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You are not logged in. [Log In] AppleCentral » Forums » Mobile Technologies » iPhone Apps, AppStore, and iTunes » Why is iTunes not 64-bit?
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#545887 - 12/01/10 12:58 AM Why is iTunes not 64-bit?
John Rougeux Offline
Member # -1

Registered: 11/06/08
Posts: 6095
Loc: Louisville, KY
I just noticed this tonight in Activity Monitor:

Click for large view


Why isn't iTunes 64 bit by now? I would have thought with the release of version 10, that it would have been?

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#545936 - 12/01/10 12:04 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: John Rougeux]
padmavyuha Offline
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Registered: 09/03/03
Posts: 4921
Loc: Dawlish, Deepest Darkest Devon
What's it doing that would benefit from the extra horsepower? If there's not much to be gained, I guess it's a lot easier to just keep it more backwards-compatible by keeping it 32-bit.
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#545987 - 12/01/10 09:04 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: padmavyuha]
carp Offline
Dino's are Babe magnets

Registered: 04/19/02
Posts: 27021
Loc: Hawaii
I believe we went down this road before , many times.

64 bit is memory addressing - nothing about horse power at all.

So having a cloud base delivery system, such as iTunes, then play back on ya machine - I don't think it will be any better then a 32 bit.
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#546057 - 12/02/10 04:34 AM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: carp]
NucleusG4 Offline
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Registered: 04/20/02
Posts: 12486
Loc: Miami, Fl.
Originally Posted By: carp
I believe we went down this road before , many times.

64 bit is memory addressing - nothing about horse power at all.

So having a cloud base delivery system, such as iTunes, then play back on ya machine - I don't think it will be any better then a 32 bit.



The more memory you can address... the more powerful your machine.

Think about it.
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#546103 - 12/02/10 09:32 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: NucleusG4]
carp Offline
Dino's are Babe magnets

Registered: 04/19/02
Posts: 27021
Loc: Hawaii
Originally Posted By: NucleusG4
Originally Posted By: carp
I believe we went down this road before , many times.

64 bit is memory addressing - nothing about horse power at all.

So having a cloud base delivery system, such as iTunes, then play back on ya machine - I don't think it will be any better then a 32 bit.



The more memory you can address... the more powerful your machine.

Think about it.


Not really
I mean, it is just more efficent - not more powerful.
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#546166 - 12/03/10 12:16 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: carp]
padmavyuha Offline
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Registered: 09/03/03
Posts: 4921
Loc: Dawlish, Deepest Darkest Devon
Not that I want to get caught up in this, but I suppose it depends on your definition of 'more powerful'. To me it's contextual: for a particular given task, I think a useful working definition would be 'gets the job done faster'. So for audio or graphics or maths processing (for example), a true 64-bit application working with a lot of ram will be able to move more stuff around per second than one using only 32 bits, assuming the processor is up to the job.

In a non-processor-intensive situation, such as just playing music through speakers (which a 400MHz G4 with 512Mb of ram will do quite happily in iTunes) then 64-bit is superfluous, I think.
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#546201 - 12/03/10 09:29 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: padmavyuha]
carp Offline
Dino's are Babe magnets

Registered: 04/19/02
Posts: 27021
Loc: Hawaii
Correct - Pady
Yep depends on ones point of view.

Analogy if I can. Car engines.

You have a 240 horse power engine - throwing in a high octane gas, will make it run faster --> However the engine is still 240 horse power and certainly not more powerful, ya just fooled it or tricked it into thinking, its faster.
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#546209 - 12/03/10 10:44 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: carp]
leftblank15 Offline


Registered: 12/03/10
Posts: 1
The basic limitation is a hard-drive one.
I think the hard-drive access of the library-size of iTunes is a maximum 4 TeraBytes, which, of course, is greater than the 32-bit addressable limitation of 4 GigaBytes.
iTunes is listed in System Profiler as being a 32-bit application, but this pertains mainly to the maximum RAM/virtual-memory-size of the running executable (assuming, of course, that one has a machine with that much RAM/virtual-memory, with room for the other apps and MacOSX Operating System to spare).
You really don't have all of the iTunes library loaded into RAM/virtual-memory at once.
Theoretically, 64-bits can address 18.44 (decimal) ExaBytes (18.44 quintillion unique combinations), but no one person has that much RAM/virtual-memory.
Even Apple's 64-bit executables don't use that full range.

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#546217 - 12/04/10 09:43 AM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: carp]
padmavyuha Offline
Trans Tomboy™

Registered: 09/03/03
Posts: 4921
Loc: Dawlish, Deepest Darkest Devon
I have to disagree with your analogy, carp - if you choose to use the word 'powerful' just to describe the rated horsepower of the engine (its measured ability to pull against resistance, a standard which is measured assuming a particular grade of fuel), then yes, that hasn't changed.

But the actual horsepower increases when you use a richer fuel - the engine can do more work with the same hardware when you introduce a richer fuel. It's not a trick, it actually happens.

*edit* Someone mentioned getting a Ferrari and only being allowed to drive it in 1st gear. I suppose the analogy here is that driving around the suburb of iTunes, there's no need to be going at 160mph, so top gear (or 64-bit processing) is irrelevant. It's only in places where you actually could drive the hardware that fast (such as maths/graphics etc. contexts) that it would make a noticeable difference if you could go into top gear.


Edited by padmavyuha (12/04/10 10:07 AM)
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#546891 - 12/12/10 06:25 PM Re: Why is iTunes not 64-bit? [Re: padmavyuha]
MacGizmo Offline

What?

Registered: 04/03/02
Posts: 19198
Loc: Arizona
While 64-bit memory addressing will speed up certain operations, like applying filters to massive Photoshop images, or encoding video, I'm not sure iTunes would benefit a whole lot from getting 64-bit. Hard drive speed has more to dow with those operations too.

I suppose if you were converting a ton of MP3s at once it **might** benefit a tad bit, but that really requires processor power and hard drive speed, not RAM power.
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