Artist Photos Missing in iTunes 12.5.1

I don't think any major company would modify the design of an application, just because people don't like the way it looks.

They would only do if their business would drop in sales. Let's say hypothetically Apple had an increase in sales or stay the same. Directors would think, why do we need to change anything if it's ain't broken? We still have the same sales or even more. So what if there is a microphone showing. People still download and buy music.

I think any CEO of a company would not do any modifications unless there is a drop in sales, which I believe in the Apple's case there is none, otherwise, the show of artist's artwork issue would have been resolved a long time ago.

Girshon Rutstein wrote:

I don't think any major company would modify the design of an application, just because people don't like the way it looks.

They would only do if their business would drop in sales. Let's say hypothetically Apple had an increase in sales or stay the same. Directors would think, why do we need to change anything if it's ain't broken? We still have the same sales or even more. So what if there is a microphone showing. People still download and buy music.

I think any CEO of a company would not do any modifications unless there is a drop in sales, which I believe in the Apple's case there is none, otherwise, the show of artist's artwork issue would have been resolved a long time ago.

Well said.

Actually, Apple constantly changes things just for the sake of change breaking software and hardware in the process. To your other point Tim Just got a 15% pay cut from Apples board of directors because of lagging Apple sales that have been in steady decline for years. This thread is a great example of customer frustration over either a bad change in design or huge bug and I'm sure more than a few customers will leave over this issue alone. For many it will indeed be the final straw. Companies loose customers all the time over mistakes they are blind to and many don't notice until its to late. Even companies approaching the size of Apple can disappear. Remember Kodak, Motorola, or Blackberry to name just a few? Just sayin.

In my opinion, the artist display issue is not a major flaw. It does not affect the functionality of an iTunes. Also, there is a solution for a display artist on the iPhone. Any third party EQ players display artist like it was on iTunes before.

I have been using it for years because iPhone preset EQ does working for me. Why do I need to listen to music the way someone suggesting. I like to use the settings my way and save it as my own preset. I always was hoping that Apple would make that feature, but they never did. And I believe it's a big mistake because by using non-Apple players people are drifting away from the Apple store and purchasing music offered by the EQ applications.

And since we have this Artist issue, people would eventually switch to 3rd part players rather than using iTune player, which could affect on total sales.

The conclusion... Apple should fix the problem.

The EQ presets were always a joke for me.

For example Jazz, Rock, Classical, Lounge etc. Everyone has different taste, different ears, different listening habits, besides there are never the same quality recordings or final mix. If the sound engineer in the studio decides to make bass little louder or highs little lower it does not mean I will like it.

How come there are no presets in home stereo? Because it sounds better? Not necessary, today some headphones or earbuds, can make an iPhone sound like a studio.

Same problem, same frustration.

Remember Snow Leopard, the best OS X ever. It was an 'under the hood' update - no gimmicks, just making the mac experience smooth. I guess Jobs was still around back then and consumer demand for 300 USD wristbands was at a low.

Hate to say it, but after the issue with battery life, the price upgrade and poor specs of the MBP, and these kind of annoyances (also, why can't we download lyrics?), I cannot recommend Apple products any longer.

I can't believe there is still no solution to revert back to album artwork for artists images...

Almost 30 pages of people complaining and yet, nothing is done, how hard is it to just give us the option to use the old (and not ugly and better UX) artworks ?

Apple, every month you **** up a little more, at some point we're just going to give up.

I have the same problem with iTunes 12.5.4.42 on a Windows 10 machine. Why no official word from Apple about this issue? It just makes the layout look really ugly. There should at least be some way to edit the artist picture if they are not going to provide official ones.

Most of the music in my collection is ripped CDs, but there are some that are iTunes store downloads. And art is missing from both types of albums/songs.

I also have this issue on Windows 10, iTunes 12.5.5.5 - I have found out of the 341 artists, 118 are left with the microphone placeholder and it seems random to me as to how they are assigned. For instance, I have cd's that I have ripped, artists i've purchased from iTunes Store, some purchased from other online stores. I've read its the metadata within the artists album however, this cannot be true. I believe it is an iTunes issue in regards to what metadata is held within different files types.

I downloaded MusicBee, a free music player with a lot of features that can be customised. MusicBee also has these artist placeholders but unlike iTunes, MusicBee finds the artists bio pic and assigns it. If you have an album like The Simpsons - Sing The Blues, it will use a round version o the album art. MusicBee assigned pics for all artists in my library.

My question now is, if MusicBee can get these placeholder pics of the artists, why can't iTunes?

Apple iTunes dev and UX team - you suck. You have screwed up everything that was good about iTunes. I understand the concept of unified experience on different devices but I don't understand the concept of making in miserable for everyone on all devices. Thank you for the paid of using iTunes on my Mac and iPhone, I almost stopped using it actually by now.

Seriously, this is ridiculous. I've been waiting for months for an update to reverse this nonsense. I don't even understand who thought this was a good idea. Even if every artist photo was in (and most aren't), they'd look like tiny little thumbnails of group photos. Really? How am I to distinguish between them? Album cover artwork EXISTS FOR A REASON.

you can add album covers of your choice. Open Apple music/album/two fingerclick (touch pad) on album/select 'get info'/select art work/ THEN open Safari/search ???? photos ie greig photos/select photo/File/save greig photo to documents THEN go back to open Art work selection in Apple music and Select Art work - this will allow you to go to documents file which will appear/select the photo you want to use/open and it will appear on your Album artwork accordingly. You will see you can add either the photo of the album cover which will appear on Search, or any other art work.

This was never an issue. The issue is that you CAN NOT change the Artist Thumbnail. And many of the artist (well known artists) just have a generic "microphone" icon. Very poor design. So much for Apple's "Think Different" campaign. Now reads as "Do As I Say"

I came back to this and tried downloading the artwork last week in version 12.6.0.100 and it has downloaded the majority of the artwork. Where it hasn't it will be an issue with either the way the artist and album is named, or obscurity. All albums now by clicking on it, which it previously wouldn't do unless it was an album purchased from apple. Albums imported from vinyl or a cd had to be accessed and clicked on song by song. They seem to be sorting the issues.

The easy fix for me was deleting the Artists view and select Albums...all the artists are there, alphabetically, and all their albums...more comprehensive than the microphone view and no extraneous artwork from the iTunes boxset covers they send over WiFi when you synch.