Anyone find any evidence of 64-bit iTunes in Lion?

[jbg232]

I'm not that proficient with digging around the infrastructure of the OS, but is there any evidence that iTunes will be 64-bit in its next iteration? Obviously apple would likely announce the new iTunes in September as they always do, but just wondering if iTunes will finally be 64-bit now that they have dropped support for 32-bit chips (maybe that was what was holding them back given how important iTunes is even for legacy computers).

 

[celticpride678]

iTunes is still 32-bit and there doesn't appear to be any evidence that Apple will be changing that anytime soon.

 

[tourada]

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Lion contains iTunes 10.1.2. Same version for snow leopard. No 64-bit this build.

 

[ErikGrim]

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Lion contains iTunes 10.1.2. Same version for snow leopard. No 64-bit this build.

iTunes is on a separate development cycle and has traditionally never had new versions included with the OS.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

I'm not that proficient with digging around the infrastructure of the OS, but is there any evidence that iTunes will be 64-bit in its next iteration? Obviously apple would likely announce the new iTunes in September as they always do, but just wondering if iTunes will finally be 64-bit now that they have dropped support for 32-bit chips (maybe that was what was holding them back given how important iTunes is even for legacy computers).

The encoders and decoders in iTunes are already optimized via Altivec (for >= G4 PowerPC processors) and SSE2 (for Intel processors). These instructions work with 128-Bit registers. A 64-Bit iTunes has no advantages @ all.

 

[Chundles]

We'll probably see some hint of a new iTunes on Thursday (US Wednesday) but I doubt they'll be moving to 64bit any time soon.

 

[newfoundglory]

iTunes cannot easily be made a 64-bit app without a complete re-write. Since the interface is implemented in the old Carbon API, iTunes would first need to be re-written using Cocoa. Apple will need to do this at some point, who knows when that might be - but we won't be seeing a 64bit iTunes until they do. The 64 bit is kinda irrelevant, but a Cocoa implementation of iTunes would probably bring significant performance improvements.

From what we have seen in Lion, the new Finder sidebar which is similar to iTunes 10... I always got the feeling that Apple might integrate iTunes features directly into the Finder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_(API)

 

[Mal]

I'm hoping they've been working on a 64-bit version of iTunes for a long time now and will have it ready for launch either tomorrow at the iPad event or concurrent with the Lion release. I'm of course not confident in that, but it would not only be nice, but long due.

jW

 

[kthnxshwn]

It's coming.

 

[newfoundglory]

It's coming.

And how do you know this?

Not likely IMHO, due to the fact the code has to remain portable to MS Windows systems. Oh, and the fact its needed to make hundreds of millions of iDevices work.

 

[Steve Ballmer]

iTunes cannot easily be made a 64-bit app without a complete re-write. Since the interface is implemented in the old Carbon API, iTunes would first need to be re-written using Cocoa. Apple will need to do this at some point, who knows when that might be - but we won't be seeing a 64bit iTunes until they do. The 64 bit is kinda irrelevant, but a Cocoa implementation of iTunes would probably bring significant performance improvements.

From what we have seen in Lion, the new Finder sidebar which is similar to iTunes 10... I always got the feeling that Apple might integrate iTunes features directly into the Finder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_(API)

Not to mention that being Carbon, iTunes is out of place in Lion, unable to take advantage of the new resizing feature or fullscreen. A cocoa iTunes would behave just like all the other rewritten core apps in Lion... Native UI widgets, iOS-style scrollbar, resize from any side or corner, etc.

 

[newfoundglory]

Unless Apple pull a giant elephant out of the hat, they will probably patch up iTunes as best they can interface wise for Lion ... but it will still be Carbon ... and it will still be 32 bit

We've been talking about 64 bit iTunes for years and years and years....... and it never happened.

 

[Steve Ballmer]

Unless Apple pull a giant elephant out of the hat, they will probably patch up iTunes as best they can interface wise for Lion ... but it will still be Carbon ... and it will still be 32 bit

We've been talking about 64 bit iTunes for years and years and years....... and it never happened.

But as far as the UI goes, there's not much they can do to make it "patched up for Lion" without just rewriting it in Cocoa. All we can do is hope this happening right now and Cocoa iTunes will be ready with Lion.

 

[kirky29]

I too would like to see them do a complete re-write of iTunes.
Although, iTunes always looks different from the other apps.

 

[Steve Ballmer]

I too would like to see them do a complete re-write of iTunes.
Although, iTunes always looks different from the other apps.

That's intentional. iTunes appears to be Apple's testing ground for future UI ideas. For example, its dynamic searching was the beginnings of Spotlight, which later showed up in Tiger. Its original sidebar became the basis of the new Finder's sidebar in Panther, while the one that debuted in iTunes 7 later showed up in Leopard. The matte scroll bars also first showed up in iTunes before they later appeared in iPhoto and other applications.

And now we saw how the monochrome icons in iTunes 10 later became standardized now, in Lion.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

But as far as the UI goes, there's not much they can do to make it "patched up for Lion" without just rewriting it in Cocoa. All we can do is hope this happening right now and Cocoa iTunes will be ready with Lion.

Steve, this is wrong. You do not need to rewrite iTunes. See here for details:
http://goo.gl/AlyW7

And btw:
Carbon is the C-API in Mac OS X
and
Cocoa is the Objective-C-API in Mac OS X

I do not see the end of Apps written in C on Mac OS X. Most tools which we use every day are written in C and use the Carbon-API for some tasks. Why? Because most tools and software must be portable and Windows and Linux do not use Objective-C-APIs.

 

[Steve Ballmer]

Steve, this is wrong. You do not need to rewrite iTunes. See here for details:
http://goo.gl/AlyW7

And btw:
Carbon is the C-API in Mac OS X
and
Cocoa is the Objective-C-API in Mac OS X

I do not see the end of Apps written in C on Mac OS X. Most tools which we use every day are written in C and use the Carbon-API for some tasks. Why? Because most tools and software must be portable and Windows and Linux do not use Objective-C-APIs.

Interesting, I actually didn't know that. So I suppose they could fix up iTunes to use the new resizing options.

But still doesn't change the fact iTunes badly needs a Cocoa rewrite. It seemed like it was going to happen with Snow Leopard, as Finder and all the other core apps got rewritten. I'm curious as to why Apple does not rewrite iTunes in Cocoa. Perhaps it makes the Windows ports more difficult?

 

[ErikGrim]

I'm curious as to why Apple does not rewrite iTunes in Cocoa. Perhaps it makes the Windows ports more difficult?

Bingo.

 

[tourada]

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Agreed.

 

[slb]

Steve, this is wrong. You do not need to rewrite iTunes. See here for details:
http://goo.gl/AlyW7

And btw:
Carbon is the C-API in Mac OS X
and
Cocoa is the Objective-C-API in Mac OS X

I do not see the end of Apps written in C on Mac OS X. Most tools which we use every day are written in C and use the Carbon-API for some tasks. Why? Because most tools and software must be portable and Windows and Linux do not use Objective-C-APIs.

"Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development."

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

"Important: The information in this document is obsolete and should not be used for new development."

The point was, that it is possible, and that you do not need to rewrite the entire app.

 

[newfoundglory]

Bingo.

Yeah. Sucks doesn't it? My thinking along the whole 64-bit iTunes issue is that Apple would probably have to modify a compiler so that it could target Objective-C and Cocoa for Windows environments. Quite the nightmare from hell I would imagine, but definitely not impossible. I doubt Apple has that sort of development resource to spare.....

 

[Relznuk]

Isn't iTunes WELL overdue for a complete rewrite anyway? iTunes is so bloated and inefficient that I am embarrassed to think that it was made by Apple. It's like freakin' Windows Vista every time I click the shiny blue icon.

 

[kuwisdelu]

Steve, this is wrong. You do not need to rewrite iTunes. See here for details:
http://goo.gl/AlyW7

And btw:
Carbon is the C-API in Mac OS X
and
Cocoa is the Objective-C-API in Mac OS X

I do not see the end of Apps written in C on Mac OS X. Most tools which we use every day are written in C and use the Carbon-API for some tasks. Why? Because most tools and software must be portable and Windows and Linux do not use Objective-C-APIs.

Carbon has been going away for a long while now. What do you think all the hoopla over Photoshop was? Writing something using Carbon API's doesn't really make it any more portable to Windows or Linux (except for the people who've already done it), since most of those calls are going to the UI, and that part of the program isn't going to be portable anyway, short of porting the API... which is what Apple ended up doing for iTunes.

The way I see it, though, is Safari is Cocoa, and Safari for Windows exists. Therefore, there's no reason iTunes can't be rewritten in Cocoa and remain portable to Windows. Safari does it.

It will be a lot of work still (which I assume is the reason it hasn't happened yet), but there's no reason it can't be done. Keeping the Windows version in mind definitely makes it harder, but Apple did it with Safari.

 

[amorya]

Since the interface is implemented in the old Carbon API, iTunes would first need to be re-written using Cocoa.

Weeeeelllllll… that's true if Apple play by the same rules as the rest of us.

Do note, however, that they have a 64 bit version of Carbon internally. It was shipped in a developer preview of Snow Leopard, and then removed before release. It's possible that they bundle Carbon64 with iTunes and support 64 bit that way.

I doubt they will. But they could.

My thinking along the whole 64-bit iTunes issue is that Apple would probably have to modify a compiler so that it could target Objective-C and Cocoa for Windows environments. Quite the nightmare from hell I would imagine, but definitely not impossible. I doubt Apple has that sort of development resource to spare.....

They've done it before…

Amorya