iTunes 10.7 beyond 10.14.3 + Catalina

[161803398875]

When Mojave 10.14.4 came out I upgraded to it, but to my horror it broke iTunes 10.7, and even reinstalling it through Pacifist didn't work, so I went through considerable time and effort to revert to 10.14.3, where I'm now stuck. One thing I don't think I did is try launching 10.7 by opening the iTunes 10.7 application bundle and launching the executable directly. there may be other tricks I don't know of!

So has anyone succeeded in installing and running iTunes 10.7 beyond 10.14.3, or even on Catalina, and if so, how? I don't care about syncing with my iPhone since the iOS music app, just like all desktop iTunes versions beyond 10.7, are a UX travesty and unusable (in my opinion. Not looking for comments about how my opinion is wrong). Would very much appreciate help! f I can't use 10.7 beyond 10.14.3 then I just won't upgrade my computer anymore. Thanks and cheers!

 

[bogdanw]

As far as I can tell, it doesn't work in Mojave 10.14.6 and it will not work in Catalina because it has 32bit components.

 

[retta283]

I definitely see why you wish to use iTunes 10 still, 11 and 12 are not so great. (4 was the best, but no iDevice support)

Sadly iTunes 10 as it lanuched was 32-bit only, and when they released it for Lion they made it partially 64-bit. There's just too many old components for it to work on Catalina in its current form. Someone with the ability to rebuild some pieces of this may be able to make it work, but I am not sure about this.

 

[161803398875]

In the app, if I choose About it says it's 64-bit, but yes I was worried about exactly that, which is that it isn't 64-bit "clean". That's really a bummer. I had considered writing my own app to copy iTunes 10.7 functionality but I haven't been able to determine if the coverflow object is still available in Xcode, so then I thought maybe a web app is the way to go but then there's performance to worry about, and the difficult of the task… not sure I have time for all this! Thank you!

 

[retta283]

In the app, if I choose About it says it's 64-bit, but yes I was worried about exactly that, which is that it isn't 64-bit "clean". That's really a bummer. I had considered writing my own app to copy iTunes 10.7 functionality but I haven't been able to determine if the coverflow object is still available in Xcode, so then I thought maybe a web app is the way to go but then there's performance to worry about, and the difficult of the task… not sure I have time for all this! Thank you!

A really roundabout way would be to have 2 partitions on your Mac, one with your current OS and iTunes 10.7, and one with Catalina. This, and perhaps a Snow Leopard Server VM would be the only way to maintain its function and update.

 

[161803398875]

This is a great idea! I had already been thinking why I don't put my library on a 256GB thumb drive— if I had a little VM image running (Lion is my jam) with iTunes full screen…. 🤔 The beautiful thing about this is that I could pretty easily test it, plus the task of putting my library on stick is a good idea anyway, at least for a backup. I have to have coverflow and a simple layout— I had even thought about just using the Finder as coverflow and quicklook as player and having the naked music files in a folder, but there are obvious major problems with that lolol!

 

[roadkill401]

Hope you don't mind me asking, but what is it about iTunes 10.7? I do remember the days that itunes was a great app that worked and did things in a logical way..Think Steve Jobs was still alive and running things.

I ask as the main driving force behind me even considering upgrading to Catalina is that my really old iPad Air has finally died and I bought myself one of those fancy iPad Pro 11". I think it had forced me to upgrade iTunes to 12.8.2 just to get the drivers to allow any 3rd party app to talk to the iPad. I use iMazing as iTunes is impossible to use.

I am asking as I don't know a whole lot about the ins and out with mac's, and maybe if there was a way to revert back to a better time of itunes and still have my iPad work then I'd love to know.

 

[redheeler]

A while back I reverted my 2006 iMac on OS X 10.8.5 to iTunes 10.7. The only way to ensure compatibility with 10.7 is to keep an older Mac around like this, or use a virtual machine with an older version of MacOS like Lion. Performance can be poor with the latter option, but it should work.
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I am asking as I don't know a whole lot about the ins and out with mac's, and maybe if there was a way to revert back to a better time of itunes and still have my iPad work then I'd love to know.

No chance 10.7 would be able to sync with a modern iPad. It will sync an iPad 1 (or newer) running iOS 5, but that's probably the newest iOS you can use with that version of iTunes.

 

[161803398875]

Of course I don't mind, I actually have to restrain myself from writing a massive wall of text comparing and contrasting the user experiences between 10.7 and what followed (including the iOS version, which were similarly butchered. Because the Music app is so off-putting to me I just do not use it). I've even considered ah… making a documentary about it! But I really feel like such an undertaking would be best served by someone with more formal UX education/background than I have, and who is willing to do some mild investigative journalism. The extreme, abrupt, ludicrous, ruinous changes made really cannot just be attributable to losing a lawsuit over the coverflow IP, it must be something deeper and I'm actually rather really *existentially* troubled by seeing something so great be deliberately mangled beyond recognition. I can write more tomorrow morning but in a nutshell, coverflow was the closest thing to flipping through a record collection I've yet seen (it should have been vertical though, and you should have been able to see back and gatefold art with a gesture or command). After 10.7, all kinds of features invoked animations and panels which kept you from using other features… visuals and visually distracting, non-neutral things were synthetically generated, like colors; it was made to look more like something an artistically insensate Windows developer would design … ah I cannot write about this now. Anyway! There is a way to support an installation of 10.7 and 11+ for the syncing but it breaks easily, and inexplicably 11+ was made to permanently change the database (and break it), so even if you did use 10.7 for playing and 11+ for syncing there would have to be a script that backups the 10.7 library , launch 11+, fix broken db links, and reconcile libraries….

 

[161803398875]

I really wonder about a minimal clean VM Lion install (happily, I just made one recently to rejuvenate an ancient laptop) run in kiosk mode with iTunes full screen… I think this was a terrific suggestion.

 

[retta283]

A while back I reverted my 2006 iMac on OS X 10.8.5 to iTunes 10.7. The only way to ensure compatibility with 10.7 is to keep an older Mac around like this, or use a virtual machine with an older version of MacOS like Lion. Performance can be poor with the latter option, but it should work.
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No chance 10.7 would be able to sync with a modern iPad. It will sync an iPad 1 (or newer) running iOS 5, but that's probably the newest iOS you can use with that version of iTunes.

10.7 can sync with iPads and Minis running iOS 6, the delay of iTunes 11 forced them to include support on 10.
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I really wonder about a minimal clean VM Lion install (happily, I just made one recently to rejuvenate an ancient laptop) run in kiosk mode with iTunes full screen… I think this was a terrific suggestion.

Will you need to have an internet connection in the VM? If not, it may go decently. Depending on how well your system can handle the overhead of the VM, it could be the best idea.

There are some virtualization programs that will let you suspend the state of the VM, so it will not eat up resources and you can resume straight to iTunes. I just don't remember which ones support it, and if they allow Mac OS X installs.

 

[redheeler]

10.7 can sync with iPads and Minis running iOS 6, the delay of iTunes 11 forced them to include support on 10.

Ah, good to know. I can sync my iPod touch 4 (iOS 6) with the iMac.

 

[161803398875]

I figured everything out without having to mess with the VM hack— I have iTunes 10.7 running just peachy under Catalina…! I'm very pleased, thank you for contributing. I just installed with Pacifist, didn't bother with the core frameworks replacement, then made a Applications folder alias to launch the executable directly (that's within the iTunes.app package), then I dot-filed iTunes.app. The only caveats are 1) no iOs syncing; 2) the Play media key wants to launch the Music app, which begins a process of corrupting my library and artwork, so I need to figure out how remap that key (pressing it in System Pref>Keyboard isn't captured, the command is invoked unfortunately); 4) it seems to be practically impossible to give the iTunes alias a new decent icon (for years I've used an Aphex Twin png for this ) I have to thank Apple for not entirely making it absolutely impossible to keep running this truly great app even after all these years. Cheers

 

[leethray]

I figured everything out without having to mess with the VM hack— I have iTunes 10.7 running just peachy under Catalina…! I'm very pleased, thank you for contributing. I just installed with Pacifist, didn't bother with the core frameworks replacement, then made a Applications folder alias to launch the executable directly (that's within the iTunes.app package), then I dot-filed iTunes.app. The only caveats are 1) no iOs syncing; 2) the Play media key wants to launch the Music app, which begins a process of corrupting my library and artwork, so I need to figure out how remap that key (pressing it in System Pref>Keyboard isn't captured, the command is invoked unfortunately); 4) it seems to be practically impossible to give the iTunes alias a new decent icon (for years I've used an Aphex Twin png for this ) I have to thank Apple for not entirely making it absolutely impossible to keep running this truly great app even after all these years. Cheers

For Catalina, iTunes 10.7 is now kindly supported by app Retroactive.
For Majove, I've just figured out how to open iTune 10.7 directly instead of launching the executable: after followed the core frameworks replacement & Pacifist method, simply replace the PkgInfo file in iTunes10.7 app package with the PkgInfo file from iTune12.