Is upgrading to iOS 5 faster on a Mac?

Question

As I've mentioned in another question, I want to upgrade an iPod 4th gen to iOS 5. It's currently on iOS 4.latest.

I'm interested in doing this in the fastest possible time. However, I right now all I have are 2 PCs around. However, I'll soon get access to a Mac.

I know (edit:Okay, it apparently is) it's that iTunes on a Mac is not the bloated, slow, ugly monstrosity it is on a PC. In fact, it's quite decent on a Mac. Tons of features are faster and cleaner-looking.

So, my question: Will updating to iOS 5 on a Mac be faster than doing it on a PC?

Answer 1

For what it's worth, iTunes is probably exactly the most bloated and slow software that Apple includes on a Mac, as it's pretty much the only built in app that isn't 64 bit, and until very recently it wasn't even using Cocoa but Carbon APIs which Apple have been telling people not to use for years now.

Having said that, the largest bottleneck is the speed of the USB transfer along with the ability of the iphone to process the update and write to its flash memory and validate it etc, so really I wouldn't expect to see a massive difference.

Answer 2

If you find iTunes is running slow on your PC, of course, just starting up iTunes will be faster on the Mac. But the iOS 5 upgrade process will be just as fast on both devices. The bottleneck in this case is the network connection (to download iOS 5). Then, the installation process takes place on the iPod itself, not on the PC/Mac.