Is it safe to download iTunes from a Retroactive site?

False. Unless by "most," you mean "make the songs visible and allow me to add or delete songs." However, this is a small fraction of what ITunes could do before Apple replaced it with Music. You can no longer make or edit Playlists. You can no longer organize songs by Date Added. You can no longer listen to songs on a desktop by plugging your iPod into a USB port. I could go on and on. Please don't pretend that Music offers any real level of functionality for iPods. Apple chose to eliminate their functionality in an attempt to push Apple Music and streaming instead of iTunes and downloading. It was a choice that hurt 99% of musical artists as well as those of us who prefer supporting them. But the choice was made, and they should own up to it. They no longer want to support the iPod/iTunes model, so they should get out of the way and allow third party apps to offer this service instead.

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I still sync an iPod classic on Sonoma. Playlists are created in music app and you have the option to create playlist by date added.

Jim

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I am sitting in front of an iMac running Sonoma 14.5. In the Finder, I can double click on the iPod icon, and it opens a window which reads:

Calendars>

Contacts>

ipc_copyrecord

ipc_logs>

Notes>

Recordings>

touchcopy.lock

None of these gives me an option to sync manually or make a playlist.

I also have the Music app open with my iPod connected under Devices. When I click on the iPod, it says the name of the device at the top, and below this the amount of total memory and memory available. Below this is a list of songs on the iPod. When I right click on a song NOTHING HAPPENS. When I click on a song, I have the option of deleting it. It will not play, it will not add to a playlist, it will not do anything else. If I try to create a playlist using the File>New> command, a playlist is created on the Music app. That playlist does not exist on my iPod.

When I disconnect the iPod, I can then use the iPod's screen to look at its contents, including the many playlists I made back when I could run iTunes. I do have the option of creating an "On the Go" playlist by laboriously finding each song by artist and title, holding down the home button, and adding it. I cannot change the order of those songs or name the playlist or edit it in any other way, other than to delete it.

When iTunes existed, I plugged in my iPod, and the songs appeared. I could order them several different ways, including by date added. I could make a playlist in iTunes that would then be available on my iPod. I frequently did this. I did not dream it. It happened.

I am not making up what my computer screen looks like. It's actually that way.

Please stop trying to gaslight me by telling me that what I am experiencing is not happening. It's silly.

You love Apple and want to defend it. That's great. I'm disappointed in Apple for destroying the experience of using iPods, which I treasured. We can disagree about this. Just please stop trying to convince me that I'm crazy.

There is no version of iTunes that will run on your iMac that is running macOS 12.6. The iTunes app for Mac computers was discontinued and replaced when macOS Catalina was released. It cannot be installed on Macs that are running Catalina or later. See the following Apple article for information about the replacement apps: What happened to iTunes? - Apple Support

Retroactive is a third-party tool that will patch copies of various old Apple applications to run on newer versions of macOS. As a technology demonstration, it's pretty impressive – but it doesn't make every feature work on newer versions of macOS. The patched applications are unsupported and could break at any time with very little way for a non-technical user to do anything about it. So I wouldn't suggest relying on it for production work.

As for whether it is "safe" to download, I would be hesitant to download Retroactive itself from anything other than a trusted development site. I would not suggest downloading pirated copies of Apple applications (whether these had allegedly been patched with Retroactive, or not) from any site. Aside from legality, such copies might well be distribution vectors for malware.

It's my understanding that the replacement apps in Catalina (and later) cover most of what iTunes used to do, so you might want to start using them.

Are we talking about doing this on an iPod? I have my iPod connected to Music. Right clicking any song on the list does nothing. There is no list of Playlists from the iPod. There is no way to organize the songs on the iPod by Date Added. The only options available for the music on the iPod is delete or add. I'm running Sonoma, so maybe that's the difference?

I totally agree with PaulConnieZ.

I have an iPod Classic 160gb and I use it as a mediaplayer for my music collection, which I don’t want to store on my HD with Sonoma. I don’t use sync nor streaming.

When connecting the iPod Classis by usb to my mbp with Sonoma, I don’t see its playlists in the sidebar, nor can’t I create playlists directly on the iPod either in the Music app.

File > New > Playlist will create a playlist in my Music library, not on the iPod.

On an old mpb with High Sierra and iTunes 12.8.3 the sidebar displays the iPod’s playlists fine (created in that same iTunes)

The most disturbing however about the desktop Music app is that I no longer can listen to songs from my iPod on the new Sonoma mpb with its fabulous speakers. Hence Music has turned into a total BS app since I don’t use streaming; I have my own collection of bought cd’s converted to mp3 I listen to.

Sofar I haven’t found a third party app which allows me to listen to my iPod library on my mbp. I could apparantly, but then I must use the iPod Classic as an external HD which makes the iPod Classic as a portable player useless. So I must keep both mpb’s til the end of time because Apple’s disabled functional flow of its Music app, not respecting its users’ workflow, at least not in an “inclusive” way, nowadays’ fad.

Beyond annoying.

Hi,

I concur with Servant of the Cat comments. I would add that since Catalina, finder is used to sync iPod Use the Finder to sync your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with your Mac – Apple Support (UK)

I still sync an iPod classic on Sonoma. Playlists are created in music app and you have the option to create playlist by date added.

Jim

You add songs to playlists on the Mac, in the Mac's Music Library. Not in any view of the iPod that shows up in the Finder synchronization window. Then once you have playlists set up in the Music Library on the Mac, the Finder will be able to synchronize the playlists to the iPod.

That's how it should work if the Finder/Music combination works in the same way that iTunes did. But you're not doing that. You seem to expect to be able to work on the iPod directly. That's not how it worked even in iTunes.

Sync music between your Mac and iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support

Hi,

Have you replied to the correct post? This one is “Is it safe to download iTunes from a Retroactive site?”

Jim

PaulConnieZ wrote:

False. Unless by "most," you mean "make the songs visible and allow me to add or delete songs." However, this is a small fraction of what ITunes could do before Apple replaced it with Music. You can no longer make or edit Playlists.

I'm running Music under Ventura. Did a right-click on a song, then selected Add To Playlist, and Music created a new playlist – no problem. Dragged and dropped another song to the playlist – no problem.

Apple could have made playlist creation more obvious by having a control to create a new, empty playlist as well, but the ability to create and edit playlists is there.

You can no longer organize songs by Date Added.

Funny. I just changed to the "as Songs" view, used View > Show View Options to add a Date Added column, then clicked on the column header to do a sort.

It's been ages since I connected any of my iPods to a Mac, so I was using iTunes when I loaded them. I'm not sure that I used playlists much, either. I'd load up an iPod with a wide assortment of favorite albums, and then just play albums through headphones, or recharge it, neither of which required connecting it to a Mac again.

Still,I believe that you could never create playlists on an iPod itself (*). You set up everything that you wanted your iPod to hold, on your Mac, using iTunes, then had the Mac load part or all of its iTunes Library onto the iPod.

(*) With the possible exception of the iPod touch. It runs the same operating system as an iPhone.

Servant of Cats wrote:

Apple could have made playlist creation more obvious by having a control to create a new, empty playlist as well, but the ability to create and edit playlists is there.

No control in the Music window sidebar.

I did miss what should have been an obvious one: the File > New menu.

MacEs wrote:

I totally agree with PaulConnieZ.

I have an iPod Classic 160gb and I use it as a mediaplayer for my music collection, which I don’t want to store on my HD with Sonoma. I don’t use sync nor streaming.

The model with iTunes was always that "classic" iPods – by which I mean any iPods other than the iPod touch – got copies of songs that were in the iTunes Library on a master Mac or PC. Not that you could load songs on the iPod without storing them on the Mac or PC.

If the Music application is behaving in this way with respect to your iPod classic, this is not a downgrade – but a continuation of the way things always worked under iTunes.

The most disturbing however about the desktop Music app is that I no longer can listen to songs from my iPod on the new Sonoma mpb with its fabulous speakers. Hence Music has turned into a total BS app since I don’t use streaming; I have my own collection of bought cd’s converted to mp3 I listen to.

If your Mac had the master copies of the purchased songs on your iPod classic, then you could play those songs directly from the Mac. No attaching the iPod required. No Apple Music streaming subscription required, either.

The model with iTunes was always that "classic" iPods – by which I mean any iPods other than the iPod touch – got copies of songs that were in the iTunes Library on a master Mac or PC. Not that you could load songs on the iPod without storing them on the Mac or PC.

It might have been the model with iTunes as you describe, but I was able anyway to drag my mp3’s from an external HD in the Finder directly to the iPod Classic in iTunes. This is certainly not a game breaking problem now though, because I can easily copy my mp3‘s to my HD, load them in Music, and drag and drop them onto the iPod. So I was not talking about this as a “downgrade” at all.

The big downgrade related, and reason of being nearly useless, is that songs can’t be edited anymore directly on an iPod or iPhone SE in the Music app. The big downgrade, which makes it really useless for me, is the fact that I no longer can listen to music from my iPod connected to my mbp in Music, my way of using it since I bought my first iPod clickwheel 20 years ago.

If your Mac had the master copies of the purchased songs on your iPod classic, then you could play those songs directly from the Mac. No attaching the iPod required. No Apple Music streaming subscription required, either.

I’m not sure what you mean. The purchased cd’s have been imported at the time in iTunes, converted to mp3 on the HD clearly (and backupped to an external HD), and then copied to my iPod. After, I removed them from my mbp’s HD, clearing up space. So my iPod is my media player on the go, and when in the office, I want to connect it to my mbp in order to enjoy the fabulous sound of the M3’s speakers. But apparantly I’m demanding something impossible, which previously was a pretty straight way of using it, imho.

And I don’t get why the Music app no longer displays more columns on connected iPhone/iPod devices, for example date added. Removing clutter which wasn’t clutter in the first place.

[Edited by Moderator]

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