Q: Where is iTunes DJ in iTunes 11?

I was also a big fan of iTunes DJ, and disappointed when it looked like it was missing. I have found the functionality is still there, more or less as simple as it always was but in a different form.

Let me say right up front that I never used the "voting" option, so I can't talk about that at all.

But I was able to more or less replicate iTDJ from what's already here. I had already created a SmartPlaylist in a previous version so that I could omit anything from the genres like "Christmas" or "Spoken Word". It's just my music library with a few obvious exclusions.

I started that playlist playing with Shuffle turned on.

I then switched to the miniplayer - which really is a big improvement on the previous miniplayer. Click the second icon from the right to reveal the list of tunes about to be played. It's basically iTunes DJ right there.

Like many of you, I liked to fine-tune that list by deleting songs that from the list that I didn't want to hear at the time. At first I was clicking on the X icon on the left of the song, which was slow and tedious to do more than a couple of times. Turns out you can click/shift-click/command-click songs in the list and hit the delete key - boom, gone. The list updates with a new bunch of songs.

You can change the order of the songs by dragging them around. The "Add to Up Next" contextual menu in the library will insert the song into the play order, just like "Play Next in iTunesDJ."

It's true that you can't choose how many songs to see in the list, but 20 isn't a bad number. Yeah, if you want to get all pissy about NEEDING to see 100 songs, please be my guest. Knock yourself out.

The "Go To.." options under the arrow to the right of the song are a nice addition.

I'm not going to tell anyone that they should shut up and put up - I recognise that it's frustrating that software developers can't leave well enough alone - but it's also worth noting that as long as you aren't married to one of the specific features that got removed, there is a pretty decent and iTunesDJ function in there.

So, after a few hours we can recreate some of the iTunes DJ functionality with a workaround.

But has iTunes been simplified?

iTunes is/was bloated because there's music, films, TV, podcasts, iTunes U, books, apps, tones and radio all under one same application.

Simplifying iTunes would mean going back to just playing music again. Put the movies and TV into one application optimised for playback of moving images. Books should go to a books application (has anyone tried reading an ebook on the existing OSX ebook readers?) iTunes U? You guessed: its own application. Apps? How about the app store.

This may sound familiar: it's the iOS way.

Apple, you have just dodged the two things you wanted to do: you have not brought it closer to iOS (except in aesthetics) and you have not simplified the OSX iTunes interface. There are menus on the menu bar, where they should be. But there are also buttons, windows style, all over the screen: two tiers of controls at the top, buttons on the bottom left. And then there's functionality that is accessed via contextual menus with control-click.

Apple, do what you said you would do: simplify iTunes. Shed the extras that had nothing to do with "tunes" and put them into their own apps. But do not take away the music playing functionality that it had. iTunes DJ is/was invaluable.

You can export your library before downgrading. Or you can use an older library file after downgrading. Or you can use a third party program to copy your library from your ipod after downgrading.

It depends how you have things set up. A little research will get the job done. I'm back on 10. Every upgrade since 10 has gone downhill as far as I'm concerned. No more updating for me. Happy sticking with 10

It's the ease of using all the diffrerent itouchs and iphones in the room to select what the next song would be. Then there was the option that allowed eveyone at the party to vote on it. I am not happy the DJ was dropped.

iTunes DJ is almost the only way I use iTunes,

have lots of Smart Playlist to choose and almost all my song have rating, so when I choose a smart playlist in DJ like Pop or Electronic, with iTunes DJ I am sure it will play mostly great songs (4 or 5 stars) and not too many of the others, but still will play some not on the top ranking.

I have read most of the comments here and have found some people making some strange work-around with smart playlists to achive some of DJ functionality...but nothing that will "Play higher rating songs more often"

And I like seeing a list of my next songs, and be able to change ratings (something I understand is not posible with the "Up next" box, or to just Refresh the compleate list (except for the songs I asked for)

No iTunes DJ... no upgrade for me

APPLE BRING BACK DJ !!!!

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

PS: sorry for my english, not native language

Sometimes I wonder who Apple considers their core audience.  As demonstrated by their dumbing-down of the Mac OS X and the subsequent software revisions (10.7, 10.8), obviously any person who would consider themself a professional in any field is not part of Apple's "new" core audience. 

Their core audience now is people who want their computers to be as dumb and laid out as their iDevices. 

Hence, the dumbing down of iTunes and the removal of features people actually used. 

Par for course.

And it's just gonna get worse, Apple fans.

I've gone back to iTunes 10.7 like others have said, Remote 3.0 app supports iTunes DJ which is great. I sure hope party voting and limited houseguest access comes to iTunes 11.1 I agree the new iTunes is really cool otherwise.

"after a few hours we can recreate some of the iTunes DJ functionality"? Hardly. If it takes you "a few hours" to figure out then perhaps some remedial computer classes would be in order.

I was just hoping to insert something practical and helpful for those who didn't come here solely for the righteous indignation. I would like to suggest that the point has been pounding down about as clearly as it can be at this point within the context of a support board message thread.

"Obviously any person who would consider themself a professional in any field is not part of Apple's "new" core audience".

That's priceless. I guess I just lost my "professional" standing.

Now... let's see if I can find the setting that will prevent me from being mailed any more updates on this thread.

Everybody please go tell apple how you feel about this missing feature:

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

As far as shuffle vs. iTunes DJ, they just aren't the same.   Shuffle is completely random.   iTunes DJ was NOT.   iTunes DJ was random, but certain songs were weighted higher than others.   In iTunes DJ, songs with a higher personal rating or songs that had not been played in a while had a higher likelihood of being played than other songs.

No.   iTunes DJ allowed the audience to vote directly from their iPhone via the Remote App.    Inviting the entire audience up to use your computer to right-click on songs is just rediculous.

I too still am a big fan of iTunesDJ, and I'm even a PC user. This week just reformatted my drive and installing programs again, I went for the latest iTunes (having like 3 or 4 installers of older versions on an external drive). After restoring my ribrary, the first thing I'm looking for is the iTunes DJ. Considering myself dumb, I googled it and found only this thread about it.

So the question asked above is still valid: Who is Apple listening to when they make these changes?

Seriously I have 4090+ songs, 108 playlists and 49 smartplaylists, and still the most used way of listening music is DJ.

- It's an infinite playlist of whatever the **** you want, even other playlists or specific criteria like "not yet rated"

- You can preview up to the next 50 songs in qeue, edit, and even then manually add more
- Or you can just hit "next" til you hear something you like

- You can remote control it (never used but I know it can be done)

- Has a voting mecanism (again never used but know it)

  - It's the most similar-to-radio-broadcasting way of listening to your music

  - It's letting you computer choose the songs to play

- It borders in artistic playlisting from you computer.

It's not jus a list, or a smartlist, it's the best self-recycling-smart-playlist EVER! ! !

So I'm waiting for an update, if I don't see DJ in it, I'm rolling back to any older version (in Windows is extremely easy) and probably not updating for a very long time.

I'd be happy to take some remedial classes in computing. Please let me know where I can find a class in "Unravelling Seemingly Arbitrary Changes to an Application's Interface". For the time being, I'm waiting for iTunes 11 for Dummies.

OK...but the ability to see track detail like bit rate, beat per minute, sample rate, along with last played times, ratings and other 'normal' stuff is completely gone because Up Next is NOT a playlist. When I play a party, I want a a manageable playlist with all the detail.

Point one, with View Options under one of the menu bar choices I believe you can choose Title, Year and other things, varies by the current view selected.

Totally agree on Points 2 & 3, as I posted in another thread...

The feeling in the pit of my stomach is like we've just had a death in the family. The loss of THE MOST popular interface aspect of iTunes, coupled with THE MOST functional playback mechanism - - well it feels like a death in the family. No kidding....

Why did these have to die so young, they had so much life and joy left in them to share with others...

Meanwhile I've got my 3 AppleTVs displaying artwork in multiple rooms, can't see it any more in iTunes playlists themselves...

I think I will never upgrade again and stick with version 10.... 11 is the worst I have seen.   Key import features that I use everyday is gone.   THANKS APPLE.   Lets see if I can downgrade.  Once again hard to downgrade to BAD UPGRADE.  Have to uninstall first hopefully my library will still be intact.

THANKS APPLE.