Apple to upgrade iTunes for Vista - the wait starts now

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Saturday, 03 February 2007 14:10

Your IT - Entertainment

Apple says a new and properly Vista compatible version of iTunes “will be available in the next few weeks”. But it’s not just Apple that ‘missed’ the January 30 deadline of Vista’s release – it’s the same story with every new OS release. Will this ever change?

News has emerged from Apple of a potential iTunes issue when running it on top of Windows Vista. Compatibility issues can affect automatic synchronization, the playability of tracks purchased from iTunes when upgrading from Windows 2000 or XP to Windows Vista, a slower Cover Flow experience, no synching of contacts and calendars and more.

Full details of the problems along with information on what to do if you want to transfer your existing iTunes collection and use iTunes on Vista are at Apple’s site linked above, with even an “iTunes Repair Tool for Vista” available for download, should you already find yourself running iTunes on Vista and are encountering one or more of the expected compatibility problems.

It’s a shame that Apple couldn’t get Vista compatible version of iTunes out the door before now, and saved their Windows customers all of this hassle. Somehow though I think that maybe the iPhone, the lawsuits, OS X 10.5, new iMacs and/or MacBooks, new iPods and new software releases of partners’ flagship software such as Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 (Photoshop, InDesign and more for use on Intel and PowerPC based Macs at each platform’s native speed) and other surprises-to-come have been taking up Apple’s time.

But this kind of thing is hardly limited to Apple. While plenty of software and hardware works perfectly well with Vista, there’s plenty that doesn’t work at all. But now that Vista is released, hardware and software companies that should have drivers or software updates out can’t say they are waiting for the release to the public anymore.

It’s been the same with every new version of Windows. Put your hand up if you remember this exact same thing happening when Windows XP came onto the scene back in 2001. If you waited six months to a year or longer before you made the plunge, many more drivers and updates were available.

Unfortunately, we have to go through this scenario again, despite Microsoft’s promises of more drivers being made available than ever on the Vista DVD and the promise that driver updates will happen automatically through the Windows Update service.

Given that I and many others have items of hardware that are not working at all or only partially working in our Vista-running PC’s – like Bluetooth, the soundcard, fingerprint recognition devices – I guess we will all believe that Microsoft’s new driver system works when these problems are automatically updated with the latest working drivers for Vista.

The rest of the remaining work rests with software and hardware companies to release drivers and software updates as quickly as possible. It’s not a good experience to upgrade to something to find functionality removed. If that has to happen, as is obviously the case with Vista, every effort should be made to fix it as quickly as possible.

Otherwise, the new OS syndrome strikes again: when it comes to drivers and software updates, while I acknowledge there’s plenty of work going on to get things working properly, it really is just the same old ‘new OS’ story: the wait for things to settle down… starts now.