What are your thoughts on the New iTunes 11?

I'm on a different computer right now, but I'll check that out. My searches seem unpredictable. For example - If I want to search for the song "closer" by Nine inch Nails, I would typically type words like "nails" and "closer". Now in iTunes 10 the song would pop right up in a list alongside any other songs that have the words "Nails" and "closer", which hopefully wouldn't be much and I'd locate my song in about 5 seconds total. In the current version, I'll type "Nails Closer" and nothing will show up - It'll just be a blank box with the search itunes store option. but if I type nine inch nails i'll get a long list of every song by nine inch nails, and sure enough closer is in there, but I have to find it amongst 50 other songs. Like I said I don't have itunes 11 in front of me so I'm going off of memory about the search behavior but I remember running into situations like this a lot.

Or if I click on "show all songs by" nine inch nails, I get the almost unusable "album" view - switch it to "songs" view, and it'll bring me to all nine inch nails songs, but in a list of every other song in my entire library. So I can't reorganize just the NIN songs by album, title, or any other parameter. Does this sound like behavior that can be changed in preferences?

toowonphyve wrote:

... In the current version, I'll type "Nails Closer" and nothing will show up - It'll just be a blank box with the search itunes store option. but if I type nine inch nails i'll get a long list of every song by nine inch nails, and sure enough closer is in there, but I have to find it amongst 50 other songs. ...

Or if I click on "show all songs by" nine inch nails, I get the almost unusable "album" view - switch it to "songs" view, and it'll bring me to all nine inch nails songs, but in a list of every other song in my entire library. So I can't reorganize just the NIN songs by album, title, or any other parameter. Does this sound like behavior that can be changed in preferences?

I just tried it on my MacBook Pro (four and a half years old, so not a speed demon) with several songs and artists (including Nine Inch Nails). I typed "demon" then "nine." The song "Demon Seed" popped up before I had even typed the "e" of nine. With songs that I had multiple copies of, or with artists that I had dozens of albums of, the worst case was that the search took about 2 or 3 seconds. With a 30,000 song library, that's pretty good.

This was in Songs view. I'm not sure what you meant by clicking on "show all songs by." When I perform a search, then switch from Songs to Albums to Artists and back to Songs, the search criteria is maintained from one view to another. The crucial thing is to have "Search Entire Library" unchecked in the Search area. (Click on the magnifying glass.)

Again, the default with a new install is Search Entire Library, which is horrible, as it takes longer and gives you a dropdown list to choose from, rather than simply showing you the search results in the view you've chosen.

Good luck!

Last week, I mentioned that I was able to sync iOS7 with iTunes 10.7. Well, that's not true anymore. The latest updates have caught on to my scheme and I must upgrade to iTunes 11, unless I am able to do the syncing using the technique offered by KimHill1. Oh well.

I am now back on iTunes 10.7, so I cannot compare the two searches on the same Mac. I can, however, give some insight into the apparent search methodology on 10.7 and compare it to the iTunes 11.0 that's installed on an MBP15. I keep a second MBP just in case (or when) my MBP17 crashes, since the Mac is my primary means of navigation on my boat.

toowonphyve indicated:

... If I want to search for the song "closer" by Nine inch Nails, I would typically type words like "nails" and "closer". Now in iTunes 10 the song would pop right up in a list alongside any other songs that have the words "Nails" and "closer", which hopefully wouldn't be much and I'd locate my song in about 5 seconds total. In the current version, I'll type "Nails Closer" and nothing will show up - It'll just be a blank box with the search itunes store option. but if I type nine inch nails i'll get a long list of every song by nine inch nails, and sure enough closer is in there, but I have to find it amongst 50 other songs. Like I said I don't have itunes 11 in front of me so I'm going off of memory about the search behavior but I remember running into situations like this a lot.

It appears that iTunes searches are performed in a manor that is close to the most basic method used by Google. As such, it performs a simple word search, in which the found items will contain all of the words entered into the search string, in any order. Unlike Google searches, however, you can not wrap quotes around the words and force the search to find the string as a phrase. In other words, searching for the string Nails Closerwill return exactly the same resulsts as searching for the string Closer Nails, and you cannot force it to find the exact phrase by wrapping the string inside of quotes such as: "Nails Closer" , as you can in Google. (Of course, in your example, this would not be a help to you, as Nails was in the Artist column and Closer is in the Name column of your iTunes XML database file.)

At first, I thought the difference you're seeing was due to columns being dropped from the search targets. But, looking at an example in my iTunes 11.0.4 on my MBP15, I'm not so sure this is the case. Personally, I think there should be an easy way to limit the columns being searched, but if there is, I couldn't find it. You should also be able to search the string as a phrase by wrapping it in quotes. This is not a difficult implemenation and greatly helps when doing a search on a very large library.

Or if I click on "show all songs by" nine inch nails, I get the almost unusable "album" view - switch it to "songs" view, and it'll bring me to all nine inch nails songs, but in a list of every other song in my entire library. So I can't reorganize just the NIN songs by album, title, or any other parameter. Does this sound like behavior that can be changed in preferences?

IMPORTANT NOTE: In iTunes 11, It seems that the best way to replicate the results you had in iTunes 10 is to ignore the dropdown suggestions that you get when you start to type in the search string. Finish typing the string, then hit return/enter. This seems to execute the search in the same manor as would have been done in iTunes 10.

WebbWebs wrote:

... Personally, I think there should be an easy way to limit the columns being searched, but if there is, I couldn't find it. You should also be able to search the string as a phrase by wrapping it in quotes. This is not a difficult implemenation and greatly helps when doing a search on a very large library.

... IMPORTANT NOTE: In iTunes 11, It seems that the best way to replicate the results you had in iTunes 10 is to ignore the dropdown suggestions that you get when you start to type in the search string. Finish typing the string, then hit return/enter. This seems to execute the search in the same manor as would have been done in iTunes 10.

As I said earlier, it's vital to deselect the the "Search Entire Library" in the search preferences. Apple has made this very easy to do -- and to change back quickly -- by putting the preference in a dropdown that appears if you click on the magnifying glass. No need to go into the Preferences. Once you do that, you won't get a dropdown of your search results, which I find annoying, so there will be no need to hit the Return key to force iTunes to show your results in a normal view. Even more important, perhaps, is that the search feature will then offer five fields to limit the search: All, Song, Album. Artist, Composer.

Thank you, Mark... I did miss that. It was posted during the time that I was recoving all of the cover art that was lost when I imported the songs from the iTunes 11 library and into the iTunes 10 library.

Recall that the iTunes 11 installation on my MBP15 is version 11.0.4. In that version, it appears that you can if you uncheck "Search entire library", you can only select "Filter by" for ONE of the following: "All", "Song", "Album", "Artist", or "Composer". Is that also true in 11.1?

Regardless, as I play around with the differnent settings and try various results, I do not get anything close to I would expect. For someone who's been playing around with Apple products since 1980 (Apple II), I find the methodology to be closer to what I would expect to find on a Microsoft product ;-(

I'll have to seen if I can locate the PDF manual for iTunes 11, since it seems that it is now becoming mandatory to read the manual.

WebbWebs wrote:

... Recall that the iTunes 11 installation on my MBP15 is version 11.0.4. In that version, it appears that you can if you uncheck "Search entire library", you can only select "Filter by" for ONE of the following: "All", "Song", "Album", "Artist", or "Composer". Is that also true in 11.1?

Correct. The filter is a one-at-a-time affair.

Thanks, Mark... that's kinda' what I thought. So that wouldn't have helped toowonphyve in his search for "Nails Closer" since the two words appeared in different columns (Name and Artist). Unless, of course, cheking the first option "All" would still do this. I tried this, but it doesn't seem to do what I would expect.

Jack

I do 99% of my searching with "All" selected. I find iTunes 11 does what I expect, but maybe my expectations aren't high enough. 😉

I wouldn't swear to it, but as far as I can tell, the iTunes 11 search function is exactly the same as iTunes 10 if you deselect "Search Entire Library."

I don't suffer any problem with searches in iTunes 11 on my dual drive SSD/HDD MacBook Pro. It's instantaneous.

But I still don't like the lack of Coverflow and my iMac still remains on 10.7.

Improvements? Yes.

Better than 10.7? Emphatically not.

Mark,

I have just figured out the difference between the two searches (disregarding the drop-down check list).

I have the same library currently loaded on both installations. The only difference isthat the library on my MBP17 (iTunes 10.7) has all been totally converted to AAC at a Bit Rate of 128 kbps. (I grew weary of having to wait litterally hours for the library to re-encode on the fly every time it was necessary to reinstall music during a sync. I finally just gave up on maintaining the higher quality originals, in favor of a shorter transfer time.

After entering the search string into the field, I tend to "submit" the search by pressing enter/return. I do this without even thinking about it, since this would have been required prior to the AJAX methodology used to auto-submit the search following each key-press. So, as I am entering the identical search string into the two versions, the results are continually trimmed down, based on the entry thus far. The difference comes when I then press enter/return. At this point, the entire search fails and the result set contains the entire library.

This seems a bit strange to me and it is clearly a bug in iTunes 11 (at least in 11.0.4, which is all I currently have to test). Logic would suggest that pressing enter/return would force the search utility to look for a "return" or "line-feed" in the data (which would not exist), thereby removing all entries from the found set. Instead, the reverse happens and the found set now contains the entire list of all songs. The only way to negate it is to backspace up to and including the last alpha-numeric character.

This is obviously a bug, and though I now know how to avoid it, this is something that does need to be fixed.

Jack

The new iTunes is horrible. Apple took away some of the unique characteristics of previous iTunes versions. In particular slashing the cover flow feature is a slap in the face to the record cover artist. In iTunes 11 creativity is less important. Fast food-like menus are favored. There are no innovative visuals. Hard to understand, considering the powerful hardware available today. Also, I can’t upgrade to iOS7 if I want to keep using iTunes 10.7 – what a scandal. I don't think I will be able to hold my position with apple for much longer.

Without Steve Jobs at the helm Apple is losing core values. Apple before: targeted to innovators and the ones who want to change the world. Apple now: Let’s reach the masses. This shows on iTunes 11.

Very sad.

Apple, wake up!

DeepblueELO wrote:

The new iTunes is horrible. Apple took away some of the unique characteristics of previous iTunes versions. In particular slashing the cover flow feature is a slap in the face to the record cover artist. In iTunes 11 creativity is less important. Fast food-like menus are favored. There are no innovative visuals. Hard to understand, considering the powerful hardware available today. Also, I can’t upgrade to iOS7 if I want to keep using iTunes 10.7 – what a scandal. I don't think I will be able to hold my position with apple for much longer.

Without Steve Jobs at the helm Apple is losing core values. Apple before: targeted to innovators and the ones who want to change the world. Apple now: Let’s reach the masses. This shows on iTunes 11.

Very sad.

Apple, wake up!

Wholeheartedly agree. Couldn't have said it better!

@DeepblueELO

you've nothing lost not be able to upgrade to iOS7...

the same horible mess (odd design, ugly colours and tiny touch spaces) with iTunes 11 and the loss of CoverFlow!

DeepblueELO wrote:

Without Steve Jobs at the helm Apple is losing core values. Apple before: targeted to innovators and the ones who want to change the world. Apple now: Let’s reach the masses. This shows on iTunes 11.

Very sad.

Apple, wake up!

Whilst I dislike iTunes 11 I don't think you are looking back with any kind of accurate perspective.

Steve Jobs was the one who brought about the iMac which removed the floppy disk & only supported the tiny number of USB & Firewire devices (to much consternation at the time). He constantly pushed Apple forwards, which is why we have the iPod, iPhone and iPad. Steve gave us the iPod shuffle with no buttons & the iPod hifi that failed to take off.

iTools, .Mac, MobileMe, Mac OS, FCP… were 'reworked' or rebuilt entirely every few years under his tenure, Apple always do this, they often drop support for older devices too. For example, no iCloud on 10.6 and they killed off MobileMe that worked on 10.6 at the same time.

Want the latest iLife or iWork? - 10.7 or better required, but Apple don't even sell the last Mac OS on the App Store anymore. Try buying an older copy of Pages or Garageband from Apple, you'll need to find a boxed copy on Amazon.

The innovation Apple brings to it's products is about refining the experience to be better than the existing products. Tablet PC's, smart phones, MP3 players all existed before Apple 'innovated' them into popular usage.

Apple iterate, refine and improve products to bring them to the masses, it was never about selling to a minority (with the exception of pro products, which are niche by definition).

Your "change the world" consumer has never existed in my eyes, I think you are miss-remembering Jobs's recruitment question to John Scully (Do you want to sell sugar water or change the world?).

I'm not sure if there has ever been "innovative visuals" in iTunes, coverflow was made by an external company that Apple purchased and others had made music visualizers before iTunes existed.

iTunes 11 is merely another example of Apple tearing the past down in the hopes of making something better. Personally I'm willing to wait a few versions in the hope it will suit me better otherwise I'll move on to another application.

It's unfortunate, but I'll have to avoid iOS 7 too but it really is OK living away from the bleeding edge, you currently loose very little by running iOS 6 & iTunes 10.7.