Apple Windows iTunes Developers: Please Read

Question

Seriously, as a professional software engineer, can I BEG you to read http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/s3w9x78e(VS.80).aspx. Its really not a difficult function, ALL, and I MEAN ALL of your I/O belongs in a THREAD! You can use http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9tdesxec(VS.80).aspx to update your progress dialogs. Its THAT simple. Yes, it is. Read it again, and again, and again, heck heres, a highly oversimplified example!!! Yes, feel free to use any of that...There is NO GOOD REASON as a WINDOWS APP to grab the focus EVERY 10 SECONDS! Thats just a hack to prevent windows from saying this program is not responding, and any developer sees right through it. Quit with the lazy programming, and put your I/O in a thread where it belongs (or I suppose ASynchronous I/O would be acceptable), and stop interrupting me every 10 seconds while my iPhone updates! Seriously!!! Knock Knock? Who's there? Interrupting Jeeves. Interrupting Jee....INTERRUPTING JEEVES!!!!!! yeah, iTunes is kinda like that, over and over and over again. Even better to note, the windows API for threads mostly maps pretty easily to POSIX threads, so you could do something VERY similar to the thread portion of that code, and have it work on both platforms. I've written thin POSIX layers for windows with some inline functions, and a lot of #defines. Or, you could just use a cross platform system like QT. Its LGPL now, it works on Mac OSX, Linux, and Windows, same code compiles on all three. You could easily bring iTunes to linux and open up a whole new market! That might be the smart thing to do....probably why I do stuff like this every single day...
Seriously though, and I mean seriously, PUT YOUR I/O IN A THREAD!!!!!!!!
----Begin oversimplified code example-------
#include <stdafx.h>
#include "iPhoneUpdateProgressDialog.h"
#define WM_IPHONEUPDATEMESSAGE WM_USER+1
#define IPHONEMESSAGE_UPDATING=0
#define IPHONEMESSAGE_RESTORING=1
#define IPHONEMESSAGEWHATEVER_TYPES_YOU_WISH_TOSEND=2..n
class iPhoneUpdater
public:
static UINT AFX_CDECL UpdateThreadCreator(LPVOID lpParameter);
protected:
void InternalUpdateThread();
BOOL SendSomeMoreData();
void UpdateiPhone();
//I like seperate blocks for my data...just a style thing...
protected:
//I don't like private data...I always come across some arrogant OOP
//programmers private data and think, I NEED to modify that in my
//derived class...why make something trivial private?
CiPhoneUpdateProgressDialog* m_pProgressDialog;
CWinThread* m_pThread;
//This will run in the new thread context, but serves just to get us back into
//the class context, so we have access to our private and protected members
//again. Its not tough to keep straight...
UINT AFX_CDECL iPhoneUpdater::UpdateThreadCreator(LPVOID lpParameter)
iPhoneUpdater* self=(iPhoneUpdater*)lpParameter;
self->InternalUpdateThread();
return 42; //why 42? Its the answer to the meaning of life the universe and
//everything of course! We could
iPhoneUpdater::InternalUpdateThread()
//Yup, still in the new thread context, dont directly access gui elements
//from here...Use PostMessage instead...
BOOL bRet=SendSomeMoreData();
while(bRet)
bRet=SendSomeMoreData();
iPhoneUpdater::SendSomeMoreData()
//Yup, still in the new thread context, dont directly access gui elements
//from here...Use PostMessage instead...
unsigned int PercentComplete=0;
//Do some apple proprietary crap here which updates PercentComplete
//Yup, that simple to update the GUI Dialog across thread boundries. I do
//this *ALL THE TIME*. Not a big deal at all!!! No need to grab focus
//away from other apps every 10 seconds so windows doesn't think iTunes
//isn't responding, and block people from doing what they might otherwise
//do...you can thank me by implementing it...
mpProgressDialog->PostMessage(WMIPHONEUPDATEMESSAGE,
(WPARAM)IPHONEMESSAGE_UPDATING,
(LPARAM)PercentComplete);
void iPhoneUpdater::UpdateiPhone()
//At this point we are in the GUI thread...however, UpdateThreadCreator
//will run in the new thread context, AfxBeginThread will return
//immedatly...
m_pThread=AfxBeginThread(UpdateThreadCreator, (LPVOID)this);
//Simple right?
}

Answer 1

Suggestions to Apple will be best submitted through the iTunes feedback page. Your comments will be most likely to get to the proper people within Apple that way. Everyone here is by and large just a fellow user.
Regards.