Apple Updates iTunes

40 Tech Gifts For The Holiday Season

Apple has released an iTunes update that includes a couple of bug fixes to prevent crashes and a few enhancements, such as better synchronization between the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch running iOS 4.2.

One problem iTunes 10.1.1 fixes is a glitch that causes the software to crash when a user is deleting a playlist that has the iTunes sidebar showing. Other fixes include a compatibility problem in which some music videos may not play on Macs equipped with Nvidia GeForce 9400 and 9600 graphics.

The update also stops iTunes from crashing when connecting an iPod to a Mac equipped with a PowerPC processor, which Apple stopped shipping in computers in 2006. That was the first year Apple started selling Intel-based Macs instead. Other fixes include an issue where some music videos may not sync to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad.

On the enhancement side, the update makes it possible to wirelessly stream videos from iTunes to the latest Apple TV.

A full list of the stability and performance improvements is on Apple's support site. The update, released Wednesday, is a 90.5 MB download for the Mac and 78.08 MB for the 32-bit version of Windows and 78.98 MB for the 64-bit version. The Mac software requires Mac OS X version 10.5 or later.

The latest release follows by one month iTunes 10.1, which prepared the software for the release of iOS 4.2 that followed soon after for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. The iTunes upgrade made it possible to sync the software with the devices running the operating system upgrade. The update also improved stability and performance.

Among the major improvements in iTunes 10.1 was the ability to stream video to an Apple TV using AirPlay. The latter technology is Apple's mechanism for wirelessly streaming music, videos, and photos between Apple devices or third-party products, such as speakers and receivers.