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iTunes 11 (2012)


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iTunes 11 (2012)
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-09-12, 23:41

New iTunes update today and a big one due next month. The big update looks interesting but also somewhat cluttered. I was really hoping for a different and cleaner approach but it seems Apple is happy to mash all of their current UI directions together into iTunes...

A word of warning for the update released today.... I'm having some issues after the update with USB ports on my iMac.... at first the USB ports went dead.... forced reboot, and the machine would not boot as long as USB peripherals were plugged in.... booted once they were unplugged, but iPods and iPhones were not recognized afterwards..... now I have my iPhone recognized but my iPod shuffle will no longer show up and hangs the system when I plug it in.

Not sure what is going on, and it may be unique to me, but thought I would warn you just in case.
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Kickaha
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2012-09-13, 00:21

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
New iTunes update today and a big one due next month. The big update looks interesting but also somewhat cluttered. I was really hoping for a different and cleaner approach but it seems Apple is happy to mash all of their current UI directions together into iTunes...
Yeah, I'm not sold on this change, but at the same time, it streamlines a crapload in a different way. Instead of all the widgets scattered hither and yon, they're presented inline when and where they make sense to be.

I'm not just not sure it's a *better* UI, yet.

I *am* pretty eager to try out on my plasma TV though, it seems like a big step up there.
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SpecMode
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Join Date: Feb 2005
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2012-10-30, 15:47

And, conveniently released minutes after the Disney-Lucasfilm announcement, is the news that iTunes 11 has been delayed into November. Looks like they might be learning from their mistakes on Maps et al on hard release deadlines, and are taking the extra time to get things right the first time.
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Kraetos
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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2012-10-30, 17:58

Windows 8 ships on time and Apple pushes iTunes back? What is this, bizarro-land?
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Moogs
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2012-11-01, 12:55

I don't mind. Get it right. That's the proper mindset for all of their products and could've avoided headaches with Final Cup Pro X and iOS6, to name two examples. Although I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to the "big UI overhaul" or not. If it makes iPad syncing more intuitive I'm all for it. I wonder if they're going to try to build it into the OS like Twitter notifications and things like that where it's "hidden" most of the time but moves the Desktop aside when you need something. I actually prefer the notifications approach to the Dashboard approach (and not by a small margin).

...into the light of a dark black night.
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-01, 13:03

Quote:
Originally Posted by Moogs View Post
I don't mind. Get it right. That's the proper mindset for all of their products and could've avoided headaches with Final Cup Pro X and iOS6, to name two examples. Although I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to the "big UI overhaul" or not. If it makes iPad syncing more intuitive I'm all for it. I wonder if they're going to try to build it into the OS like Twitter notifications and things like that where it's "hidden" most of the time but moves the Desktop aside when you need something. I actually prefer the notifications approach to the Dashboard approach (and not by a small margin).
Who's leadership did iTunes fall under before the executive shakeup?

Curious about that. Especially in regard to its UI. iTunes has always had bizarre UI elements that sometimes hinted at future OS X UI but often times did not.

I'm interested if this delay is also related to the executive announcement and if leadership for this product changed, if the new person in charge is already dictating necessary changes.
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 13:23

ITunes 11 is now out via the App Store Software Update.
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thegeriatric
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2012-11-29, 13:33

Downloading now.
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chucker
 
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2012-11-29, 13:35

It has some good stuff. If anyone's worried, neither the sidebar (View → Show Sidebar) nor the traditional list view (Songs at the top) are gone. Up Next kills iTunes DJ (which itself was a renaming from Party Shuffle), but seems fairly sensible KISS to me. It works good in the new MiniPlayer. The Zoom button now always maximizes/restores, which isn't really classic Mac stuff, but arguably a pragmatic approach (the MiniPlayer now has its own window widget, to the left of Full Screen). For simple "queue up a few songs" playback, you can now just use MiniPlayer and Up Next.*

Other than that… it's mostly lipstick on a pig, really.

The underpinnings are clearly still horrible tangled, as updating it requires quitting Xcode. The icon is even worse. Hypocritically, it isn't sandboxed.

The UI is full of little weirdness — for example, when a song is playing, you can get a contextual menu, but you can also get a completely differently-looking and -behaving but similarly-filled menu by clicking an arrow button which only appears on hover. It features submenus, but you have to click on them to navigate there, and they slide into view.

And the Preferences window is still modal. In fact, I'm not sure it's changed at all compared to 10.x.

Oddly and positively enough, the sidebar icons are back to color. Next up: Finder and Mail?

*) About a year ago, I was toying with creating a shareware called Up Next that accesses the iTunes library, CoverSutra/Synergy/etc.-style, and pretty much does exactly this. Shoulda gone through and sued Apple for trademark violation!

[edit] I don't believe View Options was anywhere near this comprehensive before. And wasn't it modal before?
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 13:49

Positives:

1. It's something.... iTunes needed attention and this at least brings it a step forward
2. It's a bit faster in some things
3. I much prefer the new share/volume control for airplay and multiple speakers.
4. Home Video section is MUCH appreciated to help weed out the crappy iPhone movies and camera movies i shoot from my TV Show and Movie collection.


Negatives:
1. The interface and elements are as I feared a jumbled mess. I don't know what Apple is trying to do UI wise in the Mac anymore. Discoverability is especially poor and intuitiveness is lost. The gradients are somewhat jarring.
2. Music discoverability is still poor and finding music you want to listen to from your own library is still not as smart as it can/should be. Groove on iOS actually does a better job.
3. The edge to edge design will take some getting use to.... and the narrow border at the top of the window looks odd to me.
4. There are still lingering remnants of previous iTunes.... modal dialog boxes that look weird and take over the system.
5. Some things are still painfully slow.... try adding album art to a movie file..... takes about 1-2 minutes before you can do anything in iTunes as the beach ball spins
6. Where is cover flow? I never found it very useful, but interesting that it is gone?
7. Why can't Apple figure out a better way to sync iTunes and iDevices? iCloud, especially the latest incarnation of iTunes Match, does not make it any easier.
8. WHY CAN"T I READ IBOOKS ON THE MAC!!!??? Seriously... its one of the biggest reasons I am hesitant of buying iBooks over Kindle books.... it's beyond stupid!
9. Radio section is still as bare bones as can be... wish they would give this more attention and provide a more graphical interface and possibly "regions" where you can see all stations in a geographic region..... i.e.: NYC Radio Stations.
10. Editing metadata for movies and tv shows is still stupid and not very simple/straightforward/Apple like. Why can't I change metadata without opening another modal window?

Last edited by Brave Ulysses : 2012-11-29 at 14:00.
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chucker
 
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2012-11-29, 14:00

Minor, but cool: you can now redeem gift cards with your camera.
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thegeriatric
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2012-11-29, 14:02

Well I've only just got it installed, but initial impressions, looks better cleaner and refined. It's early days so maybe my opinion will change. So far so good.
I like it.

I used to be undecided.....But now I'm not so sure.
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message. However, a large number of electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 14:12

Oh god... what did they do to search?

Please tell me there is a way to change this?
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chucker
 
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2012-11-29, 14:15

Keyboard navigation needs a lot of work.
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 14:19

Overall after about 45 minutes of using it.....

It's better in some ways, worse in others.... but lacks attention to detail, consistency, and fit and finish. For a version 11, an 11 year old title, and Apple's most popular software title it is just not good enough.

What is going on with them? iTunes 11 is "good enough" but it's not great. Apple software is suppose to be great.

This may as well be a Microsoft Zune app.
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psmith2.0
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2012-11-29, 15:06

I don't like the new album artwork interface. And, frankly, I miss the sidebar. I put it back in place, and I still view my library by song or artist (even though that's changed).
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PB PM
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2012-11-29, 15:12

So it looks just like the "music" app from the iPad, for better or for worse. I like some aspects of it, and not others.
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 15:16

Quote:
Originally Posted by PB PM View Post
So it looks just like the "music" app from the iPad, for better or for worse. I like some aspects of it, and not others.
Although even stranger is that the new iOS "Remote" app looks just like iTunes 11 on the Mac.

A bit redundant and confusing to say the least.
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addabox
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2012-11-29, 15:23

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
I don't like the new album artwork interface. And, frankly, I miss the sidebar. I put it back in place, and I still view my library by song or artist (even though that's changed).
Sidebar for me as well. I like being able to scan categories at one go, rather than having things hidden behind menus. You would think Apple agrees, since they use the sidebar/left to right hierarchy in a lot of their apps, but who knows anymore? At least they've left the option, which is OK for me for now. Maybe I'll get used to the new thinking at some point.

That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated
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Wyatt
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2012-11-29, 16:00

Guys, the sidebar is there. Check the view menu. It's just disabled by default. Hell, they even brought back the colored icons.
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Mugge
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2012-11-29, 16:02

Quote:
Originally Posted by pscates2.0 View Post
I don't like the new album artwork interface. And, frankly, I miss the sidebar. I put it back in place, and I still view my library by song or artist (even though that's changed).
Same here. I find the new interface confusing and it forces me to view a lot of stuff I rarely ever listen to. The new mini player is also not to my liking, it's simply too small and it no longer shows how far along the current song is.

That said, the new interface does look cleaner, it's just bad that Apple has chosen the wrong elements to put emphasis on. Up next is something I've been missing since the Winamp days so it's nice to see such an obvious feature making a comeback. Well. Maybe it was present in some form in the earlier iTunes versions, I just never manged to find it. In wich case I put all blame on the UI.

But yeah, there's still room for improvement.
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chucker
 
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2012-11-29, 16:07

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyatt View Post
Guys, the sidebar is there. Check the view menu. It's just disabled by default. Hell, they even brought back the colored icons.
Their point is that they've had to go back to it.
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psmith2.0
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2012-11-29, 16:42

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wyatt View Post
Guys, the sidebar is there. Check the view menu. It's just disabled by default. Hell, they even brought back the colored icons.
We know this. Read upthread a bit.

We're just saying we prefer that look/navigation over the new way. It's not on by default, so you have to go poke around for it a bit. For a savvy(?) guy such as myself, no biggie. But I had to send an e-mail to friends and family, lest I get deluged with email and phone-based freakouts all night long.
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addabox
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2012-11-29, 17:14

I'm sure this has been noted elsewhere, but I'm kind of horrified by Apple's increasing penchant for scattering modal toggles and drop down menus hither and yon around whatever chrome is available. AFAICT, there is pretty much zero consistency on this count among apps. You have to just search around the perimeter to see if anything looks like a candidate for what you want to do.

Just to name an obvious example, the mini-player thing in the upper right hand corner of iTunes. You can tell the designers were like, "Welp, we already have the close/minimize buttons up left, but then we have this sort of different thing, where do we have some free space?" And then once you're in the mini player you get an "x" and a square, on top of each other, in the upper left hand corner. Just a total mishmash of concepts and execution, in other words, and one that has no corollary in anything else Apple makes.

I mean, I know it's kind of a unique case, but Jesus. Was there no way to be able to make the minimize button go to the mini player in preferences?

That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 18:46

Am I crazy or can you not adjust the iTunes volume via the mini player?
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Axl
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2012-11-29, 18:48

Help me Jony Ive, you're my only hope.
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addabox
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2012-11-29, 18:49

Quote:
Originally Posted by Brave Ulysses View Post
Am I crazy or can you not adjust the iTunes volume via the mini player?
You have to click on the little mini album art so that it expands like a QT player window and then you get the hover volume/transport controls. Which, fuck me?

That which doesn't kill you weakens you slightly and makes you less able to cope until you're completely incapacitated
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Brave Ulysses
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2012-11-29, 19:13

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
You have to click on the little mini album art so that it expands like a QT player window and then you get the hover volume/transport controls. Which, fuck me?



I don't get what is going on at Apple
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Chinney
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2012-11-29, 20:38

Apple’s horrible, bloated iTunes needs to die
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torifile
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2012-11-29, 20:51

Quote:
Originally Posted by addabox View Post
You have to click on the little mini album art so that it expands like a QT player window and then you get the hover volume/transport controls. Which, fuck me?
That's like the player in many iOS apps (thinking Spotify and Rdio). It makes sense on iOS but we kinda have a lot more space on the desktop, so.... I don't get it.

That said, I do like the interface enhancements a bit. The thing is, I don't remember the last time I actually used iTunes to play anything at all. I use it to stream to my Apple TV or I use my iPhone to play music/podcasts. I can't be the only one.

If it's not red and showing substantial musculature, you're wearing it wrong.
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