AppleInsider Staff
Apple on Thursday released iTunes 12.1, an update to its venerable media organization and synchronization app that brings a new OS X Notification Center control widget and fixes performance issues during syncing.
The new widget replicates some of the functionality of iTunes's MiniPlayer, including the ability to play, pause, scrub, and skip tracks. Users can also purchase songs directly from the widget — Â clicking the button that displays that track's price will prompt the user to authenticate with iTunes.
Other MiniPlayer features, including volume adjustment, library search, or track listings are not available in the widget. The widget also does not show cover art.
Apple also promises improved performance when syncing music or data to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. There is no word on whether those improvements apply to tethered or Wi-Fi syncing, or both.
iTunes 12.1 is available now as an update in the Mac App Store. The widget can be enabled following the update by opening Notification Center and clicking the Edit button at the bottom.
Christine McKee
Charles Martin
Mike Wuerthele
William Gallagher
Amber Neely
26 Comments
Now if Apple would just bring iTunes Radio to more countries. It's articles like this that annoy me... it talks about features (such as buying songs from this widget) that aren't even available right here in the northern neighbour of the US... Canada.
Lyrical is still much better then.
Quote: "The widget also does not show cover art." Bravo! Recently, the various iTunes, Music and Podcast apps in OS X and iOS have developed an irritating tendency to display pictures when words would serve better. I often curse Apple for thinking we're a bunch of illiterates. The Podcast app is particularly irritating in that respect. It clutters my iPhone screen with pointless pictures but too few controls and poorly designed ones at that. It gives me a line only a little over two inches long and thinks I can use that to scrub through an 8-hour audiobook. Try it Apple, and you'll see how impossible that is. That and a silliness to call things "Stations" when they're not stations. The last reminds me of a joke. "If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" "Five." No four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one." In much the same fashion, calling playlists "My Stations" doesn't make them radio stations and it doesn't make using the app any easier.
I'm not sure I would rush to blame Apple on this one. The legalities of licensing copyrighted material in other countries can get quite messy.
Looks like there's a problem with this update... I use the OS X Application Firewall, normally without any prompts to allow or deny any apps. I downloaded and installed iTunes 12.1 via the App Store, and now I'm getting constant "Do you want the application "iTunes.app" to accept incoming network connections?" dialog. Doesn't matter if I go and remove the pre-existing entry under the firewall options, it will always prompt me. [IMG ALT=""]http://forums.appleinsider.com/content/type/61/id/54872/width/350/height/700[/IMG] Tried downloading it fresh, via here: [URL=http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/]http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/[/URL] Reinstalled from the DMG, still the same issue. So then tried to manually code sign it, and this is what I get: [CODE]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[/CODE] I think something got pooched...