What are your thoughts on the New iTunes 11?

my favorite feature in the new iTunes 11 is the added wait when i try to search for ANYTHING. running a MBP, 2.8ghz i7, 8GB RAM & 256GB SSD... i should not be waiting on the order of 10 seconds before what i type into the search box even APPEARS, let alone show results.

here's how it works.

1. click on search box.

2. type a letter.

3. wait for spinning beach ball to go away

4. type the rest of your search query

5. wait 5-10 seconds until what you typed shows up

6. click on what i want to listen to and wait some more for it to actually display the result.

itunes 11. They took everything remaining that worked and replaced it with broken crap. I'm scared out of my mind if Apple thinks this is "fixing" things what we're gonna see in the coming months and years. And I'm sure we'll just get another "well you're just using the program wrong" schpiel.....

Henry Rexroad wrote:

1. click on search box.

2. type a letter.

3. wait for spinning beach ball to go away

No beach balls here. Instantaneous search results. Must be something on your end.

Do you think iTunes uses the Spotlight DB for searching?

I wonder if Henry Rexroad should rebuild the index? I believe it is still the case that you exclude the disk in the Spotlight privacy section of system prefs & then remove it to regenerate the index (I'm on 10.6.8). I'd reboot between reindexing, but that is probably not necessary.

NOTE: It will take ages to rebuild and it's possible that iTunes is searching it's own DB, so double check other threads Henry, it sounds broken.

yes, clearly its on *my* end when you can find plenty of people reporting the same problem with a simple search of "itunes 11 slow search"

the smugness around this place is suffocating.

Hate it!

Interface looks nice enough, but functionality went down the toilet.

Henry Rexroad wrote:

clearly its on *my* end when you can find plenty of people reporting the same problem with a simple search of "itunes 11 slow search"

I could only find two people with that issue, one was using 10.6.8, and the other one asked the question "Is anyone elses iTunes 11 slow?" to which no one else responded. Weird.

I'm sure it's slow for you but it could be anything, bad memory, a hard drive that's going bad, a poorly maintained computer, improper indexing, etc. All I can tell you is that I've seen 5 Macs with iTunes 11 on them and I have seen no signs of slowness on any of them.

Was Tim Cook also iTunes Match? That was a horror on par with this iTunes 11.

LorrianeKP2 , I noticed spectrum analyzer is missing in I-tunes 11.0 .so far not real shure it is the best I-tunes!

Quote: "I really like the new iTunes Software update mainly because it looks very simple yet elegant. I especially like how it doesn't have the side navigation panel anymore that had the links to things like Music, Films, Tv Programmes and Apps. It looks more professional and less crowded which in my opinion is quite lovely. Also I really believe that Apple has done wonders to the iTunes Store, it will be a lot easier to use for those who are new to Apple Products and Apple Softwares. Lastly I do think that iTunes could be improved by at least giving the option of having Coverflow for those who prefer to see the Album Artwork instead of just a list of songs. Once again Apple has given us something amazing!"

Swallowing back my puke after reading this, I'm going to just address the amazing quote of "I really believe that Apple has done wonders to the iTunes Store, it will be a lot easier to use for those who are new to Apple Products and Apple Softwares." I'm trying to get a handle on how anyone can imagine this. First of all, when I click on "Purchased" which appears under iTunes Store in the left column, it says zero purchases, even though I've bought a couple of thousand things. I DO see them if I click iTunes Store, Home, and then Purchased. So that's a whole menu that goes nowhere. Now the whole reason I downloaded this update was the hype of how the shopping experience was supposed to be so much better. I assumed that might mean that when I searched for an app, in the results screen I would be able to see the ratings of all the apps so I could zero in on the good ones right away. Alas, this has not been added. But, the shopping experience HAS been made worse.

It used to be that I would click App Store at the top, and then perform a search, hoping to see some apps. It always led to a main screen where I had to decide if I wanted to see Songs, Podcasts, Apps for iPhone, Apps for iPad, iTunes U subjects, and anything else there might be, and then I'd have to click iPhone Apps. From there would be a huge list of apps, but no way to know which one was best. So one by one I'd have to look, then press the back arrow and reload the whole big page of apps results. It did usually go back to the general spot on the page near the app I had just clicked. NOW, when you look at an app and press the back arrow, you're carried ALL THE WAY BACK to the general results page, where once again you have to choose from Songs, Podcasts, Apps for iPhone, Apps for iPad, iTunes U subjects, and anything else there might be. How is this an improvement??

I don't see how blowing smoke is a good way to give feedback to a company that seems to have lost its grip.

Ironically the search is equally broken on iOS. It doesn't remember your position in long lists. It overwrites your terms with selected app names. Similar behaviour is in the list of 'top apps' & genius suggestions, it forgets your position beyond one page of 25 items…

I hoped Apple would fix and unify the way it behaved, but I didn't expect them to pick the worst flaws in iOS to put on the Mac.

Oh and regarding the "Apple has done wonders to the iTunes Store, it will be a lot easier to use for those who are new to Apple Products and Apple Softwares," I didn't realize this too: "Apple has also removed Power Search, which let you to search for items using multiple criteria, from the iTunes Store."

Many of the iTunes critics here are obviously big Apple fans. Personally, I've even been accused of working for Apple here- more than once. But iTunes 11 is not only a disappointment- it feels a bit like Apple breaking faith- kind of a hard pill to swallow.

Many, many music fans need list views, myself included. But with iTunes 11, I've lost the lower-left art preview- and with it, I’ve lost direct access to all my cover art- except for the playing track! Unbelieveable.

Clicking & seeing cover art is so critical to jogging your memory. I used to do that constantly … gone now. I used to check tracks for cover art while listening to other music. It was fun- relaxing. Impossible now.

I’ve acquired & embedded large cover art- mainly because of my beautiful Retina iPad display. Now I can’t access ANY full-sized art — in ANY view — except for the playing track. Unbelieveable.

I took a look at the PC iTunes forum here, and found less concern about the changes. My theory is that PC folk are used to bad things happening- used to disappointment & difficulty. They’re much more fatalistic than Mac users, who are used to being delighted. Disappointment like this hit the Mac community harder.

Mac users care about how their software works- that’s why they’re Mac users. They value flexibility, and- yes- delight. I’ll admit, I’ve been smug about this at times. I’m not feeling very smug now.

I'm sad to see the lack of quality control on the design side of things consistently since Steve left... Everything is starting to look cheaper and more quickly produced.

this new itunes is no exception. the buttons are hideous. the fonts/shadows/gradients are all just terrible now.

Ooh, yet an other wonderful new feature in the iTunes store, making it so much better for all. I used to be able to search for a song, and then in the results sort them by artist, or popularity, etc. It was very helpful because the results are often senseless, including too many things. You can't narrow the search to just song, artist, etc. Now, you cannot click at the top of the columns to sort by any criteria. So there's no quick way to get to the song I had in mind.

Please read the nearby comments of Kim Hill1. I agree with everything Kim Hill1 said, and expressed so well. It summarizes many if not the majority of the comments about iTunes that are made not only here, but in fact all over the internet. I only wish the upper design and programming management of Apple would read it, "get it," and accordingly make some meaningful and serious modifications to iTunes 11 — for one, adding back at least an option for Cover Flow.