Is cover flow gone in iTunes 11?

I'm with you all here. Am an avid music collector and have been meticulously adding artwork for my 65,000 song collection for the past ten years - and now there's no way to show it off! Have left feedback with the link above. Not happy about this or the Front Row feature. May as well throw my remote out.

I loved using the partial Cover Flow view mode! I'm definitely submitting feedback to Apple http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

It's interesting to hear the reaction from the userbase RE this change. This specific thread is full of people who use Cover Flow, got iTunes 11, noticed it was gone, and Googled "iTunes 11 no cover flow", but almost all the folks in comment sections to articles and in other places are REALLY glad to see Cover Flow gone, probably because Apple has been shoving it down our throats the last couple years.

In my opinion, iTunes was the only useful place on the Mac for Cover Flow, but regardless of that, if Apple plans on removing functionality, they should instead keep it and move the trigger somewhere else! Why not allow the users that enjoy (or have a specific use for) certain features to keep using them? Move the button somewhere else, maybe into a menu, heck...put it in the Preferences, but don't remove features. </rant>

I just finished playing with iTunes 11 on my external Snow Leopard drive. What a mess that is! You can restore the sidebar, thankfully, but the loss of Cover Flow means your album artwork is pretty much non-existent! They even removed the cover art tab from the sidebar view! So if you are in list view, the only album art you see is a TINY thumbnail in the player window at the top of the screen. Apple never shoved Cover Flow down anyone's throat because Cover Flow was not the default view. Removing it was just plain stupid. With the discussion of moving the trigger elsewhere, they even buried the Burn Playlist to Disc option by removing it from the File menu and burying it at the bottom left under the Gear icon. Some people burn custom CDs or custom MP3 CDs for their car, and Apple has now made that feature harder to find. I will stick with 10.7 for as long as possible. When I listen to music, I like to see the album art in the Cover Flow.

Another mess is that most views ignore the Sort Artist option in the Sorting tags. So now all your music is improperly sorted, if you used the Sort Artist tag. For example, Peter Gabriel now appears under P instead of G, even if your Sort Artist tag has Gabriel, Peter. The only option for sorting the music is Artist, which is ignoring the Sort Artist field. Sorry Apple, but an artist appears by LAST name in a record store, not FIRST name.

For those that haven't upgraded to iTunes 11, and don't want to, you can hide the update in Mountain Lion. Open the App Store and click on Updates. You might see a batch of System Updates available. Click the More... text to expand the updates. You should see iTunes 11, separate from other updates. Right click on iTunes 11, and you have the option to Hide the update. Then you can apply other updates. But be careful, iTunes 11 update might sneak back in with point increment bug fixes. I hate how the App Store hides all the updates from view and you have to expand the text to see everything you are applying.

Just found where to view larger cover art. Click on the small, tiny, little bitty cover art in the player control area and you get the larger QuickTime looking window.It is not Cover Flow but if feels more like an album at least.

Ben Rigsby wrote:

Just found where to view larger cover art. Click on the small, tiny, little bitty cover art in the player control area and you get the larger QuickTime looking window.It is not Cover Flow but if feels more like an album at least.

Good one Ben Rigsby!

Apple ******** strikes again! They got rid of Cover Flow in Itunes 11. Cover Flow was the only thing good about the program, except for Apple's own ability to shill music for money. Now the new Windows 8 app is DEFINITELY BETTER THAN ITUNES!!!!!

I'm totally agree with you. I wish Apple would reconsider their decision on CloverFlow.

you said it brother !!!

This version s**** big time...

what was more natural that look for music with cover flow, the same way you look for LP in a store or CD at home.

Steve Jobs shown that in a presentation !!!! IF I RECALL.

DOES THE NEW CEO USES APPLE PRODUCTS !!!

Steve will not be pleased with this monstrosity.

Viewing the larger art is unfortunately not a substitute for CoverFlow, and I know Ben wasn't suggesting that. CF was a very natural interface. ****, I even have Cover Flow in my Audi MMI.

Apple, for Christmas' sake, pull your head out of your *** on this one!

Steve Jobs gave it as a main point in a presentation about iTunes.

Is taking the fun and friendly out of the equation.

It was like going to the store and checking the albums.

Now Windows 8 is the new Apple.

Microsoft just need a decent player and will be back on the game.

Steve days are gone

they make all these changes, strip out coverflow, but can't stop the list of song from jumping back to whatever the next track that starts playing is, interrupting where you were browsing/retagging/whatever.

I suspect that coverflow was removed because of retina devices becoming more common. in the previous version, frankly coverflow looked like garbage in most sizes on the macbook retina, forget about even considering having it fullscreen. the time/resources/money it would take to redo all the covers in their database in retina worthy high resolution, not to mention there's no control for covers a user adds themselves and the drive usage it would add on to an already bloated program, there's no way to do it well... the cure? tiny thumbnails instead. small enough to look sharp on the highest res displays and not make your program look like blocky trash.

I'm totally ****** - I upgraded to quickly and now seem stuck with V11 and Cover Flow gone. It's the only thing I liked about Itunes. I hope to find a way to downgrade somehow back to V 10. Anybody successfull?

keenast wrote:

I hope to find a way to downgrade somehow back to V 10. Anybody successfull?

Yep, I've downgraded, only one issue (see below). All you need is your OLD iTunes Library file (it's called "iTunes Library.itl"), which should be either in your "Music" folder, your "iTunes" folder, or your "iTunes Media" folder. Once you run iTunes 11, it upgrades this file and makes it incompatible with previous versions of iTunes. There may be a "Previous iTunes Libraries" folder located by this file, use the newest one in there if it exists. If it's not there, recover one from a backup, or start a new library (ignore steps 4 and 5 below, just open iTunes instead).

1. Find the "iTunes Library.itl" file and remember where it is.

1. Download the old version of iTunes (10.7, Mac link) here: http://appldnld.apple.com/iTunes11/041-1848.20121129.JoqqW/iTunes11.dmg

2. Get rid of iTunes 11

3. Install iTunes 10.7

4. Hold the Option key (Mac) or the Shift key (Windows) as you click on iTunes either on your Dock (Mac) or in the Start Menu (Windows) to open it.

5. Point iTunes to your "iTunes Library.itl" file.

I've done this on the Mac with only one issue: I get an error 42408 every time iTunes starts. Everything works fine though. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4555486 I'm hoping that will be solved soon.