Apple really are a bunch of bastards.
When the Apple TV was first launched, along with FrontRow, it was a great place to view movies and TV shows you’d ripped from DVD. Then Apple started selling movies and shows and they changed the interface for stuff you owned to be just that little bit less friendly than it used to be.
That wasn’t too bad. People complained. Apple ignored them. Life went on.
Then they launched iCloud with 1080p.
The latest version of iTunes that supports all this new magic completely screws over your personal TV library. It presents it to the Apple TV in an almost random order, making it impossible to find the shows you own and want to watch.
This is not a bug. This is a deliberate attempt by Apple to force you to re-buy the shows you already own through the iCloud.
The solution should be simple. Revert to the old version of iTunes. Except they thought of that, and you can’t. Try installing an old version and it will tell you can’t because there’s a newer one installed. Try uninstalling the newer one, and you’ll discover you can’t because “it’s an essential part of the Mac”. Becoming a Linux guru and forcing a delete at the OS level works, but 90% won’t be able to do that. It’s not documented anywhere.
And that then brings me to my current pain.
I’ve deleted the new iTunes. I’ve installed the old iTunes. And of course, I’ve lost all my playlists, the album ratings, my play counts, everything.
Apple really are a bunch of bastards.
And I’m a fan-boy.
[UPDATE] Apparently I was wrong. Hold the presses. Apple are claiming 10.6.1 fixes the sorting issue. I’ve not tried it yet.
Come on, talk to us!