Report-an-Apple-bug Friday! 6

part two of a two-fer. I did this one with proper capitals because the last paragraph was pretty long and I couldn't think of a good way to break it up. the capitals were my second-choice clean-up method.

this bug is iTunes provides no UI for downloading a new episode on a multi-pass.

UPDATE 2006-03-11: Simone Manganelli mentioned in the comments that I failed to mention that you can Check for Purchases to get new updates (see Multi-pass implementation sucks). everything he said there is correct. mea culpa. :)

I also noticed when I went to edit this that I did not link to the bug report. oops. fixed.

UPDATE 2006-03-14: somebody has put “ITMS: ” in front of the bug's title.

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Summary:

iTunes needs to provide explicit UI for downloading new episodes of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Receive the email notification that a new episode is available.
2. Launch iTunes.

Expected Results:

one or more of:

1. iTunes presents a dialog box that you have episodes waiting to be downloaded, offering to add them to your shopping cart if that is enabled, offering to download them immediately otherwise.
2. iTunes presents a Growl notification that you have episodes waiting to be downloaded. (OK, so I wasn't expecting it, but it would be nice. :)
3. The iTunes Music Store offers a section listing episodes you haven't downloaded yet. Perhaps on the Account Information page, being that the notification email tells you to "sign in". If you try to do this while already signed in, you go to the Account Information page.

Actual Results:

You must sign out and then sign in again to receive the new episode(s).

Regression:

None known.

Notes:

At the very least, the email should point out that you must sign out before signing in if you are already signed in (because signing in does work when you are already signed in, and it has a different result that doesn't include checking for new multi-pass episodes).

Even better would be a clearer, more explicit UI for checking for and downloading multi-pass episodes. Such UI should include the shopping cart if it is turned on. Though a multi-pass is similar in operation to a podcast, it is not present in the Podcasts source at all; it is, instead, in the Music Store, so multi-pass downloads should behave as any other Music Store download, i.e. go through the shopping cart.

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