Apple released software updates to all its operating system today, along with an update to iTunes, ostensibly to add “support for syncing iTunes with iPhone SE and iPad Pro.” But, as they often do, there are minor tweaks in the update. Some of these may be bug fixes, but there are some visible changes. Here’s a brief overview of what’s new.
There’s a new option in the General preferences, which allows you to tell iTunes to add songs from Apple Music to My Music when you add them to playlists. Before, any time you added songs to playlists, they were added to your My Music library. Now, you have the option; if you don’t want songs to be added to your library, uncheck this option.
The Store preferences have removed an option to Limit Ad Tracking. I never really understood this option, because the only “ads” you see are items from the iTunes Store store that are highlighted. That option was in the bottom section of the Store pane, which now looks like this. It might have something to do with the fact that Apple has killed of their iAds program…
In the Restrictions pane, you can now choose to block Apple Music. Previously, you could only hide it (which you can still do in the General preferences), but now you can prevent that a user has access to it.
Finally, there’s a new tag in the Info window. Select an item, press Command-I, and you’ll see a checkbox labeled Show composer in all views.
If you check this option, iTunes displays the composer’s name – if you’ve entered one – in all views. If you don’t check it, then it only shows the artist’s name. Here’s an example in Playlists view. The top screenshot shows how it looks with the option unchecked, and the bottom when the option is checked. Note the name of the composer – Charles Ives – below the track name.
In Songs view, however, there is no difference; this change is only visible in views where, when you see a track or expand an album, iTunes displays the track info on two lines, as above.
You can now “love” a track from the standard contextual menu. Previously, you could only do so in certain views by clicking a ? icon. You can now choose Love, from the contextual menu, just above the Rating menu. Also, these ? icons now display in Playlist view, to the right of the star ratings.
Finally, there is an expected change in the iTunes Store. As I reported recently, you can now re-download audiobooks that you purchased from Apple. When this change was first spotted, audiobooks didn’t show up in the Purchased list on the iTunes Store. Now, if you check your Purchased list (click the icon with your name at the right of the iTunes toolbar and choose Purchased), you’ll see a tab for Audiobooks.
Click the cloud icon at the top right corner of any book to download it to your iTunes library.