Do you think iTunes is bloated?

[Harleqin]

Just as an example, 15 years ago, Word ran on an Intel 80486 DX/2-66 with 4 MB of RAM.

What functionality has been added that warrants a 30-fold increase in required processing power and a 100-fold increase in memory consumption?

[kirkmc]

Just as an example, 15 years ago, Word ran on an Intel 80486 DX/2-66 with 4 MB of RAM.

What functionality has been added that warrants a 30-fold increase in required processing power and a 100-fold increase in memory consumption?

That's certainly a valid question. And it ran just as fast back then. Granted - Word is a good example, because I've been using it professionally for a long time - it didn't have change tracking, the links to other Office files, spell checking (at least not live spell checking), the ability to handle large graphics, charts, etc. But it does make one wonder; how much work is really done streamlining applications like that as they evolve?

To be fair, it doesn't need 100 times as much RAM; your computer in general may, because of the OS, but not Word. I think Word runs in less than 200 MB on my Mac, unless it's using very big, complex documents. So that's only a 50-fold increase. As I said in my post above, though, modern memory management systems are more flexible than they were back in the day, so that's almost a moot point.

[imabuddha]

Well, you say something interesting. Because you don't understand how the Mac OS uses RAM. When Activity Monitor shows you that a program is "using" a certain amount of Real Memory, that doesn't mean that memory is locked down.

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But if you click the > icon in the display at the top of the window, to show the thing that looks a bit like an equalizer (I don't know what that's called, actually), CPU usage increases, and it seemingly depends on how many of the little bars are displayed.

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As for the question of name, it's become a brand, so that won't be changed, even if it starts offering a pizza delivery service. That's a non-issue in my opinion.

As to the increase in features, that's part of the growth of the program. Would you really rather have to use two programs to sync an iPod?

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(I remember, back with OS 9 and earlier, you could choose how much RAM a program used, and when launched the program would access and lock all that RAM. And I recall that this was an issue back then, notably with Microsoft Word, which needed a lot of RAM to work with large documents.)

Wow Kirk, I'm going to address these points & then bail from this thread.

1. Actually I do know quite a lot about how memory management works on modern computer systems. Just the fact that I specifically quoted the real memory usage & not the virtual memory usage should have clued you into that. I'm not going to discuss this topic here other that to say that I didn't claim the memory was "locked down". I cited the real memory usage to illustrate the fact that iTunes is bloated in part because it's inefficient in its memory usage.

2. That thing is called a spectrum analyzer.

3. Names can always be changed. The change to iOS from iPhone OS, and indeed Apple's own name change a few years ago are examples of this.

4. No I don't want to use 2 programs to sync an iDevice. I'd prefer the sync to be done by 1 program, you know, like iSync. I'd also prefer iTunes to just handle audio. (music, audiobooks, etc.) All other stuff, movies, tv shows, books (non-audio) should be dealt with elsewhere. Part of being a non-bloated app is a focus on core functionality, something that Apple is normally quite good at.

5. OS 9 (and 8) were embarrassingly bad at memory management (and multitasking). The idea that a user would have to micro-manage memory allocation per app in the late 1990s was beyond silly.

[kirkmc]

I don't see iTunes as being an more "inefficient" in memory usage than other programs. I see a number of programs that show high real memory figures without this causing any issues.

As for the name, that's really not an issue in judging a program. Is Microsoft Word wrongly named because it can handle graphics?

As for the different types of content, ie non-audio, as you say, why have another program if you're also going to be syncing them to an iPod, Apple TV, or whatever?

Point 5: indeed. It was very frustrating, especially with Word, at the time.

To sum up, as this thread really isn't going anyplace, my query has told me the following: one person here has a computer that's somewhat old and not enough RAM, and because of that, iTunes is bloated. On my blog, people have commented on the size of downloads (for Windows), hence iTunes is bloated.

The closest I've been able to come to a real, valid reason is the presence of features that people don't need (or the fact that iTunes, despite its name, handles more than music). I find it hard to criticize any software for excess features these days, and I wonder why "iTunes is bloated" has become a meme, whereas "Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Illustrator is bloated" has not. Heck, my FTP program has features I never use; does that make it bloated? Even my Terminal app has features I don't use... Heck, this forum has tons of features and options I don't use either...

[CarlJung]

Well, you say something interesting. Because you don't understand how the Mac OS uses RAM. When Activity Monitor shows you that a program is "using" a certain amount of Real Memory, that doesn't mean that memory is locked down. Mac OS X - and I'd guess recent versions of Windows - have dynamic memory usage that lets other programs access memory when needed. Those numbers, at least for Mac OS X, are generally considered by developers to be nothing more than indicative. You can see this by launching something that really uses a lot of RAM, right away. You'll see that the Real Mem column in Activity Monitor will change, and decrease a lot for the other programs. Granted, in years past, memory was locked, but this is no longer the case.

First of all, please stop telling people that they don't know what they are talking about. It's insulting and probably a large factor why you face so heavy resistance in many threads. Even in cases when you are right, it doesn't stop being insulting.

Secondly, you can't dismiss a large memory footprint by mentioning swapping memory to disc. Writing to disc is a real performance killer, it's order of magnitudes slower than writing to RAM. When an application needs a lot of RAM and all is already consumed by other applications the OS have no option but to write out memory from a currently not active application to disc so it can fit the new application in RAM. But once you switch back to those applications, the memory needs to be read back from disc. Again, taking a performance hit.

Swapping to disc is a fantastic way to stretch the memory beyond it's limits, but it comes with a performance penalty. Writing memory efficient applications still matter. If the swapping gets in the way by bringing down performance, bloat is an appropriate way to label it.

[deja]

Kirk, if it's not possible for iTunes to be bloated, which is what you seem to be suggesting so far, why are you asking the question? It's like a theist asking 'Does God exist?' Rhetorical questions have their place but not as starting points for genuine inquiry.

[kirkmc]

Kirk, if it's not possible for iTunes to be bloated, which is what you seem to be suggesting so far, why are you asking the question? It's like a theist asking 'Does God exist?' Rhetorical questions have their place but not as starting points for genuine inquiry.

I'm asking why people have that impression; what is it that convinces them that a program is bloated. I could have asked the same about other programs, such as those I mentioned above.

It's not at all like asking "does god exist" but rather why people feel that this program is daunting. And, as I said above, the only clue I've gotten so far is that it's the extent of the program's feature set that makes people feel this way. Whether or not one defines that as bloat depends on each person (I, for one, don't, as I've said several times in this thread, either for iTunes, or for other programs.) I think a lot of this feeling comes from how software used to work, years ago, when computers were much slower, and "bloated" programs did indeed run slowly. Heck, I remember when it took Word 30-45 seconds just to launch on a Mac...

[kirkmc]

Well, you say something interesting. Because you don't understand how the Mac OS uses RAM. When Activity Monitor shows you that a program is "using" a certain amount of Real Memory, that doesn't mean that memory is locked down. Mac OS X - and I'd guess recent versions of Windows - have dynamic memory usage that lets other programs access memory when needed. Those numbers, at least for Mac OS X, are generally considered by developers to be nothing more than indicative. You can see this by launching something that really uses a lot of RAM, right away. You'll see that the Real Mem column in Activity Monitor will change, and decrease a lot for the other programs. Granted, in years past, memory was locked, but this is no longer the case.

First of all, please stop telling people that they don't know what they are talking about. It's insulting and probably a large factor why you face so heavy resistance in many threads. Even in cases when you are right, it doesn't stop being insulting.

Secondly, you can't dismiss a large memory footprint by mentioning swapping memory to disc. Writing to disc is a real performance killer, it's order of magnitudes slower than writing to RAM. When an application needs a lot of RAM and all is already consumed by other applications the OS have no option but to write out memory from a currently not active application to disc so it can fit the new application in RAM. But once you switch back to those applications, the memory needs to be read back from disc. Again, taking a performance hit.

Swapping to disc is a fantastic way to stretch the memory beyond it's limits, but it comes with a performance penalty. Writing memory efficient applications still matter. If the swapping gets in the way by bringing down performance, bloat is an appropriate way to label it.

Oh, no, it's not about swapping. On Mac OS X, programs will "hold on" to memory when they need it, then let it go when they don't. Only if they're doing something where they actively need the memory will they need to swap. So iTunes taking up 300 MB, as in imabuddha's case, (right now, it's at 249 MB for me, as I listen to music with a very large library), means nothing. It doesn't mean that memory is locked, frozen or anything, and, unless the app is actively doing a lot, there will be no swapping. Granted, if your computer doesn't have enough RAM - as in Ross's case - then you will have a lot of swapping. But Ross is running an old computer with less RAM than what the OS requires, so I think his case is not a good example.

One other point - which may be a particularity of Mac OS X, since I don't know a lot about how Windows manages memory - is that one my Mac mini, which has 4 GB RAM, iTunes, and any other program (Mail, Safari, etc.) use much more real memory than on my MacBook Air which only has 2 GB. So the total amount of memory has an effect on the amount of memory an app will claim, even though, from what developers have told me, that memory is not being used. (I had to deal with this issue when reviewing a program that seemed to take a lot of memory; I found out that these figures are at best indicative, but don't really reflect actual usage.)

I certainly agree, however, that a program that _holds onto_ a lot of memory, which will lead to swapping, would be a good candidate for the word "bloat".

BTW, again, just to reiterate, I don't know how Windows handles memory. When people have said that iTunes uses a lot of "system resources" - ie, memory - does this correspond to a real figure of resident memory that is not available to other programs? This may, of course, depend on different versions of Windows; I would assume that more recent versions have better memory management than, say, XP.

[CarlJung]

Oh, no, it's not about swapping. On Mac OS X, programs will "hold on" to memory when they need it, then let it go when they don't. Only if they're doing something where they actively need the memory will they need to swap. So iTunes taking up 300 MB, as in imabuddha's case, (right now, it's at 249 MB for me, as I listen to music with a very large library), means nothing. It doesn't mean that memory is locked, frozen or anything, and, unless the app is actively doing a lot, there will be no swapping. Granted, if your computer doesn't have enough RAM - as in Ross's case - then you will have a lot of swapping. But Ross is running an old computer with less RAM than what the OS requires, so I think his case is not a good example.

That sounds... different. Can anyone point me to more info about how this works?

[kirkmc]

Oh, no, it's not about swapping. On Mac OS X, programs will "hold on" to memory when they need it, then let it go when they don't. Only if they're doing something where they actively need the memory will they need to swap. So iTunes taking up 300 MB, as in imabuddha's case, (right now, it's at 249 MB for me, as I listen to music with a very large library), means nothing. It doesn't mean that memory is locked, frozen or anything, and, unless the app is actively doing a lot, there will be no swapping. Granted, if your computer doesn't have enough RAM - as in Ross's case - then you will have a lot of swapping. But Ross is running an old computer with less RAM than what the OS requires, so I think his case is not a good example.

That sounds... different. Can anyone point me to more info about how this works?

Well, there's this, that gives an overview:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php? ... 3140025184

(This is rather old, but the basics are the same.)

I didn't find anything else quickly, other than some much more technical stuff on Apple's Developer website.

The key here is "inactive memory" which is that which shows as Real Memory but which isn't being used. If I look at my Mac's memory right now, I get, out of 4 GB RAM, 883 MB Wired (that is, which can't be dumped from RAM); 2.11 GB active (ie, being used by different apps and processes); and 545 MB inactive. The latter number is the most interesting, because that's where there's a lot of flexibility. There is no end-user tool, however, for seeing this breakdown per app (there are developer tools, but I don't know which ones provide this).

If I run top for iTunes, I get this:

PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #WQ #POR #MREG RPRVT RSHR RSIZE VPRVT
876- iTunes 10.3 72:53.09 24/1 2 459 3249 178M 70M 252M+ 253M

So the resident private part is 178 MB, out of the total of 252. But that figure is as dynamic as the rest; it can change when needed.

But in general, on Mac OS X, memory is very fluid, and one really doesn't need to worry about it, unless you're really in a low-RAM situation (as in Ross's case) or are using high-RAM apps, such as, say, video editing tools, etc. So the RAM usage of pretty much any program is not an issue. It's worth noting that when I review software for Macworld, or when others review software (again, other than pro apps), this is not something we ever comment on. I'm not using the latest, fastest Mac, and the only program I know of that really hit my RAM - aside from VMware and Windows - is a voice recognition program. I've never had issue with anything else.

[Marcus]

Hoo boy, we seem to have some very different opinions, Kirk.

For the first, I don't agree that features you don't use equal bloat. If that were the case, every software program (well, anything other than the simplest ones) would be bloated. Features you don't use don't get in your way, and their code doesn't slow anything down.

I don't see iTunes as being an more "inefficient" in memory usage than other programs. I see a number of programs that show high real memory figures without this causing any issues.

To sum up, as this thread really isn't going anyplace, my query has told me the following: one person here has a computer that's somewhat old and not enough RAM, and because of that, iTunes is bloated. On my blog, people have commented on the size of downloads (for Windows), hence iTunes is bloated.

The closest I've been able to come to a real, valid reason is the presence of features that people don't need (or the fact that iTunes, despite its name, handles more than music). I find it hard to criticize any software for excess features these days, and I wonder why "iTunes is bloated" has become a meme, whereas "Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Illustrator is bloated" has not. Heck, my FTP program has features I never use; does that make it bloated? Even my Terminal app has features I don't use... Heck, this forum has tons of features and options I don't use either...

I tend to believe that the majority of software sold today is bloated. Maybe I've just become an old curmudgeon (not easy for a 28 year old to pull off ), but beyond applications that DO require a lot of resources (such as photo, video and audio editing software, major release games, and scientific/design modelling software, among a few other categories) there's no reason for an application to HAVE such a large resource requirement. I mean, why should I spend even $30 on a RAM upgrade for a piece of software that I don't use more than (at most) 50% of the functionality (not naming a specific example, as usage varies from program to program)?

I don't upgrade my PC very often. My current PC is 6 years old. I have no intention of even upgrading it (hardware-wise). There's no need. It does everything I want it to. There's a whole army of people who are like me. Granted, I'm not sure how many of us use Apple computers (I don't tend to, though I'm at least somewhat familiar with them) ... but this thread asks about iTunes and Software Bloat, which can be discussed with minimal regard to OS.

People don't seem to realize just how powerful the equipment they have really is. 90% of the computer owners I know have PCs that are VASTLY overpowered for what they SHOULD need. The remaining 10% are a combination of gamers, designers, programmers and editors, who actually DO need as many resources as are available.

The problem you are facing in this query, Kirk, is that you are caught in the software vendor trap ... the resources are cheap, so people can easily meet the requirements, right? And so, we buy more power for our computers to satisfy the vendor's expectations. With so much room, the vendor keeps adding to the software to make it appeal to as many users as possible, with features targeted to specific user groupings. You get a monster, one-for-all program. I think this is a shame, and is a poor way to manage such a tool.

THAT is the opinion you are running up against when you argue AGAINST the commonly accepted definition of "Software Bloat". You may feel that such a definition is outdated ... but there are many who do not agree with you. In fact, I can probably split my technical contact-base right down the middle and put those that agree with you on one side and those that don't on the other. I am firmly in the second camp.

I hope that whatever article you write will address this dichotomy, and not simply dismiss a good half of the computing world's general opinion on what software SHOULD be.

[xed_over]

To sum up, as this thread really isn't going anyplace, my query has told me the following: one person here has a computer that's somewhat old and not enough RAM, and because of that, iTunes is bloated. On my blog, people have commented on the size of downloads (for Windows), hence iTunes is bloated.

and there are still many more people with older computers who don't bother to comment

the age of the computer and its low ram is not, in and of itself, what makes software bloated. But when software becomes bloated, it can no longer run efficiently on older equipment. Because in spite of the fact that these people are usually reluctant, for what ever reason, to upgrade their equipment, many may still want some of the latest and greatest features of their favorite software. It should be possible to add many new features without having to bloat the software into requiring hardware upgrades as well.

The closest I've been able to come to a real, valid reason is the presence of features that people don't need (or the fact that iTunes, despite its name, handles more than music). I find it hard to criticize any software for excess features these days, and I wonder why "iTunes is bloated" has become a meme, whereas "Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Photoshop/Dreamweaver/Illustrator is bloated" has not. Heck, my FTP program has features I never use; does that make it bloated? Even my Terminal app has features I don't use... Heck, this forum has tons of features and options I don't use either...

having more and more features that people don't want or use, in and of itself, doesn't make software bloated, but it is a high contributing factor.

consider the vi verses emacs debates. vi users consider emacs to be bloated. Its a large binary requiring many other dependent libraries and a huge memory footprint. When all you want to do is edit a small text file, indeed, emacs seems to be overkill.

But for emacs fans, who often use all those extra features, bloat doesn't enter their minds until they are considering upgrading from version 19 to version 22, because not the feature set they use is still mostly the same, but the binaries are even larger and the memory footprint even greater.

I have and use a MacBook for my primary computer (when not at work). Its at least 4 years old. I hate to upgrade -- primarily because it cost me more money, and little to no new benefit.

When I want to listen to music, I only want an application to play my music. I don't need it to sort, spindle, mutilate or fold it. ITunes is the bloated equivalent of emacs -- I am an emacs fan, but I know when a swiss army knife is overkill for opening my postal mail.

Every few weeks, it seems, the automatic software updater is prompting me to upgrade to yet another new version of iTunes, and each one is bigger than the one before (diskspace usage, and memory footprint). There's not yet any monetary cost to upgrade, but soon I fear I'll be forced to upgrade my computer in order to get the necessary iTunes upgrade to support whichever iPod/iPad/iPhone/iMusicPlayerBackThingy I want to use.

Yes, if there are features I don't want or will ever use, then, for my needs, that software has become bloated -- that includes your latest FTP client, terminal server app, whatever.

Software bloat is a term used to describe the tendency of newer computer programs to have a larger installation footprint, or have many unnecessary features that are not used by end users, or just generally use more system resources than necessary, while offering little or no benefit to its users.

So, the question you have indirectly asked is: "Is iTunes adding more and more features that users don't need? And/or has the installation footprint been increasing"

So far, it sounds like users have been saying, "Yes"

[kirkmc]

I hope that whatever article you write will address this dichotomy, and not simply dismiss a good half of the computing world's general opinion on what software SHOULD be.

<snip>

I wonder how many people are using computers that are 6 years old. I upgrade my hardware roughly every three years, because, in part, for my work I need to be more or less current. I tend to see a lot of people I know - those not in the business like me - upgrading every 3 or 4 years, though Macs tend to be functional longer than PCs, so there are a fair amount of people who keep Macs as much as 6 years.

I can certainly sympathize with your opinion that much software is bloated. I don't necessarily agree, but I can understand where you're coming from. I find it interesting that people who are into games hardly every call games that require new graphics cards, more RAM and 10 GB of disk space bloated, but are more than happy to upgrade their computers often.

[xed_over]

I wonder how many people are using computers that are 6 years old.

rasied my hand already

I find it interesting that people who are into games hardly every call games that require new graphics cards, more RAM and 10 GB of disk space bloated, but are more than happy to upgrade their computers often.

of course new game software is also bloated

Commander Keen still fits on a 1 meg floppy disk.

[kirkmc]

having more and more features that people don't want or use, in and of itself, doesn't make software bloated, but it is a high contributing factor.

consider the vi verses emacs debates. vi users consider emacs to be bloated. Its a large binary requiring many other dependent libraries and a huge memory footprint. When all you want to do is edit a small text file, indeed, emacs seems to be overkill.

But for emacs fans, who often use all those extra features, bloat doesn't enter their minds until they are considering upgrading from version 19 to version 22, because not the feature set they use is still mostly the same, but the binaries are even larger and the memory footprint even greater.

I have and use a MacBook for my primary computer (when not at work). Its at least 4 years old. I hate to upgrade -- primarily because it cost me more money, and little to no new benefit.

When I want to listen to music, I only want an application to play my music. I don't need it to sort, spindle, mutilate or fold it. ITunes is the bloated equivalent of emacs -- I am an emacs fan, but I know when a swiss army knife is overkill for opening my postal mail.

Every few weeks, it seems, the automatic software updater is prompting me to upgrade to yet another new version of iTunes, and each one is bigger than the one before (diskspace usage, and memory footprint). There's not yet any monetary cost to upgrade, but soon I fear I'll be forced to upgrade my computer in order to get the necessary iTunes upgrade to support whichever iPod/iPad/iPhone/iMusicPlayerBackThingy I want to use.

Yes, if there are features I don't want or will ever use, then, for my needs, that software has become bloated -- that includes your latest FTP client, terminal server app, whatever.

Software bloat is a term used to describe the tendency of newer computer programs to have a larger installation footprint, or have many unnecessary features that are not used by end users, or just generally use more system resources than necessary, while offering little or no benefit to its users.

So, the question you have indirectly asked is: "Is iTunes adding more and more features that users don't need? And/or has the installation footprint been increasing"

So far, it sounds like users have been saying, "Yes"

I've never been involved in the vi vs emacs debate, but isn't it less a question of "resources" than one of complexity? Being command-line programs, they are harder to learn, because you have to memorize things, than GUI programs.

I certainly respect much of what you say, but talking about the disk space that a program like iTunes uses is pretty minor. After all, it's not taking up much _more_ disk space, because it's replacing your existing program. And, to be honest, at least on Mac, I haven't seen a big increase in memory requirements for iTunes. Anyway, how would you know that if you don't upgrade?

I think the "installation footprint" - ie disk space - argument is specious at best. I only see that as an issue with games, or with, say, Adobe Creative Suite. Talking about a program that's less than 200 MB on the disk as taking up a lot of space with the size of hard disks people have (even with your 4-year old Mac) is looking at a non-problem. If you're that short on disk space, you have other problems than just a single program to worry about.

As to your final point, I don't think users have been saying "yes". I think a small subset of users have. Interestingly, the comments on my blog are mostly in the "no" camp, and many comments I've gotten elsewhere seem to agree with that sentiment. I think there are a handful of tech writers who have grabbed onto this meme and propagated it, but when asking others, I've found that, in many cases, people who said "yes" then considered what they said, and, instead of just "yessing" out of reflex, came back and said that, in fact, they didn't feel that way.

Do have a look at the comments on my blog post. There are some interesting points there, which have not been raised here.