iTunes 11 Mini Player does not scroll title nor update them

Ditto to that. No artist or song title in the new mini player. Reeeeeeally want those back.

Also, the little rectangle under the X to close the mini player...? What's it supposed to do (because it's closing the player window, duplicating the X action).

Same disappointment here. Doesn't scroll song titles that are too long for the window, nor show the radio station being listened to. Overall, I have found the disappointments with iTunes 11 to outweigh the positives.

Edit: Actually just noticed, for radio stations, that the miniplayer displays whatever is playing when the main window is mimimized to the miniplayer and then doesn't change after than. Double bumer. Obviously a bug.

Same here, the interface seems terrible. I just get a tiny useless picture of the album cover instead of track information. Hovering over it does not display the current track, and clicking on it opens a larger version of the album cover with its own playback controls? Why would I want that? And going to the mini player leaves the main iTunes window open, so I have to manually minimize that.

AHA! A solution (found on one of the other bazillion pages in my Google search):

1. Launch the mini player

2. Note which button has the blue halo (that's the one that's active with keyboard controls)

3. Tab-tab-tab until the halo is on the Up Next icon (stack of three little lines)

The title and artist will now replace the control buttons.

To get the control buttons back, either hover your mouse over the mini player or use the tab key on your keyboard.

If hovering, once you leave the mini player, song title and artist will return. 🙂

Well, that's a bizarrely hidden capability. Sadly, though, the too-long titles don't scroll like they used to. The scrolling was sometimes a visual distraction, but I would appreciate it scrolling when the mouse was nearby. Here, since the presence of the mouse toggles back into view the play controls, that on-demaind scrolling is not an option.

Awesome Paperqueen, thank you!

Loss of scrolling titles is sad. You can resize size the player width at least, to minimize the problem.

Unfortunately, if you are listening to streaming radio the title displayed is the one that is playing when you first switched to the miniplayer and it doesn't change unless you switch back to the iTunes main window and back again.

I reverted my iTunes version to 10.7 until they fix this.

Thanks for finding the titles paperqueen! Yay! 😎

Happy to help. This forum has solved issues for me so many times...feels good to return the favor. 😍

I also find what Apple has done to be a huge step backwards.

Apple seems to be in the dark regarding the user experience - seemingly favoring form over function. I almost feel they are trying to just make things look pretty to please users in store but leaving real users left out to dry in regards to features and smart interface design.

The mini player is my primary interface for using iTunes - now this "upgrade" omits the playhead, time elapsed and remaining, volume controls (at a glance), full playback details, etc. How is this at all an improvement?

I suppose if making the interface "clean" - yeah - it's a home run. So pretty. So useless. Great job!

I said the same regarding Quicktime. I still use Quicktime 7 Pro (!!!!) over Quicktime for OSX because it has full controls, easy edit features (compared to the simplistic garbage of the new player) and most importantly - does not have movie controls overlaying my movie!!!

I know that's a tangent - but let's have a return to controls that sit below the movie as opposed to over it.

Apple, I truly love your products and own a significant amount of your gear - but you really need to sort out the user experience.

Cheers!

I too like to listen to classic music on internet radio while working, and after updating iTunes to version 11, lost the artist/track caption on the mini player, where I like to see who's the composer and what music is playing.

The paperqueen solution did not work for me. No "blue hallow" anywhere. Tabing does nothing but showing the play controls.

But yes, I found another way to see the artist name and music playing: Right-Click on the iTunes icon on the dock bar, and above all options, is the "Now Playing" caption.

The only drawback is one has to click to see it.

CV

What are you complaining about!!!

You now have pretty album art that you can almost see. 😉

Ahem - I just discovered something that while far from intuitive or elegant, will likely make many of you happy.

If you click on the cover art box of the mini player, a window will popup which has the player controls, playhead, time elapsed/remaining and cover art. These controls only appear as the user hovers over the window.

You can however then close the mini player and adjust the size of the popup window and use it as a mini player substitute of sorts.

Yeah, it's far from smartly thought out and feels like a crummy workaround but at least you can get better control of what's playing without having to use the full size iTunes interface.

I still am amazed that Apple put this out as a finished release. Me thinks more heads need to roll in Cuppertino.

Echo all the above comments. Apple needs to fix this in the next iTunes release this is a huge step backwards. I'm concerned that all the attention to detail and quality was buried along with Steve Jobs. Tim just isnt busting balls on innovation and quality ala Steve. RIP Steve.

I just upgraded to Version 11.0.2.26 and that seems to have solved the problem.

Enjoy -