iTunes not Vista compatible

[Davey Winder]

File under ‘well it would say that’ you might think, but nevertheless the fact remains that Apple has issued a statement on its support website warning iTunes users not to upgrade to Vista. This due to a number of known compatibility issues with iTunes 7.0.2 and earlier versions, although you might not realise that were you to just read some of the news headlines reporting the story:

InfoWorld has ‘Wait on Vista upgrade, Apple says’ and Digital Lifestyles runs with ‘Apple Tells Vista Upgraders To Wait’ and a similar headline features at CIO Today with ‘Apple: Don't Upgrade to Vista Just Yet.’ PC Advisor is more sensationalist with ‘Windows Vista may corrupt your iPod’ while mad.co.uk has ‘Apple: Vista may corrupt iPods.’

The common thread running through all of this being that it sounds more like a Microsoft problem than an Apple one, when nothing could be further from the truth. Of all the reasons not to upgrade to a new operating system, the fact that an audio library application doesn’t work properly is pretty low on the list it would seem to me.

And Microsoft for that matter, although the ‘well it would say that’ argument applies here as well. In a statement Microsoft has said that “Customers should not feel they need to wait to adopt Vista for these reasons” and “We're committed to ensuring that all partners, including Apple, get all of the resources they need to ensure that their applications work with Windows Vista.”

Although not in the case of Apple iTunes, because despite the many months of development and testing time, despite the iTunes Repair Tool for Vista 1.0 patch posted over the weekend, despite all that it still isn’t working properly on some Vista installations. Problems highlighted by Apple include:

• iTunes Store purchases may not play when upgrading to Windows Vista from Windows 2000 or XP.
  
• iPod models with the "Enable Disk Use" option turned off may be unable to update or restore iPod software, and make changes to iPod settings.
  
• iPod models configured to Auto Sync and have the "Enable Disk Use" option turned off may require being ejected and reconnected to resync.
  
• Ejecting an iPod from the Windows System Tray using the "Safely Remove Hardware" feature may corrupt your iPod. To always safely eject an iPod, choose Eject iPod from the Controls menu within iTunes.
  
• Cover Flow animation may be slower than expected.
  
• Contacts and calendars will not sync with iPod.

According to Apple a new version of iTunes for Vista should be finished within the next few weeks.

[Phaelax]

I had a fairly large music collection on my computer. All the songs worked fine for the week I used Vista (public beta). After importing my music into iTunes 7, it was all corrupted. None of the filenames matched up to what was actually playing. (this is even when playing the song outside of iTunes) Many songs weren't even a single song, but a mesh of 2 songs where it'd start in the middle of one song and then start another random song after that bit was finished. I lost my whole music library because of this.

Upon presenting the problem to Apple's forums with several repeated attempts of using iTunes on Vista, each time reproducing the original problem, my question was ignored and never answered.

[happygeek]

It is not as if it did not know the problems existed, surely. Apple had the same access to Vista as other developers, and it was in its own best interests to get it right.

Sweeping problems under the carpet, refusing to talk to customers about them, and then a week after the event telling people not to upgrade stinks of Apple arrogance.

[rkamin1]

I would have to say that my iTunes and Vista experience has not been a good one. When I initially installed Vista back in the end of 2006, I was not aware of any of the iTunes issues. The problems I experience are faulty playbacks.

I was able to purchase two epis of The Office with no problem, but playing them back using iTunes was a disaster. The video would constantly skip and the audio became distorted. Also, any music I play sounds like it is constantly skipping slightly and plays back at a much lower rate than it did on XP.

Because of this, I haven't been able to sync my iPod since ::GASP:: the end of last year. I've been stuck listening to only the audio I have in MP3 format, which happens to be only a few cds that I've ripped since the upgrade. Should've ripped my entire library to MP3 but instead I stuck with Apple's AAC encoding :mad:.

To sum it all up, I look forward to the release of iTunes that will be FINALLY vista compatible

[pty]

Its not like Apple haven't had chance to test it out; the beta has been out for years.

The question is, who will the average Joe who upgrades blame? Apple who left everything the same or Microsoft who made drastic changes?

Give it a couple of months and Steve Jobs will be making fanboys moist with his shiny new fully iTunes compatible OS.

I am a Mac owner. I'd be mighty peed off if my library of music got screwed up. I guess I'm glad my library is all MP3.

[jwenting]

Apple is setting the average Joe up to blame Microsoft...

Rather childish of them, blaming their own ineptness on Microsoft, but they're no different in that (just more public) than any other /. kiddo.

[christianpunk20]

Ah. So that's the reason my iTunes library won't stream. Frustrating.