There's just one problem. I use an iPhone. I can't disable it.

Sorry, can someone explain to a Linux/Android guy how having an iPhone implies you can't kill misbehaving software on your Windows box?

I haven't attached my iPhone to my PC in months.

gtfo

I tried to use iTunes once, but I couldn't complete the installations because a required entry drop down list wasn't in the dialog tab order, and I didn't have a mouse available, just a keyboard at that time.

Their graphics/design guys are good, but Apple developers/testers just seem lazy to me, missing something so basic.

And replace it with the Rainmeter skin that plays MP3s.

The reason is two-fold. First, iTunes scans your folders for new files periodically if you don't let it manage your collection for you. Second, it's constantly searching for an iDevice using the 'mobile' service; All that CPU is being eaten making windows calls to each attached USB bus and being asked "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" And then, of course, launching iTunes as soon as one is detected. You can disable this service with no ill-effect, but you have to do it manually. iTunes will then throw up a warning and then continue on its merry. That, by the way, is also on the Apple message boards.

Now yes, Apple shouldn't have done this without telling its users: Hey, enabling this is gonna slow your junk down! -- But on the flip, Microsoft's hardware abstraction layer is a terrible, horrible, implimentation that makes every access from userspace terribly expensive. And worse? Some of the documentation specifically says they want it that way! On purpose! Everytime I have to work with HAL I'm filled with a strong urge to strip all my clothes off, burn them, then take a cold shower while shivering up in the corner, scrubbing my skin raw, chanting "must...wash...away...the sin..."

I guess what I'm saying is... Shame on both of them. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another shower to take.

Sometimes I swear Apple makes the Windows versions of their software terrible on purpose. It's still an uphill battle trying to use any of their software on a windows machine, as it always has been.

Why?
Obviously when you're using their amazing iPhone or iPad or whatever other tacky Apple gadget, you'll start to feel that your PC isn't up to par and you should replace it with a Mac.

Total rubbish. People should avoid buying trashy Apple products at all costs, lest they support this fiefdom.

full disclosure: I have used Linux exclusively for the past 13 years. I only have to interact with Apple and Microsoft's junk when I have to sync my wife's iPad with her PC.

How is this news? Oh right, it's not - It says so right in the title.

Can I start submitting stories about how h.264 conversion consumes CPU cycles? I mean, it theoretically doesn't need to - I can fathom a zero-work scenario where it just happens. I can even give a play-by-play about how I open my system monitor to verify performance. Amazing stuff!

Honestly. How did this BS make it to the frontpage.

Anything you can do with apple products you can do with other products, usually while maintaining a crisper digital environment.

You get what you settle for.

I have an iPhone too, never use iTunes... why do you need iTunes for ? The iOS features aren't that "progressive" anyway... and they can be done via wifi nowadays!

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-ditch-itunes-forever-and-keep-syncing-your-ios-d-505568915

Crapping up Windows PCs helps perpetuate the myth that Macs are inherently faster/better.

Seriously, who the fuck screens these?

Steve Jobs death I believe was because his accusation of accusing Flash as being crappy software while iTunes remained by far the worse POS ever written, literally guilted Mr. Jobs to death.

Seriously though...I've never wasted more time than I have with iTunes. Never had any app cause my system to become unresponsive more. I would wager $5,000 Apple deliberately chose to make for a sucky experience on Windows.

A similar google service on my MacBook causes the keyboard to stutter every few hours and occasionally disables the camera until I reboot. There's a way to disable it, but I haven't bothered yet. However, the process is incredibly similar to this one [apple.com] for disabling applemobiledeviceservice on Windows.

Mac users don't complain because iTunes on Mac doesn't have this problem, or much of any problem that I've noticed. This is either because Apple doesn't know how or care to code for Windows, or because it's a conspiracy to get iPhone and iTunes users to buy Macs because "Windows is slow." In my opinion, it's probably a mixture. Apple just doesn't have as much incentive to provide a good Windows experience, so they don't bother, knowing that this will probably convert a few suckers to Mac.

Similarly, Google services don't seem to screw up Windows or Linux, and Google's MTP support for Mac (MTP is required for Nexus 4) is ridiculously minimal. It's an analogous situation. Vendors for system X don't care about system Y, news at 11.

The solution seems simple. Sell your iPhone to a Mac user, and buy an Android device. Why would you even buy an iPhone for Windows? I use a Mac and I still won't buy one.

What garbage. Why would a phone require some magic software on a computer to function?

Install iTunes in a VM if you want to update your gadget to it's latest OS and then delete again. It doesn't happen very often.

So, I program a bit, and because of that, I have some VM's sitting on my system to test in different environments. I actually use one of the VMs as an 'iTunes' box whenever I want to plug it in.

Normally idle time is allocated to System Idle Processes. If you do something on idle (basically timers with zero interval that fire and return immediately), it will allocate the idle time to the process doing that.

So you get
timer(0) fired,
nothing done,
return immediately,
timer(0) fired,
nothing,
return,
timer(0),
nothing,
return...

The reality is a timer of zero will not fire until after other threads/processes have had their share, so if they process for say, 100ms, then the timer(0) actually won't fire until at least 100ms.

timer(0) fired, nothing done, return,
Other process works, A LOT OF STUFF DONE, return 100ms later,
timer(0), nothing, return...

Now the thread using 100ms is clearly the thread doing work, the idle thread is returning immediately, yet on the task manager it will look like the idle thread is using all the processing power up! So now you think your pc is slow because of the idle thread, when in fact its the thread doing 10ms of work.

However, when I'm faced with these, usually perception beats common sense, and I change it to a timer(1) which is fast enough for most idle cases and yet enough to stop Windows task manager getting confused.

this is the service that auto-launches itunes? if it gives you trouble, disable it, and run itunes manually. It doesn't auto-launch itunes half the time anyway. Also, call Applecare and report it. The way this works is that they will charge you $19 if they can resolve the issue. If they can't because it's a bug, (or don't think they can), they won't. If you have Applecare on your iphone, this issue is covered. If you have an apple store near you, you can schedule a genius bar appt. This issue is automatically covered because it's software.

I have to admit. I work on PCs for a living, as do most of us here. The only time I've ever seen itunes slow down a PC was due to what was clearly a video card driver issue. It is not the best behaved software on PCs, but I've never seen an issue like you are describing.

Make sure you are running the latest version of iTunes also. It just got redone. Grab the download from the apple website, rather than relying on apple software update.

In subtextual response to MS Office slowing down macs for 15 years. It's a cold war.

iTunes is shit. It has always been shit. It will probably always be shit.

This is not news.

http://www.foobar2000.org

ITunes is not just slow on windows, in leaves huge (256m per usage) *.tmp files in your ITunes folder everytime it starts up. I freed over 60 gigabytes by removing them recently. (I have a rather large MP3 library...)

Well I was going to say, "who gives a shit" followed by "I kill bullshit processes just because I'm a control freak, fuck the performance implications (good or bad)," but then I thought wait-- you don't understand what that output means or you wouldn't give a shit. This is something I learned not so long ago, so let me share.

It doesn't mean that 50% of your processor is being used and the other 50% isn't... Whenever your processor runs, it runs at 100% its capability always. That's how it works. When you see the statistic "CPU at 50%" it means it's only processing 50% of the time. So 50% of the time it could be computing something, it is, the other 50% it's twiddling its proverbial thumbs... Any process that uses additional percentage points is getting the full capabilities of the processor; at a time it's normally not being used. ... so should your computational needs be less than 100% of your computer's resources, then you are fine, and if anything it's under utilized. As a result there's no reason to stop processes (outside of concerns of power consumption).

One love,
tehprofessor

p.s. You can kill the process; I have a mac (had windows worked there too) and kill the iTunes daemon... iPhone works fine. iTunes works fine.

Not a whole lot of proof here. The person wrote an article for a magazine claiming that this service used a lot of CPU. He didn't measure it. He didn't try to discover if there might be something else causing it to misbehave. He just wrote an "oh noes! Apple sux!" article.

SlashDot standards continue to slide...

...to make the windows experience suck.

have jumped the whole l33t iphone bs, get a samsung already and be done

Think about it: If you had a very popular product that forced your customers into downloading your software on to a competing company's competing product, wouldn't you do a little sabotage? It's a wonderful opportunity is it not? Make the software to reduce the overall performance - not by alot. You can't have your sudo-virus waving a big flag in the air letting everyone know its true nature. - Just enough to cause your computer to feel obsolete a few years sooner than it normally would. Only the few folks with the know-how to keep an eye on their computer's performance will realize the culprit in disguise. End result: Force your competitor's customers into upgrading their systems sooner, and perhaps even persuade them to switch to your product.

But maybe I'm just paranoid, right?

Windows ITunes is not just slow; it leaves gigantic *.tmp files in your Itunes folder, especially if you have a large library. Go ahead..check it out. I freed up over 60 gigabytes of space by deleting them recently, and I think they are created everytime you load ITunes.

I found that the only way to fix the iTunes problem is to blow it away and sometimes, reinstall Windows.

iTunes ate my daughter's laptop so bad it was not funny. That is why she now has a Samsung Galaxy III and a Samsung Galaxy tablet. She no longer uses her iPod at all.

In addition to the iTunes issue, my daughter's iPod has lost the WEP key so often, my daughter actually memorized the WEP key from repeated entry. Two of my other daughters have iPhone 5's (which they both are growing to hate), and those often lose their wifi keys as well.

I myself refuse to use Apple products because of their cavalier attitude about stealing other people's intellectual property or to quote Steve Jobs, "good artists copy, great artists steal.......".

First world problem.

I have an iPhone but sync to the cloud. My pc does have the apple control panel to download photostream, but not iTunes! Works better on a pc than a Mac.

ditch iTunes and use iFunBox instead.

Instead of migrating away from iPhone, why wouldn't you migrate away from Windows? iTunes on a Mac is not exactly high-performance, but it also doesn't really impact the system.

It just seems like you are heading towards more pain, not less.

But the thing I find odd is, why are you even running iTunes at all? I have an iPhone too and I only run iTunes to play music, I've not connected used it with the iPhone for a few years now.

I refuse to use iTunes. I refuse to buy any Apple device that will require me to use it. Any time I do have to use one anyways, I find a workaround (like finding a way to stream from VLC to AirPort). And even on my Mac (never paid a dime to Apple for it), on my OS X partition, I don't use iTunes.

It's that bad.

I stopped reading when I got to the bit about how his virus scanner was written in assembly for speed. This is a ridiculous assertion given that virus scanners slow the system down because of IO pressure, not to mention how good modern x86 compilers are.