iTunes 11: Mini Player is really crap...(!)

After weeks of issues with my 27" imac which resulted in the logic board being replaced I began to lose the 'fanboy madness' I had with all things Apple. So I began to downscale my Apple experience moving my music to Google Play (20,000 song upload for free and any music you purchase in the Play store not counting towards the 20,000 song limit) and moving my movies to Plex. I began to convert my Apple lossless to FLAC which is compatible with Google Play.

Last night I updated iTunes to version 11 out of curiosity but I can honestly state that I just don't get Apple anymore. It seems like innovation ran screaming for the hills with them. I'm really surprised at iTunes 11. The look, feel, bloat just doesn't work for me....however the thing that has me rolling on the floor laughing is the MiniPlayer. The UI seems to have been developed as a first draft prototype. There is no thought to it and the experience is awful.

I have to say that I am happy that I decided to make the move to a cloud based music service and Plex for video.

Did the Maps people have a hand in iTunes 11 as well?

This is just the latest thing to make me think Apple has no clue how its customers use their products. To them, there seems to be only two ways to use their product: the Apple way and the wrong way. A core group in Apple decides the Apple Way to use whatever (in this case iTunes) and anything that doesn't fit that method is removed. And knowing how group cultures tend to work, groups tend to end up with like-minded people. The person who thinks differently than the majority of the group gets frustrated and leaves. And so the group ends up with just people who think the same way.

When I look at how Apple has promoted iTunes over the years, it is obvious that my way of choosing what to listen to (basically at random from songs not recenlty played) is not their way. I do little day-to-day management of playlists; I just was a never-ending list of not recently played songs. iTunes DJ (drawing from a Smart Playlist) fit that perfectly.

Oops, lost track of this being about MiniPlayer. Anyway, call me OCD but I like to know how long a song has to go. My work world revolves around timekeeping so that's who I am. Or I don't want to start a 10 minute song knowing I need to shut down in 5 minutes. If I'm syncing a device, I want to be able to see quickly if the sync has finished. All things I could do with iTunes 10 MiniPlayer that are gone from this one. But I guess those are things that the group designing iTunes don't use and therefore they are things they thing nobody uses or should use.

I could not agree more with this. It was bad enough for me that I downgraded. See the thread at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4556384

I just want to respond to the original complaint, since I think iTunes 11 overall is... dare I say this after all these comments?... really an improvement to iTunes 10 (which was already awesome imho). It just needs a little getting used to. But you have that after every upgrade of every product. But that's just my opinion.

I could sum up some features I like about it, but I expect that I won't find the right crowd in this particular thread.

Having said that: the progress bar/time line feature must come back in the miniplayer! It's something I so, so, so much used to use!

If they put that back (and they should as soon as possible!), I'm happy.

As with any upgrade (or in this instance should it be 'downgrade') there will be those who like the changes and those who don't. What is often mising from some comments is an understanding of something that Apple once boasted about - accessability for all. The work-experience amateurs that Apple now appears to be using in place of programmers who also have a sense of design, obviously have forgotten this feature of Apple products.

I have a visual impairment and am therefore more sensitive to how on-screen presentation is fundamental to the usability of an application. I need colour and contrast to allow me to see without strain. Recent Apple 'upgrades' are gradually being suitable only for those with 20/20 vision and a love of bland. I have two MacBook Pro laptops. One runs Snow Leopard and the new one came with Mountain Lion. I cannot use my new laptop fully.

Apple's idea of 'accessabilty' seems to be a facilty to enlarge or reduce size and/or change the figure/ground contrast. NO ... Apple you need to think outside the little box you have retreated into. Listen to your users, especially those who have used Macs for years, many of them professionally. Those who love the bland interface of Mountain Lion and this latest iTunes 11 you can keep going with miniscule graphics and poor ergonomics, I plan to return to iTunes 10.7 and Snow Leopard even if it does mean that some of my newest software will not run.

Option-Command-M

It's listed under Window > Switch from MiniPlayer

Shame that that shortcut doesn't work for me - that's what I used until the update - but will try it again when I get home tonight!

Does the shortcut show up in your Window menu?

Well... I was looking under the wrong place for the menu 😊 (I'm sure it was under 'View' before?) - the shortcut thing is weird, because I'd tried it and tried it, and didn't work until...now.

God only knows what I was clicking? But it's strange as that's a key combination I'd been using for years.

Oh well, thanks for your help in any case!

I agree with all the comments especially the ones about the progress bar being gone. FWIW I did just stumble upon the fact that if you click the album art in the mini player to get the large album art image to appear and hover the mouse over it while playing a song you do get a progress bar for a few seconds. Not a good fix but at least I know how far into a song I am until (hopefully) the new mini player gets fixed. This really is awful UI when you have to hunt for ways to do simple tasks. Design FAIL.

Give Apple polite feedback on this, and perhaps they'll fix the MiniPlayer oversights:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

Killing the progress and volume bars on the always-visible MiniPlayer defeats its key functionality/conveneince. Before this backwards change, you could check both with nothing but a quick glance over from whatever you're doing. Now you have to point at the MiniPlayer and click different icons to see and change each, then click away. Neither stays visible, and both take up more screen space. (Using keyboard buttons for volume does not perform the same function as changing only iTunes volume.)

Atypically poor design, and not at all user-friendly.

I couldn't agree more. The miniplayer in iTunes 11 is awful. Terrible. The scrubbing feature and time elapsed/remaining is by far my favourite feature. And the window can tell you things lke syncing progress. I will not upgrade and simply keep using iTunes 10. iTunes 11 is a downgrade in my opinion, not an upgrade. Apple seems to have no idea what it's customers like. I just need to keep saying 'no' to Apple's Software Update as I can't ask it not to keep harrassing me to "upgrade" to iTunes 11.

I agree. The new mini player ***** rotten eggs. I honestly don't understand what the problem is with Apple. When they have something that's perfect, like the iTunes mini player, why the eff do they have to change it??!!? It's like God saying... "Hmm... I know that air on planet earth is perfect. But I think I can make it better. Let me remove oxygen and move a few elements around. There!! Perfect!!" And humanity dies. I know that's extreme but you get the idea. I gotta bag of rotten tomatoes for the clown who suggested this change.