[BlueRabbit]

Does the new iTunes interface look better or worse, in your opinion?

Personally, I like how it feels a little less cluttered, after losing some of the margins. On the other hand, it's uglier, and I kinda miss the rounded edges (both on the center info display and on the window corners). I probably won't be able to make up my mind for a week or so.

[Brad]

Note: I added more options to make the poll more balanced.

[Wyatt]

I haven't decided yet. I think I like it, but I can't be completely sure yet. I like the slight chanes to the mini-player in Windows quite a bit, definitely. I'm getting my Mac mini tomorrow, so maybe I'll play around with whatever old version comes on it for a while so I can compare it to the 5.0 interface. I always like a little cross-platform comparison action

[Luca]

Looks like I'm the only one here who claims to like it. [EDIT: Nevermind, someone else already voted that they like it as well. I was first though!] I don't know, I'm kind of bothered by the way Apple just completely ignores all their own interface guidelines when designing their apps, but now at least they're starting to bring all their applications together to form a new "standard." Maybe it's their way of distinguishing Apple apps from third-party ones? I don't know, but at least the Apple apps are all starting to look the same (again).

The problem, of course, is that some apps go for a really long time with no updates, and Apple seems pretty fickle about changing the interface on new ones. So by the time, say, iCal gets a much-needed update, they've already moved on to yet another new interface "standard."

Oh well, the way I see it, things could be worse. As Mac users, the only nits we have to pick are little interface inconsistencies. Look at Windows or Linux! You can't even begin to look at interface inconsistencies there because there are so many other major issues that affect the basic usability of those OSes. We Mac users have it good.

[ast3r3x]

I put unsure, but I think I like it. I like the less wasted space. I think the main thing that kinda bothers me until I get used to it is how square the main display is. Hasn't it been round since iTunes first came out? Either way, I was used to it round, and it just has such a square look, even more because I'm not used to it.

Like the new time display, and I really like the shading in the song position indicator.

[psmith2.0]

I like it okay.

I tend to be open to changes after a long while, merely for a "freshening up" if nothing else (which is why I'm open to the idea of a glossy piano black PowerBook for the first time in five years, after yesterday ).

I don't like the sharper window edges much, but I do like the new sharper (less hot dog-shaped) song/title window in the middle. That looks nice to me.

No complaints, really.

[flail]

I hate hate hate the fact that the Podcasts are in the library. I know it makes sense, but I still want them separate. I know you can select music in the Search Bar, but when you hide it, it goes back to default showing Podcasts again. (sigh) Back to 4.9 for me.

[Carlos Net]

It all looks shiny and new, which is good, and yeah, I think I like the overall new look. Like pscates, I think it's mainly the 'freshening up' effect, but it does look nice and slick.

Major, major kudos to Apple, though, on the information window, which is now infinitely better, and solves all the problems I ever had with it, really. The one thing I always thought was out of place was how on an iPod, you could always see elapsed and remaining time simultaneously, and the song name, album AND artist were always visible, and yet these things were limited to one apiece in iTunes. Now, it's absolutely beautiful; the song name is ALWAYS visible (not to mention distinct from the other two; useful to avoid confusion when an album has the same name as a song on it), as a result, it's quicker and slicker to view artist/album name, and you can see elapsed time, remaining time and the time slider...and the most telling thing of all, ALL of this carries over to the mini interface, which has therefore gone from one line of info, one method of time display to two lines of info, two methods of time display, PLUS the slider, so you can now skip through the track easily in mini-mode. It's brilliant.

[InactionMan]

I voted unsure but I think I like it. It's a lot like the Mail.app and Spotlights interface which I really dig. It just seems cleaner. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care how far Apple strays from their own guidelines so long as it looks nice.

I'd much prefer it if more Apps took on the unified brushed aqua dealy Apple is pimping right now. All the little software developers have gone a bit nutty with the brushed metal.

I still don't know about the light blue source panel in iTunes and Mail. Though I guess if your getting rid of the extra chunk in brushed metal and drawers in Mail you've got to do something to seperate the source panel from the rest of the app.

[Barto]

Well, "interface" is a very broad thing. The look is ugly. The functionality is good. And it is far more responsive than the iTunes 4.x interface.

So ugly but great.

[SKMDC]

I like it when it's minimized, but when it's open the now playing box looks odd. So I'm on the fence.

[geneman]

I much preferred the old (4.9) look, maybe it's 'cause I haven't switched to Tiger... It just doesn't seem to fit. I liked the brushed metal.

Fortunately iTunes is mostly playing on party shuffle in the background, so I don't really look at it that much.

[InactionMan]

It looks right pretty with the visualizer running. See!

I definitely prefer the volume slider separate from the other controls. Much less cluttered.

[SonOfSylvanus]

The thing that strikes me, like many, is the main info display and how big it is. And the blue source list. It's all so Mail. (But notice that the blue colour in Mail and iTunes differ—not good for my OCD...) I hated Mail to start off with. But I've mellowed since then. I like the new iTunes from the get go.

If you don't like it now, I'm sure you'll soon get used to it.

[Electric Monk]

If this is Apple gradually moving to a basic standard of Unified Title and Toolbar, albeit with variations as seen in Mail 2 (Plastic-ish) and iTunes 5 (burnt) then I'm happy, even with the ugliest corners ever seen on OS X.

I do like most of the changes though.

[BenP]

I think the reason the corners look weird is because they are out of place compared with the other Aqua apps. If all apps had iTunes's new corners it would look wicked.

[_Ω_]

Angry Theme (from Daring Fireball)

[Mr. X]

Originally Posted by InactionMan It looks right pretty with the visualizer running. See! I definitely prefer the volume slider separate from the other controls. Much less cluttered.

What's even more impressive is that you're playing one of the best cuts from Twin Cinema...Carl Newman is brilliant....

I love the new iTunes---especially due to the new time bar and artist/song info at the top. My only complaint is that Podcasts are in the playlist.

[HezMah19]

Originally Posted by Omega Angry Theme (from Daring Fireball)

hahahaha

[Mac+]

^ That was actually quite good.

[Brad]

I've tried it for a couple days and I've found that I like some parts, but I dislike even more. The two things that bother me the most are sharp corners and the new super-dark, multi-gradient grey that has taken over. Ugh.

Fortunately since Apple embeds absolutely every single frickin' UI element into the app, that makes it easy to theme! I just whipped up this whiter version of iTunes that I think fits much nicer with Mail, Camino, and the other apps that use the new unified toolbar. It's amazing how a little change in brightness can make a UI feel more friendly.

Originally Posted by Omega Angry Theme (from Daring Fireball)

I <3 DF. I just knew he'd have some genius commentary about this.



[HezMah19]

Question.
HOW did you do that? It looks much better.

[Gargoyle]

I like it but two other things bug me...

1.) When apple do something like this to a major app, they should do it to all of them!

2.) As Brad said (and showed), it's easy to "theme" these apps so Apple should make some sort of mini program to apply themes or some official instructions of how to do it.

Edit: Well, OK. Maybe not easy! Come on Brad, show us how its done!

[oldmacfan]

What I have always wanted was to be able to sort using more than one category.

[BenP]

I don't know what this guy's talking about but he made iTunes green.

[Brad]

Originally Posted by Gargoyle 2.) As Brad said (and showed), it's easy to "theme" these apps so Apple should make some sort of mini program to apply themes or some official instructions of how to do it.

Well, Apple could have done this from Day One. Remember that SoundJam MP could be extensively themed, had a themes folder, and had a menu to change themes on the fly. SoundJam was really awesome. When iTunes was first released and Apple stripped out this functionality (among many other SJ features), lots of people (myself included) hacked apart the pieces of iTunes, searching in vain for a way to get other themes to work. Unfortunately, no one ever found a way.

It's really not that easy to do unless you're already comfortable with resource editing. Back in the Public Beta and 10.0 days, I did my fair share of "theming" of Mac OS X and a few other apps. As Apple refined and subdued the Aqua look, though, I haven't been so inclined to work on anything like this until now, except for when Mail 2.0 was released.

If you want to try your own hand, download a free copy of ResFork or Rezilla.

I still want to change a few things in my edited iTunes first, but if anyone is really interested, I can post it for download later.

[kieran]

I would download that white theme in a second. It just seems more Apple like. Plus, it matches my iBook

[Electric Monk]

Here's a iTunes Unified installer.

It takes the burnt Unified and brings it back to the normal Mail colour.

iTunes Unified, direct link to dmg file

Still the ugly corners although I admit if every Apple app had the same corners and the same unified look I'd be jumping for joy just at the consistency of it all.

Rob at the Robservatory has updated his list of OS X interface looks. Now we have 7. Sigh.

[penguinjohn]

If you look closely, Apple didn't even match the brushed aluminum in this v 5.0. So now the it sticks out like a sore thumb. WTF? did they not even try to follow their own trend? I dont understand.

[Luca]

The more I use iTunes 5, the more I like the interface. Having no thick borders makes it look much better and seems to save a lot of room too. And the timeline display is much improved... in fact, the entire "LCD screen" area has been rearranged to be a lot more useful. Now you can see both the elapsed and remaining time at once, the title of the song, and either the artist or the album. It's much nicer in that regard.