iTunes 11

Just has been released.
Any reason not to upgrade? I imagine all Applescript should still be usable.

[jay (support)]

If you rely on the plugin I'd hold off at least until we can test it.

It's a major rewrite I hear so frankly I'd wait until other people find out where the bugs are but that's just me.

And I wouldn't necessarily assume that AppleScripts will continue to work either...

Well my very brief testing of iTunes 11 with Indigo 5 and 6 has resulted in no joy. When trying to pair iTunes will allow you to enter the 4 digit code, but when clicking OK in Indigo you just get an error: “NOTE: A failed attempt to pair occurred”.

Other than that the new iTunes seems quite nice at first glance.. it does feel quicker too on my old 2009 MacBook Pro.. which is nice!

[jay (support)]

I sorta expected as much.

The problem is that the iTunes plugin uses the Apple's unpublished, proprietary protocol to talk to iTunes. We'll certainly look into it, but in all honesty I suspect it's going to be a long while (if ever) before we know fully what's changed because someone will need to try to reverse engineer it.

Add to that the fact that with the AppleTV's communication they've encrypted it such that no 3rd party can control it remotely. They could very well do that with iTunes also, likely without any change needed to their Remote application (since it already does it with the AppleTV).

So - I heartily recommend that you NOT upgrade to iTunes 11 if you're dependent on the plugin, at least until we have more time to evaluate what's working and what's not and can either come up with fixes, alternatives, or whatever.

Indeed.. It’s unfortunate that Apple don’t have some sort of official API for 3rd party control.. especially for the AppleTV since they’re very popular with Home Cinema installers for some reason.

I’ve just tried out a handful of little Applescripts i have for iTunes (both using Indigo and inside iTunes) and some seem to be working fine.. so they haven’t pulled AppleScript support in iTunes 11 like some of us feared but it does look like there have been some changes as one of my video tag programs just refuses to work

[jay (support)]

Unfortunately, looking at the issue, it's clear that the old communication mechanism isn't going to work. The first thing you do is issue a login command, which passes back a token that you use on every subsequent request. iTunes 11 is returning an error (503, service unavailable) when we issue the login command. That means that iTunes no longer supports that particular function. Without the token that's passed back, there is no way to further communicate with iTunes.

So, it looks like the plugin will not work with iTunes 11 unless some industrious hacker out there can reverse engineer what's happening between the remote app and iTunes. My guess is that they've switched over to the encrypted method they use when talking to the Apple TV. Because of the encryption, it will never work unless they publish a key. Which they won't.

Thanks Apple - way to support your users.

I will be sticking with iTunes 10 until I can figure out something else. So disappointed at the moment even though I've been expecting this.

Agreed with not updating but I will report that the handful of apple scripts I use (simple ones like play and play a certain song) seem to work fine.

Now not documenting how I cobbled together the audio portion of my HA system has bitten me on the behind... I have no idea anymore when I used the plugin and when I used scripts. I guess I have another rainy day project to keep in my hip pocket.

"It just works... unless you want to use it any other way than we want you to then in that case you're screwed." - Apple Inc.

[jay (support)]

Another thing I just ran across - setting shuffle and repeat on a playlist doesn't appear to work via AppleScript any more in iTunes 11.

Sigh.

Sigh.

It’s so disappointing.. otherwise iTunes 11 is nearly perfect. I’m probably going to bite the bullet and upgrade my server to iTunes 11 as my AppleTV is constantly coming up saying something about needing to update to the latest version of iTunes.. if i exit out and try again it works but it’s getting annoying.. hopefully some smarty-pants will work out a way of updating the iTunes plugin with support… and all those wonderful extra little features we’ve wanted for ages

[jay (support)]

Don't hold your breath.

Ouch. Checked the announcements and version 6 beta release notes, to see if there was anything about iTunes 11. Didn't see anything and let it update... That's a hassle and a half.

[jay (support)]

FYI - Indigo 6 b6 (just released) fixes the iTunes 11 problem with the iTunes plugin.

Fantastic, thanks guys! (will be nice to be able to update - but Indigo won that priority for no upgrading)

Before I update it, is iTunes 11.1 causing any issues? I got caught last time by updating iTunes without realizing it would break with Indigo.