iTunes 11: No more album art preview for selected track??? :(

AltF5 - Thank you thank you thank you 😀 How could i miss that - shame on me!

Thread to downgrade to iTunes 10 from 11:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4553829?answerId=20465764022#20465764022

I tested iTunes 11 on my laptop that does not have a lot of music on it and I thought it worked great. Then I updated on my main iMac and discovered about all the features that are either hidden or gone. After some nailbiting I found the way to downgrade back to iTunes 10. The only problem some users might face is mobile synching, but there's a way to fix that too. Luckily I hadn't synched my iPhone to iTunes 11, and therefore have no problems.

The only thing I can say good about iTunes 11 is that it looks nice. The user interface and functionality of the program, however, is terrible.

• No Coverflow
• Reduced sorting options
• Reduced customization of playlists
• Bad shuffle design

You get the idea. These are just 4 of many. I have a large library and many notes, custom artwork, and more, and I am glad my old iTunes library file still existed for me to go back and enjoy iTunes the way I want to.

I agree with one of the users above -- if the developers and designers do not improve iTunes with putting back in missing features and redesign the interface to something intelligent, I may just do the inconceivable and go look for a new music player.

I will give Apple some constructive feedback as soon as there's a feedback option for iTunes 11.

A more direct link to instructions on downgrading:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4553695

Want to let Apple know you are unhappy?

They don't read here. Send them feedback through the proper channel:

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

The only way they will bring things back is if we send in enough complaints.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling this was coming. Back in 10.6 or .7 the ability to view your secondary artwork vanished [the little arrows above the lower left cover art]. When they were talking about performance, I knew we were doomed. The problem I think is that showing the artwork in list view on large libraries would make iTunes stutter and hurt performance, I noticed it all the time. Rather that rebuild it better, they 'upgraded' the loook by removing the offending issue: artwork in list view. I have a really large library, so I have always had to run 2 separate libraries, one for pop and one for classical, otherwise, it was like walking thru mud.

I fear they will not bring any of our artwork options back, since it shows the bad programming of a 300mb music player. Really, why that big? Bloatware does not even begin to describe it. Plus, storing the library as a flat file list is never going to work on a large library. Was hoping for a rewrite, instead they turned iTunes into a version of the iTunes Store. Ever tried finding music on that mess of a store?

Hopefully there will be an altermative on the Mac, the third party players out there now are just not up to snuff.

The problem with facelifts is that you usually look a lot uglier and dumber afterwards than before. iTunes 11 makes a case in point...

<Edited By Host>

chasnjim wrote:

The problem I think is that showing the artwork in list view on large libraries would make iTunes stutter and hurt performance, I noticed it all the time.

kim wrote:

Displaying art for the selected track should not be a performance issue. I'm pretty sure your performance issues had other sources.

Kim, you are right about that, was referring more to the list view with all of the album work, not the preview bottom left window. They should be able to give that part back at least.

I was referring to the list view where you could display the album artwork in a column, iTunes always had trouble catching up when scrolling, rendering the artwork, although I did put up with it, even when they changed the ability to have a large image, replacing it with the smaller versions back in 10.5something... [suspicion: no reason for limiting the size of the thumbnails in list view unless it was an issue with performance] .

Of course I have a really large library [80000+ songs], and probably too much for iTunes to handle in an efficient way, I like music too much lol. Hence me splitting my classical into another library. Anyway...

Obviously someone there does not use iTunes in the way the rest of us do, or they would realize how helpful all of the visual cues are when going through your library. I found the new layouts pretty but too busy, more like the Fisher-Price version of iTunes.

Sorry this is off-topic but just wanted to check with everyone. When you scroll through a playlist, then go to another playlist, then go back to the first one, the position resets to the top (original position). Does this happen to anyone else? In the past, it would stay in the position that you left it, no?

yea, and also, originally, for the main libabry, and each playlist they can be each set as different playstyle, like shuffle, or repeat, or just go in order, and now,.... i guess you all have figured out...once its set, its for all the playlist and the entire libabry....

so sometimes when im listening to some song in my playlist while editing in my main libabry, boom, when the song im listening to is over it takes me all the way down .............

BUMMER!!!!!!

guys check if anything else needs to be added here: (I wrote this to the feedback a couple days ago)

1.please bring back the lower left corner album art, and possibly cover flow

2.please bring back the function that puts column browser along with other columns, eg, artist, album, added date, size....

3.please separate play option, like in itunes10 where each playlist can be assigned to different way of playing: shuffle, repeat and go in order, because now everything is combined, and it's not convenient, at all.

4.with the playlist name displayed above, the play button next to it is basically messed up and useless

5. up next is a waste and completely useless

6. why not bring the new display of the album art in the album view to the mini player, since basically no one listen to their itunes in album view cuz it can't jump from album to album, after i upgraded to 11, i saw it, and was like oh nice, it looks beautiful, and that's it, never went back for it again.

7. please display more info right below the playlist name (the new one on top now), like how you could on the status bar at the bottom(by clicking it it displays various form of info of the playlist/library), so then people can finally hide the status bar, otherwise the status bar will still need to be shown in my opinion.

8.and if possible, many people and me included have always thought the "close, minimize" button looks so so so much better when displayed vertically, i mean, it looks out of place when put horizontally, think and look??....

9. if possible, read the support community thread. please.

In Toronto, on HGTV, they just showed the 13 inch MacBook Pro commercial with Peter Coyote narrating...you know, the one showing fullscreen Coverflow.

Went to the link above and left this feedback:

"What happened to Album Artwork preview box and Cover Flow??

Just downloaded the new itunes thinking "this is a smart thing for me to do - Apple puts these out to make a product better and safer". Never thought I would lose features I had come to use and enjoy daily. Try as I might, I can't figure any way to restore cover flow or the album artwork preview box in the lower left corner of the side bar.

I hope it doesn't sound overly dramatic to say, this is a real big disappointment. It baffles me as to why you would remove something so good about a product, and for what reason??

And, sadly, it tears down a level of trust I'd developed in you. Maybe a question posed before downloading, "by pressing "Agree", you understand you will lose certain elements of itunes such as cover flow that you may have enjoyed in its previous versions".

I don't know - just seems sort of underhanded to have found this out after the fact. In reading the forums, there are thousands more like me. And it's only 3AM on 12-3-12."

Not sure it will make a difference, like voting on election day. But I still do it. So far, it seems to work sometimes.

DOWNGRADE FROM iTUNES 11 to 10.7....

SIMPLE STEPS.... AND WORKS GREAT!!

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16400819&postcount=6

Lets hope apple sort this mess out... im so gutted that itunes 11 was a HUGE let down.....