Don’t be misled by this article’s title, I love my iPod and don’t mind iTunes. As a music and video library organizing application iTunes isn’t too bad. I would prefer more alternatives to iTunes, but overall I can’t complain…or can I?

iTunes upgrades kill launch icons

It hasn’t happened to me after every iTunes upgrade, but it happens more often than not. If a new version of iTunes is available, iTunes tells me with a friendly little pop-up box. I can upgrade right then and there or ignore the reminder and do it later (I usually ignore). If I choose to accept, the new version of iTunes is downloaded to my computer and proceeds to install itself. Once everything is complete I’m back in business except when I double click on a preexisting launch icon. I normally get an error saying that it can’t find the application to launch. What?! To correct the problem I remove all preexisting launch icons and replace them with the new ones created during the upgrade process. Why is that? The installation path is the same. I always accept the default installation path. What gives? This annoyance makes no sense.

iTunes upgrades screws up my music library

Ever click on a song in iTunes and get an error message about how iTunes can’t find the song? Oh no! Have I lost my music? Probably not. More than likely you just upgraded your installation of iTunes which, for some unknown reason, created a few duplicate library entries. The simple solution to this annoying problem is to start iTunes and then select View -> Show Duplicates from the menu bar. Walk through this view, double check each duplicate entry, and remove the ones that no longer work.

iTunes installations and upgrades bundles more than I want

My final complaint seems to have been addressed in recent iTunes upgrades. Earlier installations and upgrades, however, were notorious for also installing QuickTime — whether you wanted it or not. I don’t have any issues with QuickTime, I just have issues with applications that install extra stuff I didn’t ask for especially when the extra stuff starts running in my system tray. Recent versions of iTunes have gotten much better. They tell you exactly what they plan to install and, I believe, they even give you the option to NOT install these extras. This issue used to be my number one gripe, but I will give Apple credit, they seem to have addressed the problem. Now, if they could just fix the other problems.

These problems could be a Windows “exclusive”

So, what’s the big deal about these problems? They don’t case my machine to hang, or give me the dreaded “blue screen of death.” The problem is that these issues are so elementary they shouldn’t even exist. Of course, I’m using iTunes on Windows which might explain why I have these problems. Is the iTunes experience better on a Mac?

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