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iTunes Stops Working For Windows XP Users
An anonymous reader writes: iTunes users who still run Windows XP started to experience connectivity issues this week. As documented in an Apple Support Communities thread, they can't log into the iTunes store, meaning functions like buying content, watching already purchased movies and TV shows, playing DRM-protected content, backing up, updating, and syncing all do not work.
This is precisely why you should never OWN your digital content, but rather LEASE it from trustworthy companies like Apple... Oh wait! =)
iTunes continues to work horribly for ALL other Windows operating systems...
As the anti-piracy crap is going by, and then the mandatory previews, I say to myself "If I had only pirated this, I'd already be watching the movie."
Whenever I go to itunes store, I say to myself "this would be so much easier to pirate than to buy. Less time, and I'd already be listening."
It's not about the cost. It's about the convenience.
If it's worth doing, it's worth doing for money.
This may well have less to do with Apple being mean and cutting off XP users from their fix and more with Apple dropping support for ciphers that are anything but secure anymore, with XP simply not supporting the more current ciphers with better algorithms and more robustness (like forward secrecy). If they didn't, the rant would not go away but simply shift to "Apple's sloppy handling of security puts your content at risk".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
To be fair, Apple supported XP longer than Microsoft did. Microsoft has already stated that if you choose to continue using XP, you do so at your own risk. That not only means potential exposure to malware, but also the distinct possibility that third party stuff may at any time stop working. I don't see this a fault of Apple in any way whatsoever.
Did iTunes ever really work on Windows?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Yes, because I am very anxious to buy more shit from the company that just locked me out of content I purchased from them prior with a forced upgrade.
Oh wait...
Well, Apple knows how many XP users use iTunes. They know how much those XP users spend and can easily determine if they're just a tiny fraction of those using Vista or later, or significant enough to continue supporting them. Apple has all that data.
And I've seen it too as my main machine is XP. I'd love to upgrade it if I had the cash (I do have a Win 7 machine used for other purposes so I'm not SOL). Thing is, iTunes still does work, it's just crapping out randomly a bit more than usual - Monday was plagued with the inability to log in (but closing and restarting iTunes several times fixed it), and app updates seem to be an on and off thing (mostly off).
And how fast Apple abandons hardware? Maybe for iOS where you get 50% more support time than the main competition (at least in cases where you get supported updates). Macs that can run Yosemite date back to 2010 or so.
Apple though, does abandon older software a lot faster - they only do support the last two versions of OS X and iOS in general.
Here's the thing - iTunes runs on a virtual version of OS X - one of the reasons it's so big is that it brings with it a bunch of OS X libraries adapted for Windows. Things like ciphers and SSL and all that, Apple already has ported versions of the OS X libraries for that they update - it doesn't use the OS libraries for it.
And in fact, there's nothing wrong with iTunes itself - my version of iTunes worked perfectly until the past week or so - and no, I didn't install any new version of iTunes. So Apple changed something that broke iTunes on its end because iTunes worked before and it wasn't changed
Movies and TV shows are still DRMed.
Funny. It was probably fixed before this was even posted on Slashdot.
Apple updated their services to exclude those clients, probably to fix an SSL exploit by turning off older SSL protocols for all clients. If Apple really wanted to, they could have left that version of SSL running only for XP clients and updated iTunes to not use that protocol on any non-XP OS, but they didn't. Poor customer service if you ask me.
The services fail intermittently, which means they still work intermittently. That strongly implies that this wasn't an intentional change by Apple, but instead is a bug introduced with some other change. Said bug was likely not caught, in my opinion, due to limited access to test equipment running XP. Apple, like my employer, likely has IT policies that exclude XP machines from the common intranet, and it's a hassle to set up, maintain, and access the separate XP test lab. A bug that only occurs when an XP machine tries to access an online service is exactly the kind that would be missed by such a test farm setup.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
I, along with many others I know, only "upgraded" from Snow Leopard (10.6) because Apple dropped support for it. 3 days after I paid to upgrade to Mountain Lion in order to continue receiving support, Apple announced that future versions of OS X (including the then soon-to-be-released Mavericks) would be free. <sarc>That didn't leave a bad taste in my mouth or anything.</sarc>
No version of OS X since Snow Leopard has been as stable or performant. Because of this, I know a number of people who actually still use it despite the lack of security updates. Of them, only a couple use it in an offline-only capacity. I'm sure that's lightyears better than the decade-long support you say isn't necessary, though. Right?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Well, it was a concession to the music industry to make it hard to copy other people's music. So, yes, they have done it differently.
But, for me one of the best features is that special DB ... I have playlists based on the metadata which only Apple keeps (as far as I know at least) across devices. Like "songs I haven't played in six months or haven't played at least five times". You practically have a query language ... so you can pick all of your punk rock which isn't also Christmas (and, yes, I have that problem).
Sure, if I wanted to grab my music folder out of iTunes and import it into another player I could go back to the same level of technology I was using on FreeBSD in 2001 ... but honestly, I'd rather stick with iTunes and the playlists and metadata that special DB give me.
I don't ever manage my music by dragging and dropping ... so while your way is good for you, I'd rather just select which playlists to sync.
Me, I just load on a half dozen playlists, put it on big random, and let the playcount cycle them out on the next pass so I can work through all my music and hear it all. :-P
For me, the massive time investment I have in iTunes means when I rip a CD and assign a genre like "cuban/hip-hop" or "punk/xmas" they magically fall into the playlists where they belong because rules put them there ... and I won't hear a punk version of Silent Night in June. ;-)
My playlists are almost self curating now precisely because of that DB. And when you have Cuban hip-hop and punk Christmas albums you really want that.
At least I do.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.