Unresolved iTunes 9 bugs plague users

Since Apple introduced iTunes 9 several months ago, we've received a fair number of complaints about two particular bugs. So far no one, not even the first and second levels of Applecare support, has been able to resolve them.

iTunes password-saving problem

Previous versions of iTunes allowed you to save your iTunes Store password on your desktop by checking the box as shown in the adjacent picture. Now, iTunes 9 teases us with a dialog box offering this option, but when you attempt to save the password by checking the box, iTunes fails to remember the password. Although there have been many suggested fixes--and we even suggested some of our own ideas--none of these has worked permanently.

It should be noted that we received the largest number of complaints about this issue then any other so far. It is clear people like to use this feature, so hopefully Apple will fix it soon.

App update problems in iTunes

App updates in iTunes 9 are hit or miss and another sore point for iPhone and iPod Touch users. The problem manifests itself randomly when updates appear in iTunes. Regardless of whether you are updating one or multiple apps, the apps that actually update appear to never do so. You can sit and watch iTunes go through all the motions--download the app, sync it to your iPhone, etc. However, the apps never vanish from the iTunes app update list and they stay there persistently between iTunes sync sessions. Repeated attempts to update lead to the same updates listed over and over again until in some cases they finally disappear from the list.

It's completely unclear as to whether the problem is with iTunes, the App Store, or the iPhone. In some cases the device or the store had completely different versions of the same app for sale (Scanner Pro 1.1.0) versus a free update (Scanner Pro 1.2.0) available for download. Our results were completely opposite to what the second level Applecare support person had in terms of available versions. It's clear that whatever the problem is however is again completely in Apple's hands, since no amount of troubleshooting resolved this issue either.

Update to iTunes needed?

Apple introduced iTunes 9 less than three months ago with some new features, but at the same time introduced some annoying bugs like the two described here. It's unlikely that we'll see another release of iTunes before the end of this year, but hopefully Apple is paying attention--an incremental iTunes update to fix these bugs would make a great present for the holidays.