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iTunes 11.0.3 is out, gets its head around multi-disc albums

The new version of Apple's music software also gets slinkier album art and a progress bar in the MiniPlayer.

Luke Westaway Senior editor
Luke Westaway is a senior editor at CNET and writer/ presenter of Adventures in Tech, a thrilling gadget show produced in our London office. Luke's focus is on keeping you in the loop with a mix of video, features, expert opinion and analysis.
Luke Westaway
2 min read

Apple has released an update to its iTunes music software, which should make the program run faster and grants you the power to see multi-disc albums in a more sensible fashion.

The 11.0.3 update is available to download now, and brings a revamped MiniPlayer. Apple says the new player -- which gives you a minimised snapshot of what's currently playing -- sports a "beautiful new view that showcases your album artwork".

In other words, that miniature player now has album art, as well as a progress bar, letting you skip to the good part of a track without having to jump back into the full-screen version of iTunes. 

The update will hopefully speed up the software, which has garnered a bad reputation for running at a sluggish pace. "Performance improvements when searching and sorting large iTunes libraries" are part of the update, Apple says.

Fans of epic 'best-of' CD collections will be delighted to learn that you can finally view multi-disc albums as a single collection of tunes. Perfect for that Best of Bowie collection you're sick of skipping back and forth to listen to.

iTunes got a much-needed revamp in November last year with iTunes 11, which brought a revamped interface to the veteran software. That update arrived later than expected, with 'engineering issues' blamed for the delay.

iTunes launched in 2001, finding a large audience thanks to its ties to Apple's iPod. Today though the software competes with rival services like Spotify, making it all the more crucial that Apple works to make iTunes better, and easier to use.

Are you an iTunes fan, or do you avoid plugging your iPhone into your computer just in case the software jumps up and kicks off an unwanted syncing session? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.

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