What are your thoughts on the New iTunes 11?

BaboonLoveMonkey wrote:

What would be simple is iTunes 10.7's text only view that shows more, and lets me do what I want, how I want, without removing features, wasting massive amounts of space, and segregating iPod content from the sidebar.

Or you know, having it with scalable Coverflow, so you could add a visual element of interest to the spreadsheet UI, which really gives you the most control.

Never been so disappointed with iTunes.

- In the "Last added" playlist, which as been my life savior for many years now :

"Grid view" shows randomly ordered albums, with no information except their name and duration (no way to see bitrate or even genre!)

"List view" randomly shuffles the order of songs within the album, without showing it (except when uselessly activating the unexpectedly large "track number" column)

- No way of choosing where to insert the playlist folders within the playlists list.

Those 2 were the most annoying to me, so I figured I would write them here, for developers to see someday. Some comments are pretty harsh though. For the record, I like the new design 🙂. What I do not like is this tendency to oversimplify everything (bitrate and genre ARE important info, I think). I expected more flexibility in the preferences.

OK, I finally get to pass along a tip or two.

Cover art in Artist view. iTunes examines all albums for a given Album Artist, looks for the album with the highest net rating (album with the highest percentage of highly rated songs) and uses THAT cover art in the Artist view.

It is possible to manipulate this behavior. If you don't like the cover iTunes decides it wants to use, go into THAT album and set all the song ratings to zero. You'll notice that iTunes will pick the album with what is now the highest net rating. Now go back and change the ratings on that first album. The artist cover art should remain unchanged. I total PITA if you ask me. The Set Default Grid Artwork command worked just fine IMHO.

If the Artist view cover art is blank and clearly some of your albums have cover art, this is a bug. Select all the ablums for that artist, go in and change the Album Artist field in some trivial way (delete one character). You'll see that the art "pops" in place. Then go back in and correct the Album Artist field.

This is all a major PITA but at least I understand how to fix it.

Where's my paycheck Apple? Clearly, your own QA people didn't do as much testing as I have done in the past three days.

It stinks. My iPod classic won't sync. Lots of people have this problem. it gets stuck on track 2 or track 5. I - unwisely as it turned out - followed one person's advice to restore my iPod. Now it's got almost no music on it. I'm going to demand my money back from Apple.

It seems like everything Apple does these days *****!! Why can't they just leave S*** alone? First the new OS with all kinds of problems now this. I want my coverflow back NOW! I paid alot of money for my mac, quit screwing it up without my consent.

Horrible! I hope apple reads this and reconsiders it's decision to drop some of my favorite features like duplicates and cover flow. The lay-out is completely wrong. It's like they decided to make it look and feel like your on the iPad. I've been warning everyone. Me, I was the guinea pig.

For the person looking for play counts...

Go to : View / View Options / check the box (Plays)

I have about 1700 albums in my library and used to have iTunes set to Grid view, grouped on Artist. That view is now gone, now I have a long list of albums without any dividers which adds a lot of usability overhead, I now have to read every single album and artist entry to see where a new artist collection begins, it's awful. I don't really care for the new bells and whistles and neat tricks with background and font colors.

This update has a Microsoft feel to it and combines the worst of Apple and Microsoft, Apple dictating what you need and what you most certainly do not need (like a dark background; well I really liked it) and Microsoft releasing pretty software that looks good in screenshots and gets 5 star reviews by press people that don't really use it but is actually very unusable and plain stupid.

It's now a player only and totally worthless as a library management tool. I can understand why you want to refactor software and make it faster and better looking but why change a concept that is in essence quite ok just for the change. I was so disappointed.

This is the first time I've actually tried to go back to a previous version of a software (and failed at it since I can't seem to uninstall itunes 11).

One of my (numerous) pet peeves is that I can't search my ipod music. When I search, it searches my library. Well, I don't keep all my music on my laptop. I needed to update a playlist and had to go through genre and then scan for the titles I wanted.

And the search for duplicates seems to be gone.

I know a lot of people complain about itunes, but IMO the previous version gave me much more control and options than this lead ballon.

hi BopCat

i REALLY don't mean to get on anybody's case but when you say :

''...and can't see how "Cover Flow" is "better"-...'' that suggests you didn't use it, right ? there you go, it's SO simple to understand :

it's all down to having choices so YOU can set it up YOUR way & i can set it up MY way, right ?

which leads us to the next point you make :

''...I don't know how any Apple developer could please someone who prefers what they, and I, obviously consider a significant improvement....''

again my friend it's down to offering choices & accomodating as many people's preferences as possible - let's face it, even car makers, as backward minded & stuck in their ''old ways'' as they are have realised that much by now.. - & since a company's success/failure is inherently connected to it's capability of delivering products that can accomodate as wide a customer base as possible, maybe, just maybe, what you or i or anyone else thinks is best, ultimately becomes quite irrelevant

it's ALL about the possibility of ''adjusting it'' or fine tuning it to each person's own preference & that's all there is to it

which means even Apple dev's livelihoods ride on their capability to deliver THAT or change jobs !

isn't that what Apple did a few years ago when it offered ways of doing things the other ''big players'' wouldn't, effectively pulling the rug from under their feet in SO MANY things ? has that approach proven successful or what ?....

let's NOT forget that to build up a reputation it takes a lifetime of ''doing it right'' & yet to throw it all away it only takes A FEW bad moves....unfair for sure but that's just the name of the game

i REALLY like Apple products ! enough to buy them, use them, recommend them to family, friends & clients as well so i REALLY HAVE a vested interest that they keep doing it right : by me, by you & by everybody else

hence i criticise when i feel i must...& must give you space to disagree !

to understand MY gripes with iTunes 11, perhaps you should try using it with roughly 10.000 albums at nearly 3TB of music to manage & sort through - MAYBE then you'd see it differently ?

add the fact that digitising, loading up all the albums ( LP's & CD's..) come up with a ''cataloging system'' & setting up playlists that made sense to me + adding the album covers into iTunes took me MANY, MANY, MANY weeks of my life, so yes i was FURIOUS & about to EXPLODE when after doing the ''update'' most of that was trashed in minutes & replaced by something someone else thought was ''best for me''

in the interest of keeping my post as short as possible i will spare us all the details...

i'm very sorry but as long as i pay all of the 2000€ i paid for my computer, i WILL INSIST actually DEMAND to be able to set it up my way

now if Apple, or you.. intend to start sending me a new computer every couple of years, well....GREAT ! but let's cross that bridge when we get to it shall we ?

i DON'T want to force anyone to set up things this, that or any other way & all i'm saying is that i would REALLY appreciate that courtesy back, that's all + i get the feeling MOST people posting in frustration against iTunes are in reality asking for the same only using other words ?

so, since the thread IS called ''what are your thoughts on the new iTunes11'' what do you think if we all stick to just THAT ?

enjoy your iTunes11 & have a GREAT week-end

This will do the trick:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=16400819

You will need to re-import your lib though. Good luck.

Mini player does not have a volume button. You must click on the album artwork, wait for the new window to spawn then change volume from there. Seriously? What a glaring omission.

Dickie7 wrote:

..You must click on the album artwork...

Except, there is NO "Album Artwork" to click on! That icon is actually a "Song Artwork".

They have lost that concept.

Hi Fabe

can you show me how to set it in grid view by artists so my 10.000 albums/3TB worth of music remain as easy as it was to find as before

if that's possible i'll update...

oh & i truly wish for selectable size artwork as well w/ dark background, white just ''cooks'' my eyes after a while

thanks

Type in "the new itunes11" in any search engine and you'll see reviews like this...

"This new version won't please every iTunes user. Some familiar ways of doing things have changed and some longtime features have been axed in the name of simplification."

There is so much B.S. surrounding the reviews of this new launch. Bring back the old iTunes!