My problems at the time were numerous.
After the download of the initial iTunes 11, I noticed that the application was freezing every time I changed track, added info… generally freezing every time I tried to use it. I did a permissions repairs and it ran okay. To say I was disappointed regarding the loss of Cover Flow is well documented in this thread.
I looked for an alternative. I tried Coverstream which seemed to be all right at first and worked in tandem with iTunes. However, an iTunes update came along and I had the same problems with iTunes 11 again, sluggish and the constant 5 minute freezes. I contacted my Apple registered service guy who tried to help, he got my Mac working relatively smoothly again. He suggested that if I didn't like iTunes I should give Songbird a try.
As it had been recommended on this thread I reluctantly tried it. It was running well and I was getting used to it but I missed the ease of use of my iTunes, but I persevered and reasoned that I would get used to it.
Along came another iTunes update which I disregard as I was determined to give Songbird a go.
Then Mavericks, (or as the young Apple Care operative let slip "Maver-sick"), came along and it was a complete and utter disaster. Everything stopped functioning all my applications I used to run my business. As these take precedent over iTunes I had to sort them out, quickly.
I had a permissions repair which refused to repair after the Mavericks upgrade. The repair list would have printed out 152 A4 pages at 10pt Helvetica.
After trying to hunt for answers, using my daughters Macbook, I came to hard decision of a complete clean install, all applications from original source. This is a tedious task as you can well imagine, made worse by the discovery that my Time Capsule had been corrupted in the Mavericks upgrade.
I had no alternative. I had to wipe the hard drive clean and re-install a fresh Mavericks OS system, I again did permissions repair and there were loads, this worried me as it was a fresh copy and on a clean head drive.
After doing another permissions repair and having a Disk Utility giving my Mac a clean bill of health, I loaded each application starting with Creative Suite 6 which is my bread and butter. Remember this is all in the pursuit of finding an alternative to iTunes so that I can have a Cover Flow-like alternative.
After each application I did a permissions repair and then finally after 2 days I had a healthy Mac back and working.
Then to load my 400 GB worth of iTunes library which is housed on a 1TB WD external disk.
I was reluctant to reload as the whole library had been corrupted as well. However, I had read somewhere, some time back on a Mac forum, that to remedy this was to copy the file with the iTunes library to new file or external disk, this isn’t guaranteed to always work. I did this and I’m glad to say it worked.
I reloaded my iTunes library and check the permissions. They were clean.
Now forgive me if I sound a little dismissive, but there is no way in **** that I am going to reload some other audio-library application or device that is not native to Mac, especially when I strongly suspect them of creating huge problems for me, also loosing 2 clients in the process as I couldn’t do work for them!
I have to be realistic and put my work first.
The pursuit of an alternative to Cover Flow cost me a lot and I’m not going to jeopardise it again by adding some other dodgy applications that will cost me time and money.
Does that answer your question?
I hope that Apple do reintroduce Cover Flow, but I shall have to wait, as I’m not going to go through this again.
