Apple iTunes & Lazy Developers.
29 September 2005, 06:40 PM
#1
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Apple iTunes & Lazy Developers.
Hey,
Anyone else feel the same way as me about Apple iTunes? Whenever they release a new version you can never just download a small couple of mb update, you always have to download the full 30+ mb version!!
Just upgraded to v5 and now it tells me v5.01 is available so I have to download the entire setup file again.
Glad I have broadband, but for those who don't, Apple says "Stuff you"
For a company as big as Apple, they really should know better.
Anyone else feel the same way as me about Apple iTunes? Whenever they release a new version you can never just download a small couple of mb update, you always have to download the full 30+ mb version!!
Just upgraded to v5 and now it tells me v5.01 is available so I have to download the entire setup file again.
Glad I have broadband, but for those who don't, Apple says "Stuff you"
For a company as big as Apple, they really should know better.
29 September 2005, 07:59 PM
#2
I know it is annoying, even to those on broadband, but there is a very simple reason for it.
As opposed to small updates to the OSX operating system which is only to mac users, the itunes install program is cross platform and hence open to a very large user base, not just mac users.
secondly not all downloaders of itunes are updaters, many are new users to itunes
so apple must make the download suitable for all, new users and updaters.
If they made it small updates, then anew user would have to download loads of little bits and in the end would have downloaded nearly the same as the full install.so apple is covering all bases by making the install only a full one.
also dont forget that itunes also contains quicktime which on its own sometimes can be 24MB in size.
As opposed to small updates to the OSX operating system which is only to mac users, the itunes install program is cross platform and hence open to a very large user base, not just mac users.
secondly not all downloaders of itunes are updaters, many are new users to itunes
so apple must make the download suitable for all, new users and updaters.
If they made it small updates, then anew user would have to download loads of little bits and in the end would have downloaded nearly the same as the full install.so apple is covering all bases by making the install only a full one.
also dont forget that itunes also contains quicktime which on its own sometimes can be 24MB in size.
30 September 2005, 08:48 AM
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Tony, I beg to differ, surely if you are a new user you go to the site, download the full version, if you already have it, your System Update will know and should only d/l the nessary bits.
I think Apple's SU is getting worse now, since upgrading to 10.4 I do get plenty more updates, I guess thats down to the fact that 10.4 is fairly new still....(read buggy)
I think Apple's SU is getting worse now, since upgrading to 10.4 I do get plenty more updates, I guess thats down to the fact that 10.4 is fairly new still....(read buggy)
30 September 2005, 01:15 PM
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It is an interesting situation I'll grant you that. You would expect two versions, one a full version capable of updating or being a new install, and the other, just an upgrader.
Maybe Apple's idea is to just provide the full thing so that they don't get people downloading the updater and wondering why it won't work.
What do we do? Well, we have a full installer of our software, and there is a "check for updates" feature whithin it which allows you to check for updates, and it usually just downloads whatever changes we've made, however, those changes are usually to the two main components of the software, so tend to be around 80% of the size of the full install, thus you aren't saving too much if you use that or the full installer, however, sometimes it is a very small update.
As for 10.4 updates, tell ,me about it! We're on 10.4.2 now, and 10.4.3 is alleged to be out during october. However, one thing to remember is that there were a hell of a lot of under the hood changes between 10.3 and 10.4. We had to completely rewrite our client side software to work under 10.4 due to the changes, something we'd not had to to do for 10.2 or 10.3.
To be honest, I consider 10.4 to really equate to 10.1, as 10.3 was the first really stable and usable version of the OS, prior to that it was ok, but personally speaking it was not complete, anything below 10.2.4 (ok, so that is ancient, but we still have people running OS 8.6!) I'd consider beta software.
The problem with any new version of the OS is that it needs to get into the wild to be used, a bit problematic when the seed releases are restricted. We had to release our latest version as beta when 10.4 came out as none of our users could pre-test it due to Tiger not being publically available, which is a pain when they have new machines, running the spanking new OS, and our product isn't a release version. There's just some things we cannot test in our lab.
Same thing goes for the Intel based Macs, bit hard to let clients test things if they don't have the hardware, and the majority of our clients won't.
Maybe Apple's idea is to just provide the full thing so that they don't get people downloading the updater and wondering why it won't work.
What do we do? Well, we have a full installer of our software, and there is a "check for updates" feature whithin it which allows you to check for updates, and it usually just downloads whatever changes we've made, however, those changes are usually to the two main components of the software, so tend to be around 80% of the size of the full install, thus you aren't saving too much if you use that or the full installer, however, sometimes it is a very small update.
As for 10.4 updates, tell ,me about it! We're on 10.4.2 now, and 10.4.3 is alleged to be out during october. However, one thing to remember is that there were a hell of a lot of under the hood changes between 10.3 and 10.4. We had to completely rewrite our client side software to work under 10.4 due to the changes, something we'd not had to to do for 10.2 or 10.3.
To be honest, I consider 10.4 to really equate to 10.1, as 10.3 was the first really stable and usable version of the OS, prior to that it was ok, but personally speaking it was not complete, anything below 10.2.4 (ok, so that is ancient, but we still have people running OS 8.6!) I'd consider beta software.
The problem with any new version of the OS is that it needs to get into the wild to be used, a bit problematic when the seed releases are restricted. We had to release our latest version as beta when 10.4 came out as none of our users could pre-test it due to Tiger not being publically available, which is a pain when they have new machines, running the spanking new OS, and our product isn't a release version. There's just some things we cannot test in our lab.
Same thing goes for the Intel based Macs, bit hard to let clients test things if they don't have the hardware, and the majority of our clients won't.
30 September 2005, 08:49 PM
#5
Just to get your back up even more 
here is a snippet from one of the mac rumour sites
iTunes 5.0.2 in the pipeline?
According to several reader reports, Apple may also be preparing to released its third update to iTunes in four weeks. Shortly after midnight on Friday, users of iTunes 5.0.1 reported receiving notices that they could update to iTunes 5.0.2.
Users who followed the download link were only offered the option of downloading the current iTunes 5.0.1 release.
here is a snippet from one of the mac rumour sites
iTunes 5.0.2 in the pipeline?
According to several reader reports, Apple may also be preparing to released its third update to iTunes in four weeks. Shortly after midnight on Friday, users of iTunes 5.0.1 reported receiving notices that they could update to iTunes 5.0.2.
Users who followed the download link were only offered the option of downloading the current iTunes 5.0.1 release.
30 September 2005, 09:17 PM
#6
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They really should have 1 complete file for new users and another which you can get to as an updater through iTunes, it makes sense, Apple should make this a feature in the software IMO.
As for iTunes version 5.0.2.. what now, another spelling mistake spotted in the help file???
James
As for iTunes version 5.0.2.. what now, another spelling mistake spotted in the help file???
James
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