Is cover flow gone in iTunes 11?

Paul Richards4 wrote:

... Many of the suggestions either involve workarounds, like yours, ....

It's not a workaround. View>Show Sidebar. Done. Takes two seconds, then it stays that way as long as you want, or you can toggle it on and off with a keyboard shortcut.

I’m surprised that you find barely a difference between 10 and 11;-

Not being able to resize your album art, no mini preview in the bottom left corner, no artwork in list view, reduced size graphics on my phone, it now doesn’t recognise my old iPod, no ability to open a playlist as a separate window, a search facility that’s a complete fail, why does the progress bar now have to be in a separate window, blah blah.

Some good points, but.... There is artwork in the list view: when viewing Songs, go to Show View Options, then check Show Artwork and Always Show. Again, it takes 5 seconds and you never have to touch it again. And this is not about how it looks on an iPhone; it's about the Mac app. The Search function works as before if you change the default from Search Entire Library to Filter By: All. Yes, the default is bad, and how to fix it is not intuitive, but it takes two seconds -- one time -- and it's back to working like iTunes 10.

And actually I synced my iPad and iPhone earlier;

go top left for the hard disk content i want to update (apps maybe)

bottom right to update apps

top left again to select podcasts

top left to update podcasts

top right to select my iPhone..

bottom right to sync it

top right to go back to my library

top left to see music

top centre for the content i want to check..

We all use these programs differently and I don't question that it works for you. But for me, user friendliness and workflow are a shambles.

I select my device in the Sidebar then click Sync. This is exactly like it was in iTunes 10, as far as I know. All the options you're going through manually are preferences that can be set as before, assuming you have the Sidebar visible. Maybe I'm not understanding, but I don't see a problem. I sync my iPhone and my first-gen iPad every morning without issues.

It seems that the new Apple way to add a song to a playlist is to right-click on the song title; so we've moved away from the intuitive drag-and-drop always favoured by apple, and adopted the right click as the default.

I love right-clicking, but you're wrong about it being the preferred "Apple" way. Click and drag is still the most obvious and intuitive way, and it still functions exactly as it did in iTiunes 10 -- again, assuming you have the Sidebar visible. The iTunes team was INSANE to make the Sidebar hidden by default, but it's so easy to turn back on! A year ago when I updated iTunes on my MacBook Pro and was utterly confused by the new interface, the first thing I did -- knowing nothing about the new UI -- was to go to the View menu and turn the Sidebar back on (then breathe a sigh of relief). The ability to add artwork to the list view came months later, but at least Apple listened to the complaints on that.

Paul Richards4 wrote:
I’m surprised that you find barely a difference between 10 and 11;-

no artwork in list view,

iTunes menu View > View Options.

Tick Show Artwork and Always show artwork.

a search facility that’s a complete fail

Why? Mine works exactly as it has alway worked.

Make sure you uncheck Search entire library.

Mark Block wrote:

There is artwork in the list view: when viewing Songs, go to Show View Options, then check Show Artwork and Always Show. Again, it takes 5 seconds and you never have to touch it again.

This entire thread (73 pages of it) really comes down to how we feel about artwork in list view. Taking away cover flow left us with a terrible alternative...a jumbled mess of album covers next to songs, breaking up the flow, and looking very ungraceful for an Apple product. I continue to send feedback to Apple requesting the return of cover flow, and if that's not possible than something as pleasing to the eye for album art lovers.

It's that 3D cover flow window that we can't let go of. It has depth, like looking into a jukebox. The shiny surface reflecting the artwork...genius. My whole iTunes experience revolves around having it there. I just keep hoping they reactivate it in a future release. Until then 10.7 lives on.

Glassix wrote:

This entire thread (73 pages of it) really comes down to how we feel about artwork in list view.

Except it doesn't because you can view artwork in List View.

Chris CA wrote:

Glassix wrote:

This entire thread (73 pages of it) really comes down to how we feel about artwork in list view.

Except it doesn't because you can view artwork in List View.

I never said you couldn't. I just don't care for how artwork looks in list view in 11.

As far as I’m concerned the whole thread with all these posts is about the loss of CoverFlow, and the majority agree. There are a few who are saying that the new iTunes 11 is fine as you do get artwork, I don’t think they understand the point?

Yes, you do get album covers with iTunes 11, but the album art is so tiny its not worthwhile, even at its largest size.

Some of us have large format display screens. We have spent a lot of money on these.

With these display screens and extra memory we have bought, the efficiency concerns are not valid.

For large displays or iMacs or Mac Pros there MUST be an extra addition of a CoverFlow choice.

We are now sold short as the maximum size to the art work is so small, (half the size of a CD cover).

Quite simply, I want to make the covers that appear on my display screen the size of an vinyl LP cover when I play the albums or single, and CoverFlow allowed me to do just that.

I have tried all the alternatives that have been suggested on this thread, and I have paid the price, as I have described earlier on this thread.

THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR COVERFLOW!

Plain and simple.

No matter how much jiaggery-pockery that is advised on this thread, such as Apple TV e.t.c, makes up for the real thing.

There is only one iTunes CoverFlow and I want it back.

There is NO other alternative.

Again… THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR COVERFLOW!

KGeez00 wrote:

There is only one iTunes CoverFlow and I want it back.

There is NO other alternative.

Again… THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR COVERFLOW!

HEAR HEAR!!

Glassix wrote:

I never said you couldn't. I just don't care for how artwork looks in list view in 11.

How does it look different from 10.7?

KGeez00 wrote:

... There is only one iTunes CoverFlow and I want it back.

There is NO other alternative.

Again… THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR COVERFLOW!

Couldn't agree more. If Apple thinks that few users want it, then fine -- bury it in the View Options right below the checkbox for Show Artwork. That way, Apple's ideal customer -- the simpleton who gets confused by too many on-screen choices -- won't have to deal with it, while more committed users can enjoy it again.

So Apple, here's what you do: One checkbox for Show Artwork, another for Show Cover Flow. If that's still too easy -- too easy for simpletons to accidentally enable it -- make it a two-step process. In the Advanced tab in Preferences, add a check box for "Enable Cover Flow," which has to be activated before it can be toggled on or off elsewhere.

OK, I'm being facetious. But really, Apple, you own the freakin' patent, and the code for implementing it in iTunes already exists from iTunes 10. Just paste it back in. 😉 That is, of course, unless it's already still there, but disabled. Is iTunes 11 crippleware? 😉

Mark Block wrote:
So Apple, here's what you do:

So users who want features, here's what you do...

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

Chris CA wrote:

So users who want features, here's what you do...

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

Thanks, but way ahead of you. I sent feedback earlier today. (And I send feedback several times a month;)

Maybe I can explain it this way:

iTunes 11 — TINY album cover!

iPod — TINY album cover!

iPad — TINY album cover!

iPhone — TINY album cover!

On an Apple 27 inch display, for example or any screen display above 12 inches, that "TINY" becomes minute, minuscule, very, very small. The larger screens are designed to see graphics on a larger scale, so why, oh why take away what it is designed to do??

(Is that humanity Sir Jonny?)

CoverFlow allows the user to make the album cover as large as the screen will allow, or as small if they want

If you go back and read through this thread you will see that anyone who has the remotest interest in music and has a large iTunes library, which probably started when they copied their entire CD collection the first opportunity they got hold of an early iTunes application, a long time ago, (±20 years ago).

I did this and transferred all the information I could, form the CD cover, to the “info” panel, along with each cover I had scanned myself. I am not the only one, as tetiment to this phenomenon, websites of album artwork soon sprung up all over the internet, all over the world. Many, many people want to see the art of the cover and whats more they want excellent, perfect artwork to do so.

What's more, recording artists spend a huge proportion of the album budget on artists, designers and photographers to produce a work of art to communicate the “feel” or concept of the album to the listener or fan.

To have all this hard work trashed on some teeny-tiny icon sized album art is a total and utter waste. It is intended to be large enough to be CD sized at least, and if you are even more fanatical, to the size of a vinyl LP.

Then you might agree…

iTunes 10.7 — BIG album cover, courtesy of CoverFlow.

That is the difference.

If you are still asking what is the difference?

I’m really sorry, you will never understand?

There is NO other alternative!

Chris CA wrote:

How does it look different from 10.7?

Hey Chris,

The big difference is the loss of cover flow, which gives you artwork in a resizable window above the entire song list. In 11 the best you can get is small album covers to the left of each song. But that long column of covers breaks up the song list with a lot of empty white space. It's not easy to browse or work with songs in list view in 11.

This first image shows the buttons available in 10.7, with the coverflow option on the far right:

This next image shows how nice cover flow looks in 10.7 when I'm in my 80's playlist:

And this last image also comes from 10.7, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the best you can get in iTunes 11 after fiddling with view options in list view? Yuck.

Glassix, I think you misunderstood Chris CA's comment.

The list view (Songs) with artwork in iTunes 11 looks exactly the same as the list View with album art (Album List) in iTunes 10. He wasn't saying that Cover Flow is still there, just that the List Views are similar. We were replying to the comment from Paul Richards4 that there was no longer album art displayed in the list view, which isn't true.

The real difference is the lack of Cover Flow -- which I agree is a heinous omision.

Mark Block wrote:

Glassix, I think you misunderstood Chris CA's comment.

Maybe so, but I thought why not throw up some images to help clarify the differences. It's possible that some new people to this thread won't even know what cover flow looks like. It's now been a year since it was taken away.