It appears Star Trek is a very popular show. Actor Will Wheaton – who played Jean Luc La Forge on Star Trek: The Voyage Out of Your Parents’ Basement – complained that all of his purchased music disappeared from his iPod after upgrading to iTunes 7.0. Apple quickly called him and helped him out of his jam, but if you’ve never sucked face with a Klingon then I doubt they’d give you the same one-to-one phone service. However, Wheaton did get this promise:
I think that’s worth mentioning again, in hey-look-at-me bold text: If you make a purchase from the iTunes Music Store, and something horrible happens and you lose all your music, Apple will give you a one-time only do-over to replace all of your purchased music, free of charge.
This is just a lead-in, obviously, to discussing iTunes 7.0. Aside from obvious UI differences, not much new going on here except for movies, cover flow, and auto album art. Apparently the album art comes in pretty slowly becuase I started the new iTunes this morning and it’s still churning away.
You’ve also got a backup system in there, which is quite nice. I currently have a Backup job running daily, but it doesn’t seem to be taking so I’m almost certain I’ll lose my entire collection in one fireball, so maybe I’ll give that a go today.
Otherwise, I’d expect that the iTunes UI is what we can expect to see in Leopard, which is pretty exciting. It feels cleaner and more organized. Good job, Apple. I hear some folks in Redmond are working on something, though. Might want to give them a call.
Apple gave me back all my lost music, free of charge [WilWheaton]
Product Page [Apple]
for the record, i downloaded the new itunes yesterday and now when i hit play, nothing happens.
there is no way that will be downloading this anytime soon.. apple seems to be getting more and more like microsoft lately… releasing products before all the bugs are out…
Itunes 7 Rocks i dont know what your talking about.
I have only had problems with the CoverFlow feature and a noticeable scratchy sound to most tracks that was not present before. I’m sure with all the criticism that Apple will be quick to make a software update soon.
It just goes to show that nothing is perfect. I think it leaves a little bit more of a sting on Apple though because they have gotten so cocky in recent months.
I think iTunes 7.0 is absolutely first rate. Problems with Cover Flow can be totally overcome by ensuring that you assign ‘compilations’ properly in your Info box and edit the data in ‘Album’ and ‘Artist’ columns in your Library or Playlists to provide one and one only name for each, otherwise multiple covers will appear. To do this requires no programming skill whatsoever! I have had no problems with any other aspect of the store (scratchy noise, disappearing music, etc.) and I’m sure the few minor bugs will be eradicated in 7.0.1.
This is really good. Apple has generally show genuine customer concern. Good for them. And this policy is good to know. I hope too many people don’t take advantage of it.