OK, should I do the following updates?

[PeterB]

It seems that Apple is trying to tell me something.

Software Update wants me to update the following:

1) Airport -> 4.2 plus the 2005-001 update (I'm at 4.1)

2) Quicktime -> 7.1.2 (I'm at 7.0.x, I believe)

3) iTunes -> 6.0.5 (I'm at 4.7.1)

4) X -> 10.4.7 (I'm at 10.4.6)

... of these:

1) Airport: I know from experience that sometimes updating the Airport software results in totally messing up reception. Since there's no easy way to downgrade, other than restoring from a backup, it seems not worth doing unless it improves, rather than destroys things.

2) Quicktime: I'd heard somewhere that the 7.1.x releases have been buggy. Can anyone give me a compelling reason to upgrade (or not)?

3) iTunes. This is the bugger. Until the DRM issues are taken care of, I don't want to upgrade. Yes, there's a good chance that they may never be taken care of... but the problem is that apparently if you go to v6.x, you cannot go back easily as far as the DRM issues are concerned...

4) 10.4.7 ... this I might be tempted to do, but recently had heard some horror stories here. Again, anyone have a compelling reason to upgrade or not?

In a general sense, I'm not sure it's a particularly good thing that Apple is having you update so often. It gives them an easy way for them to effectively mandate an update on you, which isn't really necessary for fixing things so much as it is disabling features or mandating policy changes (e.g., iTunes).

[microchip13]

I'd at least do Airport and iTunes.

I personally havn't had any problems with iTunes 6, but have not upgraded to 6.0.5.


10.4.7, I havn't had a problem with it. My big compelling reason was because it fixed some iChat stuff.

[PeterB]

'chip, I could do the Airport so long as I have a backup (which I'd probably have anyway) ... the iTunes is trickier, because of the DRM issues. They're also making it hard or impossible to buy stuff at the iTMS without upgrading...

[rgG]

After the stories I have heard about Airport updates really messing things up, I have adopted the "if it ain't broke don't update it" rule as regards airport updates. Unless my Airport starts acting funky, I'm not updating it. I don't even know what version I am at, but as long as it is working well, that is where I will stay.

I ran the 10.4.7 update on the intel iMac, but I haven't done it yet on the iBook. I also ran the QT update on the iMac and I haven't noticed anything odd yet, but I guess it really depends on what apps you use most often. Since the iMac is the intel, I am trying to keep up to date on all the OS and QT updates because it is a new platform and I figure they may be working things out a little at a time. As for the G4 iBook, I will wait a bit just to make sure any bugs are fixed. Just my 2¢ worth.

[Sam3]

What are the DRM issues?

[PeterB]

Sam3, look here:

http://www.tuaw.com/2005/10/13/jhymn-bro...-itunes-6/
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/13/1242257

[qdog]

If your airport is working with no problem don't update it. I have not been able to down grade an update for airport.

[chas_m]

PeterB:

Really -- seriously -- you're being ridiculous.

There are NO "drm issues" in iTunes. You have ALWAYS been able to strip the DRM off of a purchased song -- by burning an audio CD of it.

I'm not a fan of DRM, but I've encountered NO as in ZERO issues with Apple's Fairplay. It's just NOT AN ISSUE.

Without Fairplay, the iTMS *wouldn't exist.* Without iTMS, iPods would never have become so popular. Without iPods, Apple would be considerably poorer and probably doing battle with the "death vultures" predicting their imminent demise again, instead of BASKING in what is arguably their single MOST POPULAR AND INFLUENTIAL period since the pre-IBM PC days.

Either buy their music or don't, but quit being such a paranoid git about it.

[PeterB]

chas_m, perhaps I am being a "paranoid git" (though I take issue with your rather nasty choice of words), BUT... if I am, I'm apparently not the only one. Read the above links/blogs. Here's another similar one: http://www.anders.com/cms/138/iTunes.6/e...pt/decrypt

There are at least a few people out there who are now not buying from iTMS because of this, and burning to CD is both lossy AND wasteful of CD's. (Unless someone can contradict the lossy aspect of it, and I'd be interested if that were true.)

What I might do, and again if someone here could comment on this, I'd appreciate it: is it possible to have one version of iTunes on one volume, and another on another volume, and still have them both accessing the same iTunes account? (From what checking I've done, the answer seems to be "no"... that the iTMS keeps track of what version of iTunes you're using...)