Take that Itunes!
Apple Inc. makes very cool products and currently sit in a position most companies would sell their mothers for. The idea of something new coming out of Apple computer determines buying decisions for many people. For example, Dee needs a new phone, and everywhere we go she looks at phones to see which one she likes. I, however, kept reminding her that the Apple phone was soon to be released and she would be better off waiting for that. Sure enough, when I saw the Apple phone I was in instant geek love. As a person who rarely checks his voice messages and can't stand the slow automated computer lady of my carrier (next...message...from...phone...number...8...AHHHH!), I have no idea why visual voicemail hasn't been around for years.
The problem with Apple though is their first generation products usually have show stopping issues that keep me from buying them. Which means I will have to wait at least a bit to hear about any "issues" before getting an iPhone (which sucks since they are not coming out till June to begin with). The nice thing is that Apple eventually works out all the kinks so their products can live up to the hype. Except for one product -- and it's a pretty important one -- even though its software, not hardware.
I actually dislike a lot of Apple software (I'm looking at you Quicktime), but the one I am referring to today is Itunes, the bane of my music organizational life. I really dislike Itunes and here's why: It is too damn slow. I have a fairly large digital music collection and Itunes just grinds to a halt whenever I try to maneuver around my collection. I have heard Apple apologists (those who think Apple, and Steve, can do absolutely no wrong) say that Itunes was never meant to handle large collections. What? With the largest Ipod having a capacity of 80 gigs, and the only Apple sanctioned way to get music in and out of it being Itunes, this excuse is lame to say the least. Not to mention the fact that Itunes starts to slow down rather dramatically with just a few gigs of music loaded.
Itunes is slow because of bad programming, pure and simple. And worse, it's bad programming that has never been fixed. Itunes writes out an XML file for everything it does, so when a song finishes, Itunes writes out a whole XML file just to update that songs play count. With one, two, or even a couple thousand songs this is no big deal as the XML file is small. However, with tens of thousands of songs this becomes a problem since the XML file grows pretty big pretty fast. And since Itunes doesn't seem to do the output in the background in another process, it slows the entire interface to a crawl. The XML file is great if you are one of the minority of users actually doing something with it, but most of us do squat with it. And since there is no way to stop Itunes from writing it out (a glaring oversight in my opinion) I thought I was stuck. Itunes has become so unwieldy and slow that it is difficult to even update my podcasts on my Ipod for my commute to work (the only thing I still consistently use Itunes for). Using Itunes has become a chore, not a pleasure, to use, and that is an experience that is very atypical Apple.
Anyway, while surfing Google looking for a solution, I came across a lively discussion at the Apple Blog. The comments suggested, though aimed at Mac users, locking the XML file. This prompted me to wonder if I could do something similar on Windows. Sure enough, making the XML file read only made Itunes respond significantly faster -- though far from fast.
In my opinion, Apple should fix these problems with Itunes since people's music collections are only getting bigger and Itunes is only getting slower. A typical user should not have to do anything like locking an XML file to get a usable Itunes application. I can only hope Apple is working hard in silence to fix these problems (though I doubt it).
The XML file is located, on most Windows XP systems, in: "my documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music Library.xml". Right click, select properties and check read only. That should neuter Itunes' XML writing capabilities.