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Apple TV 3.0 and iTunes 9.0.2 updates available now

Sam Symons   on 29 October 2009 - 19:53 · 20 comments & 5475 views

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Apple's Apple TV device is a rather low-profile one; even the Cupertino company itself stated that it's just a "hobby" for them, but it's certainly a popular device for those who use it. Today, they've updated it to version 3.0, bringing some welcome changes.

The general UI of the Apple TV itself has been re-done, making navigation a bit easier, and support for iTunes LPs and Extras is now built-in. To add to that, Genius Mixes support is now there as well, and users can now listen to Internet radio directly from the device. If you're a user of iPhoto, you can also take advantage of its features (such as Faces and Events) on the Apple TV itself, according to MacRumors. We've included the full list of changes, directly from Apple, below:

• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums, movies, TV shows, and more.
• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.
• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and more - available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.
• Home Sharing helps you manage your family's iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.
• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.
• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and Podcast episodes.
• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.
• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).
• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.


iTunes 9.0.2 is now available also, bringing a few changes including the obligatory Apple TV 3.0 support, as well as many other tweaks (including some new UI choices) which we have again included below:

iTunes 9.0.2 adds support for Apple TV software version 3.0, adds an option for a dark background for Grid View, and improves support for accessibility.
iTunes 9 comes with many new features and improvements, including:
• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums, movies, TV shows, and more.
• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.
• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and more - available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.
• Home Sharing helps you manage your family's iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.
• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.
• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and Podcast episodes.
• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.
• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).
• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.

Post a comment · Send to friend Comments · There are 20 additional comments
(4 replies) #1 Klownicle on 29 Oct 2009 - 19:58
Bah, palm pre blocked. Next move is yours palm, show apple how its done!
#1.1 .Patrick on 29 Oct 2009 - 20:29
You know, they could just stop being lazy and make their own program for syncing, sort of like what Apple did.
#1.2 Digix on 30 Oct 2009 - 01:52
.Patrick said,
You know, they could just stop being lazy and make their own program for syncing, sort of like what Apple did.


Or just get behind an existing competitor and likely to be superior platform already available here
#1.3 bbfc_uk on 01 Nov 2009 - 14:05
DoubleTwist - a blatant iTunes rip off!
#1.4 bbfc_uk on 01 Nov 2009 - 14:05
DoubleTwist - a blatant iTunes rip off!
(4 replies) #2 Jozzalanco on 29 Oct 2009 - 20:02
Wow, it's amazing how in each version the download size is getter bigger.

It's now just about 100MB!
#2.1 M_Lyons10 on 30 Oct 2009 - 00:44
I know. I thought about that too. There must be some old code in there that they could clean up... I don't understand why it's so big...
#2.2 Digix on 30 Oct 2009 - 01:55
M_Lyons10 said,
I know. I thought about that too. There must be some old code in there that they could clean up... I don't understand why it's so big...


Probably all the rubbish libs or something just so itunes looks like and function like osx on windows. They make people pay the price for using windows by claiming supposedly how bad windows is when they always talk about it which they seem to gladly add to.
#2.3 Glassed Silver on 30 Oct 2009 - 02:48
Digix said,
Probably all the rubbish libs or something just so itunes looks like and function like osx on windows. They make people pay the price for using windows by claiming supposedly how bad windows is when they always talk about it which they seem to gladly add to.

92.8MB for us Mac users, so hold your breath xD
I'd also like to know, but I seriously don't care a lot, having an internal 250GB drive and my external 1.5TB drive arriving before noon today. (Yay for Amazon Overnight Express ^^)
And downloading took me something under 2 minutes. yay for 25MBit ^^

Glassed Silver:mac
#2.4 Tim Dawg on 30 Oct 2009 - 06:16
Yeah so I guess it has just as much bloat on Mac as on PC
(1 reply) #3 chemaz101 on 29 Oct 2009 - 20:18
Any screen shots of the "new" itunes features? just wonderind if there is any real noticeble difference between 9 and 9.0.2.
Also whats special about HE-ACC?
#3.1 Juski814 on 29 Oct 2009 - 21:02
They gave the gray option back for grid view, which I missed at least. That's the biggest change that I noticed anyways.
#4 A10 on 29 Oct 2009 - 20:54
Sam,
In your article above you state,
We've included the full list of changes, directly from Apple, below:
However the list looks to be for iTunes 9 and not Apple TV 3.0.
(1 reply) #5 Ronnie Sunde on 29 Oct 2009 - 22:46
I used to have an iPhone, I hated that I needed to use iTunes, I hated that my library on the phone that had been meticulously configured and rated with awesome playlists had to be wiped because my laptop died which had the "original" library... mp3s was safe on a different drive, not the iTunes library...

now I have an Android phone, no need for a resource hogging slow iTunes to manage it, I just drag n drop my mp3s to the usb memory drive that comes up when I hook up my phone..
#5.1 +majortom1981 on 30 Oct 2009 - 00:58
Ronnie Sunde said,
I used to have an iPhone, I hated that I needed to use iTunes, I hated that my library on the phone that had been meticulously configured and rated with awesome playlists had to be wiped because my laptop died which had the "original" library... mp3s was safe on a different drive, not the iTunes library...

now I have an Android phone, no need for a resource hogging slow iTunes to manage it, I just drag n drop my mp3s to the usb memory drive that comes up when I hook up my phone..


You can put songs on the ipod without i tunes. Its called copy trans manager and works great. Its free. Copy trans does the reverse but you have to pay for it but very worth it to not have to use itunes.
#6 M_Lyons10 on 30 Oct 2009 - 00:45
Well, looking at the new features, I don't really see anything that great... Oh well...
#7 +Nightwind Hawk on 30 Oct 2009 - 06:32
I'm trying to decide whether this update is worth splitting apart the msi's and getting just itunes installed without the crap... hmm....
#8 SuperZod on 30 Oct 2009 - 07:17
will they ever make AAC true vbr available in iTunes? It's apparently advertised as a Quicktime PRO feature (both on Mac and Windows) but it's basically inaccessable from Quicktime. The only way to easily use that is XLD on Mac. Such a shame since that encoder is praised very much by HydrogenAudio.
#9 tuxplorer on 30 Oct 2009 - 08:14
They could use Windows Installer patches (MSP) to patch the MSIs but have they got equivalent technology on OS X? Forever putting up bloated "updates".
#10 bbfc_uk on 31 Oct 2009 - 22:10
Adds more options on the jumplist and changes some of the icons. I like iTunes, it makes buying, downloading and transfering music to an iPhone/iPod so so easy!

However, it could be lighter on memory and the installer could be a smaller size. If Quicktime doesn't need updating then why not provide an installer without it?!

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