Apple has released a new update for iTunes on OS X that introduces support for a Notification Center widget. The widget will allow users to control their music and buy songs from iTunes Radio directly from the system-wide panel.
iTunes 12.1 also includes a “quick tour” feature that runs on the app’s second launch. It’s the same quick tour that has been available on Apple’s website since last year, but it is now included natively in the app to help users get acclimated to the new design.
The update also improves syncing performance for iOS devices. You can get the iTunes 12.1 from the Updates tab of the Mac App Store now.
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That built in guide has been there since Yosemite, nothing new there! :-)
No one I know has ever seen it before.
I like how the most important part of the update is basically a footnote…
I’d say syncing performance improvement is hardly the most important part of the update. It likely won’t even be a noticeable change for most people.
I respectfully disagree. Spin through the apple forums and you’ll see legions of people having issues with synching, from not understanding why its taking so long, to this mysterious ‘other’ space, to who knows what. 10’s sync was good; 11’s was crap; and 12’s only got worse. This is indeed the most important part f the release. Getting notifications is hardly worth trumpeting.
I know I just think its funny how literally the only useful thing they can do for iTunes is make it suck less and they treat that like it’s not important.
I’m not criticizing/making fun of anything about the article. Just Apple/iTunes
Oh gotcha haha. Well I think they like to downplay it because they tend to think their software is very stable and great and there are no problems at all lol
Certainly the most important feature for me. I’ve had to restore my phone from backups about four times in the past six months after 80GB of music I keep on it got orphaned and labelled as “other” files and couldn’t be accessed either from the Music app, nor removed without wiping the phone (deselecting music in iTunes did nothing since it wasn’t recognising the files as music to begin with).
Hopefully this fixes that particular issue.
HyperDock I think makes iTunes controls more conveniently accessible for basic tasks than a notification centre widget for those willing to pay a few dollars.
Maybe don’t store 80GB of music on your freaking phone. That’s what I have my 160GB iPod Classic for. And iTunes Match.
I disagree. Wireless syncing problems have been a problem since Apple introduced wireless syncing in iTunes 10.5.
I was more simply referring to any form of improvement really, not just wireless or syncing. But yes, I agree.
Looks like there’s a small problem with this update… Code signing doesn’t appear to be fully valid, which results for constant prompts on each startup of iTunes if your OS X application firewall is running.
Attempting to code sign the app via Terminal renders the following errors:
codesign -vvv /Applications/iTunes.app
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iAdCore.framework/Versions/Current/.
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iAdCore.framework/Versions/Current/.
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iPodUpdater.framework/Versions/Current/.
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iPodUpdater.framework/Versions/Current/.
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesASUHelper
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesASUHelper
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_dsp.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_dsp.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_link.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_link.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_manager.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_manager.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_musicid.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_musicid.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_submit.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_submit.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/PlugIns/TodayExtension.appex
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/PlugIns/TodayExtension.appex
/Applications/iTunes.app: a sealed resource is missing or invalid
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-bold.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-bolditalic.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-medium.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-mediumitalic.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-semibold.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-semibolditalic.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-text.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-textitalic.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-thin.ttf
file added: /Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/Fonts/MyriadSetPro-thinitalic.ttf
Apple’s wonderful QA process at work again.
Maybe there’s an error on your update file because my firewall is running and I have no issues.
I tried to trash the related plist file for the firewall and restart the machine, and it works fine for the first launch of iTunes, but subsequent loads of iTunes results in Deny or Allow incoming prompts.
I have several other apps that register in the Application Firewall, and they all work normally, without repeated prompts…
I’ve submitted a report to Apple, so let’s see if anything is mentioned about this. Hope it’s not my system!
It also looks like this is impacting ARDAgent.app, part of the Remote Desktop monitoring software, after it got updated to 3.8 the other day, sigh…
No I’m not talking to myself… Here’s the kicker, have another brand-new MBA on my bench with 10.10.2, and iTunes 12.1 was auto-updated, yet that one has no issues with the firewall prompting for incoming connections, which I can confirm is related to activating Home Sharing in iTunes.
This is fun.
I have both Home Sharing and Apple Remote Desktop activated, along with the firewall, and I don’t have this issue.
No problems here:
Last login: Fri Jan 30 16:54:30 on console
Kawaiis-MacBook-Pro:~ kawaiigardiner$ codesign -vvv /Applications/iTunes.app
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iAdCore.framework/Versions/Current/.
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iAdCore.framework/Versions/Current/.
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iPodUpdater.framework/Versions/Current/.
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/Frameworks/iPodUpdater.framework/Versions/Current/.
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesASUHelper
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesASUHelper
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/iTunesHelper.app
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_dsp.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_dsp.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_link.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_link.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_manager.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_manager.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_musicid.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_musicid.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_submit.3.06.0.dylib
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/MacOS/libgnsdk_submit.3.06.0.dylib
–prepared:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/PlugIns/TodayExtension.appex
–validated:/Applications/iTunes.app/Contents/PlugIns/TodayExtension.appex
/Applications/iTunes.app: valid on disk
/Applications/iTunes.app: satisfies its Designated Requirement
Kawaiis-MacBook-Pro:~ kawaiigardiner$
Mine doesn’t do that. I think you just got a bad update file. Download iTunes from the website and reinstall.
Yeah I managed to fix my iTunes issue by performing a sudo remove in Terminal and then re-installing, now works fine. However my issue with ARDAgent.app continues, and several other people have come forward about it in the Apple discussion forums. I’ve also tried resigning the app manually, won’t work, and Disk Utility reports the SUID for that file was changed and cannot be repaired. Waiting for Apple to address that. For the record, this is caused by the Remote Desktop Client Update 3.8.2 package.
Apple should add continuity into iTunes so you can listen an album or a playlist on a mac and when you got to go, you can start listening from the very same moment on your ipod or iphone.
I have been thinking the exactly same thing since Yosemite was announced with the first Developer Preview.
But you can expect Apple to expand continuity between OS X & iOS with OS X 10.11 at WWDC15. It’s one of those “go figure” features that are expected by most. It could even be implemented with future Yosemite updates for all we know.
I’m just impatient to see what Apple will add to the next OS X considering 2014 was all about the overhaul, this year will be all about expanding features and not focus so much on the UI.
Also, Up Next for iOS would be extremely handy. That’s the one feature I’m missing right now.
There used to be a third-party app for this. I was thinking the other day about how Apple should really make this a thing.
That would be awesome if they implemented it in the next version really soon.
Probably the Quality control in Apple is made by Mickey Mouse, lately.
I notice evident stuttering when you scroll the pages (album, playlist, everywhere). Very evident and very nosy, the images are very shaky…
I have no words… (rMBP Late 2013).
No issue here (late 2008 MBP)
Update are usually good when it comes to fixing bugs, but what is the point of the notification center widget?! All of that is already readily available in the command center and lock screen! xD
This article is about iTunes. Try to keep up.
I don’t WANT to aclimate to complexity. Apple is supposed to be about simplification, so go back to how it was or let 3rd parties control our music, because this is shit.
Agree with you! And keyboard has player controls, and Mini Player too… Thus no need to have them on notification center too…
It can be helpful for remote desktop setups.
Totally agree with you! I really don’t like iTunes much, so I’d been using third-party applications to manage my iPhone. But after I updated iTunes to the latest version, many of them are not available anymore! It really bothered me! I even thought about downgrade iTunes to the previous version. Then I found an app that is compatible with iTunes 12.1 perfectly! And it works pretty well in managing my iPhone. Lucky for me! Haha!
Oh, forgot to share this wonderful tool with you! The name is Apowersoft Phone Manager. You can download it via this address (http://www.apowersoft.com/phone-manager). You are welcome! Lol
In my opinion, Itunes is a counter-intuitive mess. Syncing has failed or been a ‘challeng’ on my iPa and iPhone since version 12. Wireless syncing is flakey at best, or fails all altogether, or I have to connect with a cable, and (once I get the computer to believe that iTunes Match is NOT turned on) I set up the sync again.
I changed playlists on my iDevices and these changes are not copied back to my machine when syncing – or are over written again.
I can’t open multiple windows in iTunes any more to put playlists together – so backwards/forwards i go to add each track – a usability nightmare. Using the ‘add to’ icon next to the track takes an age in drilling down to the correct playlist.
I hate this software. Just my opinion. iTunes was great, I now dread using it.
Give us back multiple windows, restore the sidebar in all views and give us cover flow back – it’s the nicest way to flick through your album collection.
You can view the sidebar with your playlists alongside your library. That was the first thing I did when 12 was released. Maybe learn how to use the software before whining about it?
Why didn’t they include an album art in the widget??
I didn’t really like it, i think i’ll stick with Sillicio.
Apple should get continuity support so you can start listening same playlist or album in the very same moment on another device. (For eg when you have to leave house and want to switch from Mac to iPhone or iPod)
It also included an updated Info window for the albums/songs.
bomb track.
Here’s a great FREE app for OS X. It’s called VOX and they are going to be releasing an iPhone version that will play FLAC, high res files, etc. http://www.coppertino.com