Oh Apple

Since I found out earlier this evening that Apple was going to release a new version of iTunes, I checked for the new version about every half hour. This new version was touted as being much faster and more stable for larger libraries (which I happen to have).

They lied.

Before installing the new version, I did a quick check of the last versions and its memory consumption when idle. After installing the new version, I then took the same statistic with some surprising results. Both libraries were exactly the same (13062 songs / 34.1 Days / 71.07GB)

8.0.2.20 - 115,176KB

8.1.0.51 - 121,312KB

While the difference in kilobyte usage is less than 10%, the fact that the newer version is using more memory has me very puzzled. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Also, Apple decided to change the name of Party Shuffle to iTunes DJ. Horrible.

09:42 PM | 10 Comments | Tags:

Comments

  1. Maybe because it’s indexing the library?

    Urby on

  2. agree with Urby give it some time you just installed it.

    Fred on

  3. Well, as the app seems way more responsive, saying that after having only played with it for 5 minutes or so and launches way quicker, i assume they keep more information in the ram now, so view switching performs faster, and searches come up with results much quicker.

    just my 2 cents

    Luke Le on

  4. They said it would be faster for large libraries, not use less memory. Flawed logic on your part.

    dw on

  5. iTunes DJ is a much better name for Party Shuffle.

    Varth Dader on

  6. They changed the name to iTunes DJ because now people can make and vote on upcoming requests and tracks. I think it’s pretty cool.

    Brian Michel on

  7. I’ve got a 20,203 track (58.1 days, 143gb) library and 8.1 flies now where 8.0.2 was incredibly sluggish. shrug How old is your library? Have you backed it up and built a new library from your old backups lately? Yeah, that’s a serious PITA with a large library like yours but you’d be surprised and how effective it can be.

    Bruce A on

  8. You have no idea what sort of caching benefits have been made, for the increase in responsiveness, you almost always pay a penalty with increased memory use.

    Also you have absolutely no idea what iTunes is doing, new songs may have been added or Apple Genius may be updating it’s cache.

    In short you have no idea how iTunes utilizes memory, and have no way of telling whether this spike is machine dependent, temporary or indeed a symptom of increased average memory usage; You cannot truly understand this without lab tests and a full copy of the source code, neither of which you have.

    These prelimary judgements are at best uninformed opinion, and are likely to be results local to your computer at a specific time.

    Chris Green on

  9. 13062 songs / 34.1 Days / 71.07GB

    This has absolutely nothing to do with iTunes. That’s just how much music you have, and that number won’t change simply by upgrading iTunes.

    121,312 KB

    That’s how much space your library takes up. If you upgrade iTunes and the new version is able to find more album art, or more meta information, yes, the size grows, but it grows to help you.

    While the difference in kilobyte usage is less than 10%

    Do you know how much a kilobyte costs? You can’t even price it in cents. It’s hundredths of a cent.

    the fact that the newer version is using more memory has me very puzzled.

    It’s probably looking at your overall system memory and deciding how much to used based on that. If you have more available, it’ll load more of your library into memory to keep things fast. If you have less, it’ll probably load less. Regardless of how much it uses, what you need to look for is whether it seems to measurably slow down your system (like the old iTunes had a tendency to do).

    Derek Martin on

  10. I’m not sure what Apple considers to be a “large” library, but I’ve got about 400 GB of music and about double that in video. I find that it takes much less time to open. In fact, I’d guess that it’s less than half the time.

    colin on