Where is iTunes DJ in iTunes 11?

I've been using iTunes since it was Sound Jam... before Apple bought it. It's a great app. I have a matrix of playlist, smart playlist that load other smart playlist, and so on. I taught the iTunes expert at the Apple Store in SF some tips many years ago, during his how to use iTunes lecture in the store. I know that sounds like bragging, I guess it is. But I hope it conveys that I am an iTunes veteran and expert.

Up Next is NOT a replacement for iTunes DJ, if you don't understand that then you weren't using iTunes DJ to its full potential, which is cool. But for me, I want to have all the features and ease that iTunes DJ offered, and again, Up Next does not offer them. And to get behavior that is close to iTunes DJ I have to do 6 more steps, and I still don't have all the features.

I wont be upgrading until iTunes has iTunes DJ or something that fully replaces it. I've rolled back to 10.7.

http://support.apple.com/downloads/#itunes

Amen

I must not have been using all the features of iTunes DJ. I used it as a randomized Shuffle. It's still there in 11. Go to Genres and double-click on All. You'll get a true randomized selection, visible in the Up Next icon. Or double-click on a single genre and you'll get a random selection from within that genre. That's all I needed.

'Scuse me, but where is the "All" button in genres?

The randomized play on ITunes11 thru Up Next is the randomize-with-replacement method that was previously available on ITunes DJ. But the randomize-withOUT-replacement that Shuffle used to do with playlists is not an option on ITunes 11 that I have yet found. I have been playing the shuffle-UpNext feature all day on ITunes 11, and it routinely repeats songs that have already been played before playings songs that have not been previously played. So I think the new version only supports one type of random play. Too bad.

This should be on every page of this thread. Apple does NOT monitor these boards, so if you want to get through to them you absolutely HAVE to send them feedback through their feedback form. If everyone of you who have posted in this thread could do so Apple will notice that this is a feature that can't simply be replaced:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

I have found that When I show the menu bar, there is an option to turn on shuffle.

When I play from a play list and enable shuffle by songs, this will (for me) perform exactly like iTunes DJ did.

Surely you are joking. Regular shuffle is NOTHING like iTunes DJ.

Can you try and explain the difference to me then? Now I am curious

iTunes DJ was a dynamically updating playlist that could:

- autofill from whatever playlist you wanted

- show an arbitrary number of previously played and upcoming songs

- auto refresh when you deleted songs off it

- weight songs towards higher rated songs

- have guests come in and vote up and down songs with Remote on their iOS devices

Simply randomizing/shuffling songs have always been there since SoundJam. Up Next replaces SOME of these things in an extremely limited function. The MAJOR loss is guest voting as we literally used to have parties built around this function.

One of the differences in the way I used DJ was that it would play higher rated songs more often when in shuffle

so for example

I have a christmas playlist of about 400 songs

With DJ this would randomly play this playlist, but it would play my higher rated songs more often

With the new sytem, it plays each song in the playlist once

Thats a feature I would like back

Hans,

could you please confirm whether you are an Apple worker or not?

Because it looks like Apple is paying for your comments.

It is obvious for any intelligent being that the Crap 11 has nothing compared to iTunes DJ.

iTunes DJ is a key functionality for a lot of users. there has been more than 1000 replies in this community, so I calculate that almost 100.000 people is misssing iTunes DJ and/or Cover Flow View.

(This is because only 1% of users are community active).

So, please, stop trying to make stone turn gold. We want iTunes DJ back.

It is a simple and clear message. Even Homer Simpson would understand it. We want iTunes DJ back.

If you don't want it back or you don't care, leave this thread alone.

You won't convince us with your queer inventions.

If you work for Apple, tell your bosses that a lot of faithful Apple users are angry, disappointed, and looking to switch companies because of this demonstration of daftness towards the core users of Apple.

In my case I have used Apple for 20 years. More than 20 people moved to Apple because I advised them to do so. More than 100 people moved to iTunes becasue I advised them so.

But as long as iTunes is useless, ordinary, mediocre, fruit of the brainless work of a limited group of so-called thinkers, I won't be able to keep on doing so.

If Steve was alive I'm sure a lot of people would be right now looking of a new job...

I'm not 100% sure, but didn't iTunes DJ also handle silences better than just the "new" up next feature? I feel like the blanks between tracks are longer since the update, though this could be psychological.

Version 11 is not listed in the pull down menu on the feed back page for iTunes, so how serious do you think Apple is about hearing feed back? Very unprofessional.

@paulsalter, agree with most of what you say, but I want to note just one difference based on my experience so far -- UpNext does not automatically play each song in the playlist exactly once. It may repeat the same song a few minutes or an hour later -- several times over the course of an afternoon or evening. In this way, it is like ITunes DJ, even though UpNext lacks several other features of ITunes DJ. My complaint -- on top of the loss of functionality that others have noted -- is that ITunes no longer allows us to do this precise thing: that is, play through the whole play list in random order, playing each song exactly once,. So that is another loss of functionality in ITunes 11, in addition to the several lost of features of DJ.