iTunes 11 - Not that Hard
In the midst of a long post about how iTunes is (or should be) an outliner, Dave Winer makes it clear that he hasn't really tried anything with it:
Anyway, luckily if you know what pref to turn on, you can get iTunes working again. The way it ships you can't use it to move content onto an iPad or iPod. Not exactly a minor function of iTunes.
Gosh, I plugged my iPad into my Mac a few minutes ago, and - just like any other version of iTunes I've ever seen - it started synching. Backing apps up, and moving music I've bought since the last synch over to the iPad. The preference Winer speaks of seems to involve the way iTunes deals with a device it hasn't seen before, and for that, I'd say "automatic synching" is the wrong answer. The last thing you want is to plug your wife's iPod in to charge, and have her lose all of her music off it when you went on auto-pilot.
Meanwhile, Farhad Manjoo demonstrates that he's not really done more than read other people rant about the software:
Anyway, so iTunes 11 finally hit the Internet today. If you start downloading it immediately, you might be able to get it up and running by the time the ball drops over Times Square. People always wonder why this is—why a simple music player weighs in at around 90 megabytes and requires many long minutes to install and “prepare” your library before it becomes functional. Don’t ask questions—this is just what you get with iTunes. Each new upgrade brings more suckage into your computer.
I'm not about to praise iTunes - it does tend to get bigger and slower with each release. However, this release seems to be a bit different. The installation was fast, and when I started iTunes up, I didn't see the dread "converting library" that I usually see. Instead, my music was right in front of me, ready to play. I get the distinct feeling that Winer and Manjoo dusted off their reviews of the last release of iTunes, slapped a new date on it, and let fly.
