Will the new iTunes 11 still work for power users?

You're right, the innovation is still there, it's just heading in a different direction. Clearly the mobile device market is coming on strongly. Likewise the big push is towards smaller and lighter with more notebook models. Gone are the myriad of desktop models that were the mainstay of the power users 15 years ago.

I don't see why any of the things such as ratings or playcount should vanish. However, most people don't use iTunes for DJ-ing. Again no reason to really keep them but also no reason to get rid to get rid of those things. Apple's step with OSX 10.8 was to make it more iOS-like and I can understand their simplifying the interface of all OSX software except true power user things such as FCP to try to unify it for user simplicity. If that means leaving out something that doesn't fit the iOS model then they it may go. Another aspect of mobiles and even running OSX on many notebooks is smaller screen size and that would influence layout design.

Don't forget Apple has made unimprovements in the past in the interest of simplification. iMovie 08 was pretty unpopular in this regard and had the unheard of effect of Apple actually making iMovie 06 available as a download for purchasers of iLife 08.

I disagree. Apple has added many, many features to iTunes over the years that target the power user. From smart playlists, to obscure things like ID3 tag version control. Power users features are sprinkled throughout iTunes. And to say that Apple doesn't have a "specific committment to produce a certain style product" is true, but also fairly obvious/meaningless.

If it is true then why is it meaningless?

Soundjam has ID3 tag version capability, and so does iTunes 2.0.4. I have both open right now on my computer. It certainly isn't a newer version of iTunes introduction.

Basic music playing has changed a LOT. You couldn't even rate your tracks in the beginning.

Rating isn't a feature of playback but of tagging. They have also removed some things. SJ had an alarm clock. It had a stream broadcaster. My version of iTunes has internet stream buffering settings, which I think are gone in newer versions. I don't think they have added anything in terms of actual music playback from iTunes 7.5 to 10.7 except this DJ thing people are mentioning and I don't think I have heard about here before so it must not be used much (or nobody ever has problems with it). All the new things I see reported here have to do with syncing and iTunes purchases. Yes, movie playback was added, but wasn't that at the same time they started selling movies on the iTunes Store, supporting my thesis about recent improvements basically being marketing associated?

This is simplified to point of meaninglessness. There's an interaction between customers and product design teams. It may not be obvious from the outside, but there's still a give & take. What you're saying is in essence is, "Shut up and accept whatever happens," which is not a rational approach.

Justify your stating it is meaningless. Your arguments are simplistically dismissive.

Yes, iTunes accepts customer feedback. I know about Appleseed. You can give. They do not have to take. You do not have to shut up and accept it. You can complain. If they don't change things to your liking you can go and buy a PC. Those are your choices. My basic statement is any profit making corporation is going to optimize their market. If they decide that in order to simplify their software for the mass consumer (many of whom can barely understand the on/off switch on a computer) they need to get rid of things a very small percentage of power users want (I dont' see a huge number of smart playlist questions here), well guess which way they will go?

iDVD is not a good comparison, because of the vastly different switching costs. I used iDVD, but was fairly unaffected by its slow demise.

I'm not understanding "switching costs". There's nothing to switch. Well, maybe if they want to keep it compatible through the next couple of OS updates, but that's not what I was thinking. They simply pulled it off the market. This wasn't a slow demise. It wasn't gradually recoded into nothingness. It was here in one version of iLife, gone in the next. And I bet there are more grandparents out there that can just about manage a DVD but have no idea about a computer for watching movies that still make iDVD desirable than there are DJs needing some feature on iTunes. Apple could just put the old version of iDVD up on its Mac app page. From the number of requests for iDVD I see on the forums I think Apple cound have kept it for sale for much longer without any real extra effort, but for some reason best known to them they decided not to. And it's not like there's a ready replacement.

iTunes DJ is all about the enjoyment of music with friends, typically in a party situation with Apple Remote app for iPod or iPhone turning EVERYONE into the DJ allowing them to vote music in a playlist to the top of the list.

My friends are not nerds, yet they all love it because it's easy to understand and it works.

Just an example of how Apple use their iTunes ecosystem to great effect and then build on enhancements over time -- for example, being able to limit song selection to certain playlists (smart or otherwise).

If Limnos you were to upgrade your iTunes you might like to try this cool feature. You're missing out on AirPlay, Home Sharing and Apple TV features too, all added ~v.10.

Can you really call yourself a power user if you are on v7 and have no first hand experience of the latest features?

I just watched the Keynote and I'm pleased to report that list view is still there. 'Play Next' features heavily for dynamic playlist creation too - so some of the iTunes DJ functionailty is there at least.

It depends upon what you mean by "cripple". I doubt, for example, many users create their own smart playlists. I bet if they were to remove that most users wouldn't notice. Not that Apple has reason to, but Apple does many things that don't make sense to us. I would very much doubt they would remove anything that affects basic music playback.

From what I can see of the preview there's:

New layout of the main window. The features seem to still be there, it may just take some getting used to finding them. I don't see a list view mode which means lots of wasted screen with album pictures, but maybe it's hidden somewhere we can't see in the picture. Or maybe it's gone.

A new mini player (not that I even use the old one).

New ways they can recommend you buy things from the Store.

A new layout for things you can buy in the Store.

An easy way for you to recall your previews so you can easily find what you planned to buy in the Store.

Changed iCloud layout so you can get access to things, but only one you have bought from the Store.

Pick up playback where you left off when you quit iTunes.

The last thing on the list is pretty much the only real change in playback that I see and one that people have been requesting for quite a while. Otherwise it's mostly things enhancing your paying money to Apple experience.

i just honestly hope they make a performance update...

maybe native cocoa or something but its still slow as **** -_-

The feature I referred to as Play Next is actually called 'Up Next', not very exciting in my opinion unless it can be controlled remotely.

Smart Playlists are there, as are a Genius Mixes, Ratings.

There's an unbelievably huge thing to switch: your entire music library management- if iTunes ends up completely neutered. If I need to switch music library software, it would mean flushing a massive amount of curation work, since none of the replacements would be an exact match.

Oh, you're talking the cost to you in terms of time/effort to switch. That doesn't matter to Apple -- it's not costing Apple money or time if they drop something important to you. Why should they care how it affects you? Even if you drop Apple because of it, I bet they pick up another 2 users who would find a simplified version of iTunes (if that 's what they end up doing) without all those confusing things in the menu easier to use. I have no data but it really wouldn't surprise me if only 10% of iTunes users used smart playlists and tag version switching. As another parallel, Apple drops support for all kinds of still viable computers after about 4 years. A huge annoyance to many old Mac users. Still, we represent only maybe 10% of Macs out there so we're not worth the effort for continued development. One could argue they could, for example, still sell old operating system versions to us, but Apple has decided not to. They are into dropping all kinds of things for which we can see little reason.

Also, everyone has Smart Playlists by default, whether they know it not. 'Recently Added' and 'My Top Rated' are two examples.

Yes, but those could be hard coded in and other smart playlist functionality removed if so desired.

From the number of requests for iDVD I see on the forums I think Apple cound have kept it for sale for much longer without any real extra effort, but for some reason best known to them they decided not to.

Most of the Macintosh users I know, purchase iDVD on disk.

Apple is the largest media company in the world. They sell nothing on disk. It is to their financial advantage to have the physical possession of movies go away. (I am not participating in this.)