iTimes with Tony Bove

With Macworld Expo in San Francisco approaching, the rumor mill is working overtime along with developers feverishly constructing demos and beta versions of new applications.

Apple TV is a hardware node of the iTunes platform, but it is capable of much more than its current features — Apple can extend the feature set pretty easily through updates to
the onboard software. Apple TV works with PCs and Macs transparently, taking advantage of whatever broadband connection you have — and giving it an edge over traditional VOD services and the XBox 360.

iTunes version 7.1.1 addresses stability issues and minor compatibility problems. Must have been that wobble in one of the wheels. Some Windows Vista problems have been fixed, but not all. See my overview of iTunes version 7.1.1. features for a blow-by-blow description of cover browsing, managing multiple libraries, and using other new features of iTunes 7.1.1.

So far there have been no reports of trouble with the iTunes 7.1 update. People are mostly thrilled by the full-screen CoverFlow feature for browsing by album covers. But iTunes 7.1 is truly welcome in one corner of the universe — folks who use MusicMatch Jukebox.

Apple this week released iTunes 7.1 for Mac and Windows. Besides providing support for the new Apple TV product, it now offers a new full screen Cover Flow and improved sorting options to let you decide how iTunes should sort your favorite artists, albums, and songs. Apple also released QuickTime 7.1.5 which delivers numerous bug fixes and addresses critical security issues.

Rumors about Apple are swirling a week after Steve Jobs’ open letter to the music industry (for an excellent summary of reactions, see Engadget’s “DRM: the state of disrepair” by Thomas Ricker). But several developments warrant particular attention:
1. Apple is patenting wireless docking. According to AppleInsider, Apple is developing a dock connector for handheld gadgets […]