Is cover flow gone in iTunes 11?

nomenclature wrote:

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 can't comment on the Retina display issue because I am not going to pay an excessive premium for a retina display combined with puny storage. Regarding the drive usage, I had almost none with my cover flow because I add the artwork to the actual file by copying and pasting into the ID tag. You may have had excessive disk usage if you told iTunes to download your artwork for you. Apple's method does not add the art to the file, it adds it to a folder in iTunes, so the information has to be accessed when that file is played.

Also, I believe Windows users had a poor experience with CoverFlow because most PCs owned by people had integrated graphics, which did a poor job with anything. CoverFlow on a Mac with dedicated graphics always worked better than an average PC.

CoverFlow was like browsing albums in a store. CoverFlow in the Finder is a joke, but CoverFlow in iTunes with album COVERS for browsing, makes sense. The floating window of an album cover in iTunes 11 is not an equal replacement. They even removed it from the sidebar view.

The decision to remove coverflow is either a sign of extreme arrogance or outright stupidity. Neither of the two are a good sign for the future of Apple. It is yet another crack on the legend. After absolutely terrible experience with iOS 6 (maps, poor performance on iphone 4/ipad 3 with no real value add) and now with new iTunes, I'm afraid that Apple is on a strange self-destructing path.

eMac Dave wrote:

This is a major oversight by Apple. They seem to be losing their touch and heading the way Windows did. I doubt they'll bring it back - they're too big now to listen to customers requests.

That is not true. They do listen to customer requests, all the time. If enough people complain about the loss of CoverFlow, they might bring it back. The iPod Shuffle got buttons after enough people complained about the button-less iPod Shuffle. Mac OS X Leopard originally lost heirarchial menus in the Dock for folders. Enough people complained and 10.5.2 restored the feature. Same with the translucent menu bar, the feature was added to turn it off. In iTunes 10, they even restored the dark grid view option (but only to remove it again from iTunes 11). So those are a few examples in which Apple did listen and make changes. So if enough people use the Feedback option, maybe they will reverse their decision. Listening to music is more than just looking at a list of files, people want to appreciate the album artwork...at least the millions of people that actually bought music in a store and appreciated their album/CD collection.

What a disappointment big time !!!

And to make things even worse, right-clicking on album art does not allow to Paste an image from clipboard.

Already moving to alternative software for collection management.

Downgrading to 10.7 in the meantime.

Shame on the Apple designers and decision-makers. What happened to common sense?

Rado1215 wrote:

The decision to remove coverflow is either a sign of extreme arrogance or outright stupidity. Neither of the two are a good sign for the future of Apple. It is yet another crack on the legend. After absolutely terrible experience with iOS 6 (maps, poor performance on iphone 4/ipad 3 with no real value add) and now with new iTunes, I'm afraid that Apple is on a strange self-destructing path.

I would agree with the first two points...more towards extreme stupidity. However, it is not a self-destructing path. Apple has made mistakes in the past in which they thought something was a good idea, but it wasn't. In most cases, they fixed the problem and restored a feature. Thankfully, I watched the video on the iTunes page, and then installed it on my external drive with SL to give it a test drive. Realized it wasn't for me, so I blocked it from System Update on my main drive. I am sticking with 10.7.

Wish I had known that Apple omitted Cover Flow from iTunes 11 before I installed the update. Really bad move, Apple! I have to agree with many of the commenters here, Cover Flow was, arguably, the best thing about iTunes.

Utterly disappointed. 😟

😠

Wish I had done what Peter Hillman did. 😠

Message was edited by: Matt Solano

I feel cover flow was a massive gimmick, I never found myself in a situation when I would use it

Would just like to share my utter disappointment with everyone else...

Already sent feedback on it to Apple too...un freaking believable!

I mean, making an option that you can toggle on/off on the Visaulization preferences for Coverflow is one thing (pretty much like they did to the sidebar, another unwellcome change), another totally disruptive option is to simply remove it for good!

Confident that Apple will bring it back if people keep on (rightfully) complaining though!

Cheers

I just wrote to Apple to complain about the absence of Cover Flow. Like for everyone else on here, it was perhaps my favorite way of listening to music on iTunes. Love to use it in full screen mode, it never fails to impress people who don't know iTunes. I'm getting the idea from the look of the new iTunes 11 that it wasn't designed by people who love music. I don't see music as "separate files" that I can browse through. I mean, artwork is such an integral part of enjoying an album (or even a song) that Apple either had to find a new exciting way to promote album covers, or keep the Cover Flow option, which was already great. I mean, imagine if instead of getting rid of Cover Flow, they had upgraded it. For instance, with an upgraded Cover Flow, what if we could see more than the cover artwork - let's say, the inside of the booklet, the back of it and so on, or whatever. That would have been an evolution from what was already there, it would feel like iTunes had expanded from what it was. I thought that's how it works: you take the best of what you have and make it even better. Regarding Cover Flow, that's unfortunately not what happened, so I won't upgrade to iTunes 11, because I really don't feel like looking for another music player.

I haven't seen anyone add a photo fo the Full Screen Cover Flow on a large screen TV used for the entertainment center.

So, here is mine on a 55" Sony HD TV that I use hooked up to a Mac Mini in my front room as an entertainment center with iTunes 10.7 and Full Screen Cover Flow.

You can't do this with the new iTunes 11 which has very small and poor album artwork.

Thanks for sharing the pic. Nice reminder of what is lost. I have a mini hooked up to 65 inch plasma. Will have to make sure not to update that version of iTunes.

That's right, Joseph! Doesn't it look gorgeous, everyone?

Like many of us, I spent days, weeks, and months, looking for the best Album Artwork I could find on the Internet for the albums I have.

With iTunes 11, we can't even view the album artwork in full screen without it looking horrible.

Makes you wonder if anyone at Apple uses computers anymore. Just iPhones and iPads.

Without Cover Flow, iTunes no longer has anything we can use on our large screen TV's that is comparable to the old Front Row or now, the old Cover flow.

We might as well break out or old Turntables and Vinyl records and light up the incense as iTunes is going backwards. Definitley not forwards.

It wasn't like they had to create Cover Flow, it was already there.

For those of you that don't have album artwork and don't use cover flow, then this might not bother you.

However, for many of us, it sure does.

I like most of you am very sad to see Cover Flow gone. However they did do a nice job on the album views. If you go to your music library and then click on Albums instead of Songs it lists all your albums, then click one and it expands the album. It also changes the background to match the album cover color. Pretty snazzy but not really coverflow. Hopefully they bring it back.

Incredibly bad ideea to remove cover flow from iTunes 11!!! I realy don't want to have a mac version of winamp!!! the feeling and the origianlity is the reason to pay a little fortune on mac devices.

So, to downgrade to iTunes 10.7 is the only way to preserve the real mac feeling!

I will downgrade immediatly...