I recently reported how iTunes uses a lot of CPU when the iTunes Store is open and the app is in the background. This is because of animations on certain pages of the iTunes Store.
The French website Mac Generation is reporting today that the latest beta of El Capitan, OS X 10.11.4, seems to have corrected this issue. They “tested this on three different Macs and iTunes uses [nearly] no CPU when it’s in the background.” Here’s a screenshot from the Mac Generation article:
As you can see, with a carousel visible in the iTunes Store, and iTunes in the background, Activity Monitor shows a mere 0.3% activity for iTunes, and none at all for iTunes Helper. This is good news, since this background activity can be a big hit on your battery if you use a laptop.
I generally don’t install intermediate betas of OS X, so I’ll confirm this when the official release of 10.11.4 is available.