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Audio corruption has been reported by several Windows iTunes users in a thread on Apple's Discussion boards. Cipher reported that 'ALL of the songs in my library are extremely distorted when I play them. There is crackeling [sic], static, skipping, and they sound like garbage', with several others replying with the same issues. Playback in other applications, such as the QuickTime player, is unaffected, and some have been able to restore audio quality via a suggested fix.

Problems also seem to be arising from iTunes' new Gapless Playback feature, at least according to AliXandre's post in another thread.

'Let's say you have a song in your library that gradually fades out and the last seconds it has no sound at all,' AliXandre wrote. 'If you play that song in iTunes 7, iTunes will freeze momentarily and the next song in your library or playlist will skip like a really scratched vinyl until you pause the song.'

AliXandre said that the problem began after iTunes 7 had scanned his music library for 'gapless albums information', which it does automatically when it is first launched. He added that the feature is 'absolutely useless'.

'I have a couple of gapless albums and iTunes didn't recognize them as gapless, and I had to select them manually and apply the gapless album setting in Get Info),' he wrote.

Although Apple has yet to respond to these claims, its record in fixing iTunes problems

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has hitherto been very good.

One issue that is has addressed is that of Mac users who have found that they can no longer stream music via AirPort and AirPort Express. Apple explains that the problem occurs where IPv6 networking, which is on by default, has been disabled. AirPort is restored once IPv6 is re-enabled via the Network System Preferences.

A couple of other points regarding iTunes 7 have also been raised. Mac OS X Hints noticed that Apple's iTunes Overview reveals that the application now supports multiple libraries, although Apple does not elaborate.

'After poking around in the prefs, menus, contextual menus, etc., it dawned on me that they are probably referring to multiple libraries iPhoto style - i.e. you only get to use one library at a time, not have multiple libraries show up in the side bar. So I then restarted iTunes with the Option [alt] key down and voilà- it asked me to "Choose iTunes Library" or create a new one,' Mac OS X Hints explained.

What it does not do is enable you to have multiple libraries on several drives and access them all at once. This may become essential as users libraries grow ever larger, now that Apple is trying to make video as much a part of iTunes as music is.

Another change is the creation of a new artwork folder for storing those album cover images that have been added using iTunes's new import feature. Previously artwork was embedded in a song file's ID3 tags in a portable format; now it is stored separately in a proprietary .itc format (not to mention an arcane folder structure), unless you add the artwork manually by downloading it from the Web and dropping it into iTunes.

As the decaffeinated blog explains, this means that artwork is no longer portable, although it is simple enough to reimport the art for copied or moved songs, and that OS X's iTunes Artwork screensaver no longer works.