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Porf Author

Level 1

0 points

What are your thoughts on the New iTunes 11?

I for one am not very impressed! You lose cover flow, and the ability to resize your album art. Unlike previous versions where everything is not in just one area now your searching over the whole itunes for what you need to do. Its cluttered and instead of just editing one album your stuck at looking at all the other distractions instead of what your trying to edit. What are all of your thoughts on this new itunes?

iMac, OS X Mountain Lion, i7 16gb ram

Posted on Nov 29, 2012 9:11 PM

1,601 replies

Dec 3, 2012 8:24 AM in response to ron App

Dang, I thought sure this would fix the system so iTunes would search my iPod again, but it doesn't. I get no results for items which are on my iPod.

Saki GT

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2012 8:29 AM in response to IANCAL

I'm on the hunt for an alternative. iTunes is really an umbilical cord that keeps a lot of the Apple ecosystem together - breaking it like iTunes 11 has, despite its other fixes, really diminishes the desire for other Apple ecosystem products.

Of note: http://mac.appstorm.net/roundups/music-roundups/9-itunes-alternatives-you-should -know-about/

10arrows

Level 1

4 points

Dec 3, 2012 8:32 AM in response to DABbio

D, it is not an issue of "giving the new format a chance". If the new format was just different because it was new, I could see your point.

But this downgrade is new and BAD. Good features removed, replaced with poor features, or with nothing at all. More complicated interface requiring more steps to do simple tasks. Completely dumbed down as if Apple were focusing on new users over power users and people who have been using the program for years.

It is simply a terrible mess. And all, in my opinion, to give the Mac the look and feel of an iPad! That in a nutshell seems to be Apple's goal these days. Take the power options out of the Mac so that newbies can move from their iPhones and iPads to a Mac computer and feel right at home.

In theory, yeah I get it. In practice it does not work! The Mac is NOT an iPad. It is a computer. The Mac does not have a small square screen like an iPad. It has screen sizes up to 27 inches. The Mac is still a keyboard & mouse driven item piece of equipment. Trying to force us into pushing icons is absurd.

Apple, in its zeal to streamline their product line, has forgotten the most critical rule of all. Form follows function.

If this attitude continues, Can't wait to see the downgrade they are going to give Safari.

Dec 3, 2012 8:49 AM in response to 10arrows

I couldn't agree more with 10arrows' sentiments here. I believe that Apple is turning its back on users like me who have used their products for almost 30 years. As for Safari, 6.02 — what I'm using on THIS iMac — already shows a decline over version 5.x which is on my older model; ditto Mt Lion compared to Snow Leopard.

The procedures for restoring iTunes 10.x appear to be far too daunting for me to attempt. But now that Apple no longer provides restoration discs with its newest computers, it looks like I cannot do anything short of erasing the drive on my brand new iMac and cloning the drive on my older model to get rid of this monstrosity.

Dec 3, 2012 9:05 AM in response to Bloodwing

Cute how all Purchased AAC Files are now on Cloud and their info is not editable. Thank heavens I've only bought a few songs from Apple--and rest assured I won't buy any more. I alter practically ALL Genre tags to fit MY system, because CDDB is wrong half the time and they put extraneous info in Artist tags which muddles up the folders. I will not have that information dictated to me.

Dec 3, 2012 9:08 AM in response to Lulus_Dad

Seriously ? Been using Macs for 30 years and the downgrade two steps is too daunting ? I'm no tecky and it literally took me 10 mins if that and everything is back working with 10.7 iTunes.

foxboy1

Level 1

5 points

Dec 3, 2012 9:12 AM in response to Porf

Is this Beta software? There are features that are nice, but it is broken. 11 does not update play counts. Some covers do not come up. They removed cover flow, which I loved. You can not easily remove it and go back with Time Machine. What, so far, is horrible. Maybe Microsoft is not so bad.

foxboy1

Level 1

5 points

Dec 3, 2012 9:16 AM in response to 10arrows

Version 11 ITunes is indeed a DOWNGRADE. Apple has lost it's mind!

Dec 3, 2012 9:18 AM in response to foxboy1

This feedback is for the itunes 10 to itunes 11 update.

I believe the removal of "usability" from the list in this feedback form is telling, as this is the first such feedback I've ever had to give to apple in the category of UI design, which until now has been elegant.

Your newest version of itunes has taken a highly flexible, simple, and customizable interface in which everything was so self-evident a toddler could learn it and replaced it with apple's own version of microsoft office 2007, in which everything worth-while hast been buried deep within submenus. I don't understand what it is with apple trying to cram it's OsX pc users into the IOS box, but mobile device interfaces are designed with dozens of discrete sub-menus due to necessities brought about by limited screen real-estate. This is not the case on real computers, and interface design at apple should reflect this.

The mini player, which is supposed to serve as a "quick-look" and "quick-control" for the program, has become utterly useless at its function. Instead of an applet for quick play/pause/track reference, you now have the top of a massively-deep series of sub-menus which provide you with zero initially-visible details of what you're listening to. It is actually more efficient to simply swap to the main app.

Flexibility is completely gone in this version. You used to be able to see album art in the lower left when you clicked on something in song view, for instance. There are many other examples, such as the inability to set up views for composer, which is HUGE for classical music fans.

If you want to make the interface clean and modular, its your job to give us the tools and flexibility to set it up with the information we want, not make the choices for us and cram us into a one-size-fits-all box. It's quite possible to make the interface modular enough to do this. Think "safari bookmarks bar" or "phpbb" - you could easily have allowed us to define our own "view categories" based on the existing itunes 10 back-end. Instead we get what you've handed us and are told to just make-due.

The late Mr. Jobs would have ended some careers over this monstrosity. Abandoning good user interface design is practically inviting someone to eat your lunch. You did it to a complacent Microsoft, and are now stepping aside to allow others to do it to you, and when they do, I will flock to them with open arms.

rdhednsf

Level 1

28 points

Dec 3, 2012 9:22 AM in response to pi1264

I've lost half my album art. Poof. Just gone. That's almost 2K album covers that I will need to find & re-load. I have to wonder if it's worth the effort. How can I trust the next upgrade won't lose all the work I do all over again?

I'm going in the closet & bringing back out all my CDs. I'll just play em by hand.

rdhednsf

Level 1

28 points

Dec 3, 2012 9:25 AM in response to 10arrows

I can adapt to new formats. Fine, they're trying to push the desktop OS towards mobile.

However, I can't adapt to software that simply doesn't work. Lost 50% of my album artwork. Search STILL does not work (thanks all for tips). Re-built my library now twice. To no avail.

Dec 3, 2012 9:28 AM in response to Airsculpture

Yes, Airsculpture, daunting. Other threads here are warning that the procedure takes HOURS, not 10 minutes. They're also saying that you need to back up your hard drive in case things go wrong. If you have a secret way of doing this in 10 minutes, by all means, please share it.

Alnyden

Level 1

0 points

Dec 3, 2012 9:43 AM in response to rdhednsf

The art is probably still in the file, it's just not displaying properly. (That happened to me for about half my albums)

"Get Info" and check artwork tab to see if it's there. Then iTunes will recognize it again.

You should look into Doug's AppleScript called "Re-embed Artwork". You can select multiple albums and it will fix it for you.

If the art was literally erased then that's a different issue.

Dec 3, 2012 9:46 AM in response to Porf

Every time I turn around, there's another mission critical feature that I've lost.

You cannot sort on columns now. Great, so when managing a large play list, I've lost the ability to sort on Rating (which I use a lot).

Literally, every thing I do now takes 2-3 more clicks.

And oh yeah, quit shoving the expanded view in my face every time I jump to a new letter in the Album view.

This is one steaming pile. Seriously guys. START OVER!

Dec 3, 2012 10:32 AM in response to Lulus_Dad

This is the process that worked for me in about 10 minutes, your mileage may vary.

Hope this helps.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4560565?tstart=0

What are your thoughts on the New iTunes 11?