a modern UI application.

A modern UI app is not with us yet, but I can’t honestly say I expected it…

This didn’t phase the slightest though, as I honestly didn’t expect Apple to be metro-focused, not will I ever expect that from them. Besides, you have to admit, a Modern UI iTunes with it’s right angles, flat colors, and large button wouldn’t have suited it anyway. I probably would’ve still reverted to the desktop application, myself.

But I digress.

The Launch

I quickly launched myself into launched myself into the desktop, started up the new program, and of course accepted the licensing agreement (you honestly think I read?). At once, I was greeted with Apple’s new welcome screen, which I think is a nice addition, helping users who may not be as tech-savvy get around the brand new layout without tearing out any strands of finely combed hair.

The new welcome screen in iTunes 11 provides a helpful insight into the new layout…

Of course, I totally dismissed the idea after it had updated my library, and hit the agree button with a renewed sense of vigor. Let it be noted though, that updating your library may take some time, as it did mine, seeing as I have so many things stashed away in it. The speed of your computer may also factor in on this, though it shouldn’t make too much of a difference.

The first time you start up the new iTunes 11, it may take some time (depending on library size) to create a cache of all the artwork from the files, before it settles down. My hard drive had an abundance of activity for around six minutes before it finally quit stalling on me and I was free to use my newfound power.

Wanting to test start-up time, I quickly closed it, waited thirty seconds, and re-launched the application. I was pleasantly surprised with the 10-second start-up time, and even more impressed with it’s immediate responsiveness!

I found out that iTunes itself is no longer the 150-600mb memory-hogging program it once was, but now runs as smooth as butter on 40-50mb of RAM, which actually knocked me for six, the first time I saw the screen.

iTunes 11 has been slimmed… Weight Watchers style!

No 64-Bit power-boost on Windows!

As you can see though, it lacks the 64-Bit punch on Windows, which isn’t all of a big deal, apart from the knowledge that if it was, it would probably operate twice as fast as it does now. Still, Apple can’t allow us Windows users to have all the fun. They wouldn’t be Apple if they did!

Interface – Re-imagined

Now, we all know iTunes has long been due a good facelift these past…what…three or so years? Yeah, it’s been a while since we’ve had the real joy of celebrating a decent step forward in the graphical user interface of the worlds most loved music organizer.

Until now.

The new iTunes. A refreshing look.

The new iTunes interface was well overdue, but I’m quite happy to say that they’ve got it right this time. I honestly don’t expect another major refresh till version 25, but by then interfaces will have stopped mattering to me, and I’ll probably still be in Windows 8…9 if I’m lucky.

The color-shifting album display really is a gift from the gods.

The new iOS-like interface for albums and items honestly does the trick, and is quick to respond like it’s cousin, the music app. The sidebar-less display may stump some, but click the ‘music’ tab in the top left corner, and all becomes as clear as water. The surprising thing is that when you open albums, the background color actually changes to suit the main colors of the artwork. Yet another stroke of genius from our favorite company. The new iCloud integration works like a charm, too, allowing me to play my TV shows I haven’t downloaded, and pick up my movie right from where I left off on my iPod. I shift from desktop to iPod just for the fun of it, these days. The floating menu design I especially like. Click the arrow next to a song, and you’ll immediately notice the smooth rounded edges on the menu, and iOS-like speech bubble appearance, and the smooth-expanding animation when you go to add said song to a playlist. It’s simple wonderful.

The synchronization tab was also re-designed, but left me a little clueless as to where it was, at first. I did finally find it in the top right corner of the library though, and proceeded to sync my iPod, just to be safe.

Sync your Apple device in style!

As always, though, there is always one annoyance in a new design, and for me, that was the ‘iPod’ button. You see, for me, I like to click the icon to go to the screen, not the name, so when I found out on hovering my mouse over the icon it became an ‘eject’ button, I was surprised. The label ‘iPod’ is far too small to accurately click every time, and to this moment I’ve accidentally ejected my pride and joy at least seven times. I feel like I’ve been abusing it.

But the iTunes GUI wasn’t the only thing that got Apple fans excited this year, oh no…

This did:

Small on size…

Big on control…

Now, even if I was a die-hard Apple fan till death, even I would have to admit that the mini-player had probably been the same since Moses was banging out those beats on the way from Egypt.

It had to go.

The new mini-player actually empowers the user, as you can see.

A search function has been added, the design has been revamped, the airplay button is actually there now…

And most of all…

Up Next has been added to the mix.

Which brings us to our next point.

What’s Up Next, DJ?

Haven’t you ever had those moments when you have a playlist, or you’re listening to a song in an album, and think ‘Man, I wish I could just add insert song name to my list straight after this!’ but realize that your favorite jukebox, with all it’s Genius and smart playlist features, can’t do a thing about it?

Well, obviously someone in Cupertino had this issue, and demanded a private audience with the head of iTunes…

And thus we were blessed with the Up Next feature (which I sincerely hope makes it’s way to iOS. Soon).

What’s up next?

It’s fairly simple to use. Just drag and drop any track onto the top bar, and hey presto, it’s up next! Of course, you can click the little arrow next to a track in an album, and click the ‘add to up next’ button…

But where’s the fun in that?

In addition to adding tracks, you can click the icon, and re-organize what comes up by drag and drop, really adding a mix to a party when you need it.

Now, if we had a blend feature to make songs flow seamlessly, real DJs would be out of business…

Think on that, Apple.

You could revolutionize music mixing, if you so desired…

Store

The store also got a wealth of attention, too, though I won’t go into it too much, as it seems like it’s not fully functional as of yet. It’s fair to say though, that when it’s finished it’ll easily be the most beautiful-looking store I’ll have ever seen by far.

Not finished…but still looking gorgeous!

Remote – TV

In addition to iTunes, I noticed my Apple TV got it’s latest update (6.0.1), which added support for ‘up next’ which I thoroughly enjoyed messing around with for at least 10 minutes mixing songs to get the best flow.

The remote app was also updates for use with ‘up next’ and with a brand new icon to match it’s sleek counterpart.

Remote…with a new icon!

Not much changed on the inside…

Exclusive!

Now, an exclusive shock to those who own a Windows PC, laptop, or tablet…

iCloud 2.1 is out!

Call off the alarm, folks, it’s only a compatibility update.

No changes. At all.

In Other News…

In other newspapers…

In other countries…

In other continents…

In other planets…

I hit 10,000 tweets the other day!

It’s alright, no need to applaud, I’m not finished yet!

In fact, I am, just look at the photos, will you?

I’ve finally reached, Houston!

My 10,000th Tweet. Ingenious.

And that’s a wrap, folks!

My iTunes 11 review…

My Remote 3.0 update…

My iCloud 2.1 letdown…

And my personal Tweet milestone all wrapped up in one!

This is Alex, signing off!

亞歷克斯的！

Newsspot – For Apple, Pressure Builds Over App Store Fraud

Morning guys! Yeah, sorry for the inactivity over the last couple of days, but I’ve been busy with my house, and going to events. Sorry I don’t have the time or will to divulge, but if you want to know more, search for the hash-tag #NECYouthDay . Trust me, it went in. Anyway, today’s post deals with a common problem that seems to be happening with Apple these days. Fraud. I’ve been a victim of this happening twice, myself, so I know how it feels. Thing is, bot my cases had different cards, which was strange. Each lump transaction was around £300-£500, which was…well…a real dent. It seems that Apple seem to be letting too many of these cases slip, and more often, the consumer gets the worst of it. If you’re lucky, like me, you’ll get the money refunded, and a new card. Problem is, this can only happen so many times before the bank decides that you’re on your own. I happen to have no chances left. Another thing is that immediately after notifying Apple, your Apple ID gets permanently disabled. Harsh, huh? You can’t get your stuff off iCloud, and you’ve gotta re-purchase those apps on a different account, seeing as you can’t even update the ones you have. Rant over, here’s the post!

For Apple, Pressure Builds Over App Store Fraud

Gilles Sabrie for The New York Times

Jian Huang, head of Hoolai Game in Beijing. Hoolai, a game developer, discovered that it was missing payments from Apple.

By EVELYN M. RUSLI and BRIAN X. CHEN

Published: March 15, 2012

In a little over an hour, Ryan Matthew Pierson racked up $437.71 in iTunes charges for virtual currency that he could use to buy guns, nightclubs and cars in iMobsters, a popular iPhone game. One problem: Mr. Pierson, a technology writer in Texas, has never played iMobsters.

“This was fraud,” said Mr. Pierson, recalling the November incident. “I woke up, checked my e-mail, and I could see these purchases happening in real time.”

Mr. Pierson raised the issue with Appleand his bank, and the problem was eventually resolved. But his experience is hardly unique, as reflected by hundreds of online complaints saying that Apple’s iTunes Store, and in particular its App Store, which the company portrays as the safest of shopping environments, is not so secure.

The complaints come from consumers like Mr. Pierson, who say that their accounts have been hijacked or that some apps are falsely advertised. And they come from creators of apps, who say they are having to deal with fraudulent purchases that drain their time and resources. Software makers also complain that competition in the App Store has become so brutal that many companies resort to artificially inflating their popularity rankings to grab attention.

It’s a change for Apple, which was once criticized for its micromanaging of the App Store. Now the problem is not too much control, but too little.

“This kind of thing just happens any time a platform is successful,” said David Edery, chief executive of Spry Fox, a small software company that sells games in the App Store. “People start flooding into it and it starts to get crazy.”

The App Store offers more than 600,000 applications for iPhones, iPads and iPodTouches, and has already generated billions in revenue for Apple and its developers. That makes it both the best deal going for software makers and consumers, and also a hulking target for those looking to manipulate the system and cheat people.

Apple declined a request for an interview, but said in a statement that it was working to enhance security. It advised customers whose payment information had been stolen to change their iTunes passwords and to contact their financial institutions.

In the shadowy world of hacking, it’s often unclear how criminals get iTunes passwords or credit card information. But the App Store, and Apple’s broader iTunes Store, have become playgrounds for illicit transactions. And the Web is rife with App Store scams. On Chinese online marketplaces, like Taobao or DHgate, some sellers are offering access to iTunes accounts for as little as $33. One seller on DHgate, for instance, has sold 56 iTunes accounts for less than $35 each, promising thousands of dollars in “credit.”

The Evening Post – Issue 15

Good evening fellow pressers, and readers. Yes, I do both of those things, so I can relate to both parties.

How’s life? Good? Bad? Oh, you’d rather not say? That’s fine, I guess we all have our secrets. Anyway, you know that post I said I’d been working on? I scrapped it. Yep. Gone. Deleted. Erased. All data value written over with zeros, for the tech neeks. I’ve decided to do a new post off the top of my head, since it feels natural, and I also have two events to tell you little people about in this post so, without further ado, I shall begin my epic tale…

Never let me run a bath. Really. I mean, like, if you ask me to run a bath and allow me to do something else whilst it’s running, you’ll reap the consequences, and they’ll most likely be a recreation of Noah’s flood in your own home. Neat, huh? Yeah, that’s not exactly what I thought when it happened to me on Friday evening. You see, I’d decided to run a bath, since my mother had been working so hard all day, and she usually never has one. I had good intentions alright, but for Alex, sometimes they just aren’t enough to guarantee that something’s gonna go well. My first mistake was leaving the bath to run, I’ll admit that, but really, who just sits and watches a bath fill? Anyone who agreed, I commend you. So I left the bath to fill, and decided (foolishly) to watch part of a movie called ‘The Replacement Gods’ on iTunes. It wasn’t my best idea, I can tell you that now. After a while I heard my mum shouting upstairs about a bath or something or other. My immediate response was ‘coming!’ but my memory soon jolted me into action. Minimizing the window (hey, it’s a habit, alright?), I sprinted into the bathroom only to come up to my ankles in water. Okay, I exaggerate, It came above my toes, but it was close. I swiftly threw all the towels I could find into place, turned off the tap, and drained the bath. So much for my ‘surprise’ for mum. It took a while, but after around forty-five minutes, I had managed to get the bathroom dry, and clear of water. My next task, as so pointed out by mum (who was not taking this well, I assure you), was to dry up downstairs where the water had seeped through. This was hard, because I didn’t have my trusty towels, but I set to work with my reliable *cough* mop. It took a while, I’ll definitely say that, but I managed to dry up all of the water that had found it’s way downstairs, and by the time all was said and done, I’d begun to develop blisters. If I was to describe it lightly, I would call it the most physical exercise I’d done in months. If I described how I really felt it, I would call it my own personal HELL. I have to be thankful that nothing was damaged though, as all the electrical circuits remained intact and usable…I just felt sorry for the carpet outside the bathroom. Of course all is well now, but Mum probably won’t trust me to run a bath until I get my own place…in which I hope the overflow has holes big enough to take large volumes of water.

Moving on to today…

Today was nice, and by nice I mean it was terrible at the start, but the evening made up for that. Kind of life’s way of paying me back, I guess. Anyway, I had pathfinders today. From 11 till 1. End of. That’s all I should have to say for all you guys to start going ‘aww’ and ‘poor guy’. If not, you’re just heatless, and I hope you can get a heart soon. It really is necessary for survival. The evening made up for my plight, however, when I managed to make my way to my good cousin Cadeem’s house, in which we decided to lounge on the couch with ginger beer and play Forza 4. *sigh* Good times, people, good times. The problem was that I was so wrapped up in playing that I lost track of time, and had to quickly rush off back home, seeing as it was nearing five, and I was meant to be back for four. Thankfully, my mother is a very lenient woman, and I escaped unscathed once more. The reason I’m telling you this is so that you aren’t disappointed when I tell you that we did record our Forza races, but unfortunately, seeing as the file is 2.2GB, and I couldn’t figure out how to shift it from my cousins laptop to my computer without some miracle where Dropbox suddenly gave me free space, I won’t be able to upload it today. I do, however, have some photos that I managed to take and move to my 512mb memory card from his camera to mine, so don’t worry, you can at least have some insight in to what I was up to.

I’m stopping this post here now, because I’m seriously tired (I had to fix another computer in the wee hours of the morning), so I hope this’ll be good enough till tomorrow morning. I’ll be starting my regular posts up again tomorrow, so there’ll be a lot more content being posted like before. I have to warn you though, I will be posting nothing on any Saturdays, so at those times you’ll just have to make do with the stale posts from the day before.

Alex Out.

再見!

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The Evening Post – Issue 14

To all those who actually read this,

How’s your day been? Nice? Good, good. Mine’s been alright too, actually, so that’s something we have in common. You know when I said before that I was hoping that there wouldn’t be another day in 2012 where it dragged on as long as the last one did? Well, I’m afraid to say that life broke it’s promise. My day was as dry and long as anything. It did spruce up towards the evening though, when I had a nice conversation (spanning a good few hours) with Sadia, and also managed to get some games on my iPod to work again. To be honest, I was unsure of what to post really, since I don’t want to just become a re-posting service for photos and news articles. I like how you guys are enjoying them, but if I just re-post, then it’s not really ‘my’ blog then, is it? The problem is that life’s not going anywhere fast. The most exciting things I did today (besides talking to Sadia) were getting the new iBooks 2 and iTunes U apps, and re-tweeting some #IfTheyShutDownTwitter foolishness. Now, I’m going to cut this post short at this time, so I big you all farewe-

Oh, that’s my cue…

Ciao!

The Afternoon Article – Issue 7

Image by Lee Jordan via Flickr

Well, it seems that the newly opened ‘Newsspot’ (Apple Newsstand Reference) has been a big success! I’m glad that you guys enjoyed the post, as I have a few more that I’ve seen and plan on sharing, although I do like to share the latest concerning politics, and arts.

Today, so far, has been good, and despite the sub-zero temperatures (-5 in Wolverhampton), I can’t help but feel like today’s going to end as good as it started…with me in bed. However, I’ve been stuck with a really annoying niggle in my head that I really need to do something. I can’t explain what, since I don’t know what it is, but as far as I know, nothing needs doing, and I haven’t forgot anything. Maybe it’s just my paranoia playing up, seeing as I can’t stand leaving something unfinished. I don’t know whether it’s my mind telling me to break my creative block, or give my iTunes library the once-over, but I’ll figure it out eventually. To be honest, there’s not much going on in my neighborhood to say, and my life is as dry as a desert, so you’ll have to forgive me for my lack of originality this time. I will be posting some Tweets, Sayings, News Articles, Photos, Videos, and Evening Posts later on though, so subscribe ria RSS Feed or Email, so you can stay in the loop.

再見!