iTunes 10 now available for download - Page 3

I just run 64 bit installer on my 64 bit Windows installation at work and I ended up with 32 bit version of iTunes. So, either someone botched the installer at Apple or iTunes is not 64 bit for Windows either.

Are you effing kidding me? Another goddamn interface change? Vertical open/close buttons now? Again, are you effing kidding me? Enough. STANDARDIZE ON A CONSISTENT INTERFACE!!!!

The original Mac OS designers must be throwing up a little in their mouths right now.

Time to go to Gnome or KDE methinks. Pathetic.

The vertical buttons are somewhat of a parody, haven't had to time to look at the rest.

FEAR THE CHANGE! FEAR THE CHANGE!! FEAR THE CHANGE!!!

Cos KDE *never* changes, right?

Between major releases? No it doesn't.

Interface is 'different' to say the least.
The vertical buttons are a bit odd, most likely though a preview of the next version of Snow Leopard.
Icon in dock is blue, and I think it looks better than the old one.

I do wish Apple would create a better way to sync different devices on one computer. I have three different ipods, all with different capacities.

Excuse my french, but what the c.ck is that new icon?

Is it some kind of sick joke where steve balmer sneaked in with his design team? Can I get my old icon back?

So it's not so much the change you object to, just the timing? There's no ineffable law that says these buttons must be horizontal, it's just force of habit. Perhaps, like many other things that we just do automatically there would be a better way if only we would let go of our reliance on familiarity. If this saves me 20 pixels of vertical height across the entire screen width, then I for one would hope it becomes a part of 10.7.

This only works for apps which:
a) normally operate in single window mode (like iTunes, iPhoto, Mail), where thus the titlebar does not indicate a document name, and
b) the toolbar is already high enough to accomodate the vertical set of buttons

Incidentally, a) and b) correlate pretty well as lots of stuff in the toolbar (ie, a higher than average toolbar) usually goes hand in hand with a single-window app.

I've been seeing this comment a lot, but I still don't get it. What would itunes gain being 64 bit. It's a player and syncing program. Not a creative program like Final Cut.

So someone educate me, why does itunes have to be 64 bit. What is the killer advantage that makes this so important

The issue with Final Cut STudio not being 64-bit is simple, I can and do cause things to use more than 4GB of memory - or need to and not able to. The bigger issue is that Final Cut and Quicktime Pro are SINGLE THREADED still in the year 2010 for the most part. Hit render on the timeline and watch only one core get used. Export using Quicktime and only one core gets used.

You used to be able to setup Qmaster with a QuickCluster on the computer you're editing with, and export using Compressor and get it to use all cores albeit inefficiently. Now you can only export from Final Cut using Compressor if you don't use a QuickCluster, or use one on ANOTHER COMPUTER (What if you only have the one huh Apple?). If you want to export using Compressor and a QuickCluster you have to first render the full timeline in its single-threaded glory, export a reference movie, close Final Cut and then open compressor manually and setup your conversion using the QuickCluster. Then if you're lucky it may work.

Or you can go use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, where you at any time do File - Export - Media and chose your settings and hit Export and it takes off using all your cores and as much RAM as is needed without any hassle. And oh yeah the codec quality is better too because its been updated since 2005.

Now does anyone have any questions as to why I'm highly tempted to UnSwitch since Windows 7 is a marginally acceptable OS, and I can buy my next machine for half the cost? And buy one with a video card Adobe supports for CS5's new features (nVidia), and one for half the price, and that has driver updates every few weeks instead of years. Yeah, needless to say as a video professional I no longer see the need to remain on the apple platform for my work now that Adobe has released CS5.

Sorry for the slightly unrelated rant, the point being this push to 64-bit on the OS and then abandoning the one app that is goign to benefit the most? And iTunes can benefit from 64-bit with large libraries - it has nothing to do with RAM capacity though. 64-bit opens up more processor registers, this can be a huge performance boost when processing large sequences of data.

Actually there is. It's called Apples Interface Guidelines, which they themselves CONTINUALLY DON'T FOLLOW. The current version of SL is a bastardization of a dozen different interfaces over the years. Pick a consistent interface and go with it. Stop using users as interface beta testers!

It's not that it's 32bit in itself that seems to be the issue, it's more that being 32bit is the most obvious giveaway that the program was written with the old Carbon development tools, and not the modern Cocoa ones that Apple have very publicly chastised other companies such as Microsoft/Adobe etc for not moving to fast enough. As such it doesn't have access to all the modern API calls (including all the nice Snow Leopard multithreading gubbins etc) and as such is less efficient. As to how this affects the end user is debatable, but anecdotal evidence would suggest that out of the box a new Macbook is likely to get the spin beachball much more often when using iTunes, than any other Apple supplied application.

They probably feel that they have this issue covered in the linked 'allowance' accounts for itunes. The way they designed it, you would create your account then a child account for your daughter wither her own Apple ID and password, but all money concerns come back to you (including being able to load money on her account for her to use), plus you get parental controls etc. And I believe when she turns 18 you can have her account separated from yours so she can keep using it for her music, apps etc

No, those are guidelines. The hint is in the name. It's not law, it's not mandatory. The same interface isn't necessarily the best interface for every piece of software.

Cool, thanks - solves that one.

One more complaint . In list view, when you view the album / artist names in the leftmost column along with the artwork, and then reduce the width of that column, it truncates the names with an ellipsis. This is presumably to keep them the same height as the artwork when the artwork is on the "small" setting. But when the artwork is medium (default) or large, then I would really prefer to see the names "wrap" onto new lines instead - it's not as if there isn't room. This may sound like a small nitpick, but I feel it would make a big difference.

Also, the more I look at that new icon, the more i dislike it. Nevermind the fact that it doesn't fit in the the other OSX icons, I think my dislike stems from the fact that it looks "cheap" - like somebody with basic Photoshop skills and not much taste made it in minutes. It could be improved, but I think it should just be re-done. Also, who else things that using the new icon as the dot for the "i" in Ping looks ridiculous?

And how do you change (adjust, improve, evolve) the interface guidelines? By issuing a press release and overnight change all your applications?
Hardly.

Until when? At least during your lifetime?
If we were to follow your rules we would still be stuck in the OS 1 user interface.

Very astute, it's horses for courses, use the best method for each programs usage scenario. If you can save vertical space (approximation follows) of say 20 pixels X 1280 width (total of 25,000 pixels) as the expense of rotating your buttons through 90 degrees then great - I would genuinely love that extra space in several programs I use. If not applicable, don't bother. I'm sure we all understand that the colours and contents of these mere 3 buttons is as indicative of their use as their regular position. Don't understand the hue and cry over this one at all.

Make the interface consistent for each major release. How hard of a bloody concept is that to grasp??

As a long-time artist and designer with a couple of Art school diplomas, IMO no good graphic artist/designer would think that the new iTunes icon is a good move. It's horrible, as have been a lot of the icons from Apple lately. There was a similar furor over the new Quicktime icon which was rapidly changed between beta and release to make it *somewhat* more palatable.

It's not just personal preference, there are "rules" to these sorts of things in that certain colours have certain psychological effects and convey one message or another. The choice to remove all the colour out of the app, but to use absolutely garish shades of blue for the icon, is a very strange one indeed.

The colours are also dark, and the musical note is black. Now, of course musical notes are traditionally black, but there is no reason for one in an icon to be that way and instead of being black on white (because of course traditionally they are seen on paper), this is black on very dark blue. You just don't want icons (which are "invitations" to the application), to be dark, brooding or so garish that they turn people off. The ring around the outside is reminiscent of iOS apps, but the roundness takes away significant weight.

It ends up looking like a bad pewter and enamel belt-buckle you bought on vacation in Mexico.

Finally, why, why, why, is this "iTunes 10"? It's a minor upgrade, it does not bring 64 bits, it does not bring all carbon, it does not do a major redesign or re-think of the UI. They haven't even fixed long-standing stuff like the garbage they call "Internet Radio support." iTunes 10 should have been reserved for the big changes we all know that the application needs.

I have to agree with the naysayers on this one. The new UI is crap.

The lack of color flattens out the appearance of the album/list view, which now makes everything run together. The album art on the left was a real boneheaded decision, and there is no way to get rid of the layout hogging album art. My normal screen view now needs 30% more screen just to see details I want to see on my music files. Really, really bad guys. Who approved this?

Well I think the process goes something like this.....Steve says "I want the buttons this way" and then they push it out to everyone.

Change everything in one go then? For every app? Revolution, not evolution?

And as iTunes 10 is, on the basis of it's version number at least, a major release what's the issue? Or are you saying iTunes is a part of Mac OS X?

I'm not fond of the all grey side bar, although it keeps things unobtrusive, it looks very bland and less easy to spot specific items.

The vertical Close, min, max buttons are ok, but I hope this isn't the new standard.

I really dislike the new device capacity indicator. It looks horrid in comparison to the old one.

Ping is a good idea. It looks like a great way to interact with your favourite artists and for new artists to get their material out to music lovers.

My gosh... the more I look at it, the more I hate it. Feh. Seems they need a Jony Ives equivalent in their UI/graphic design department. What happened to all of these supposed hot shot designers they were hiring? Is the state of design education THAT bad?

Yes. If an interface design is warranted then apply it consistently otherwise it's not worth applying.


iTunes is an APPLICATION. Therefore it should adhere to the same application window guidelines that exists for the rest of the OS.

The check boxes practically disappear now that they've been given the flat grey treatment. My eyes can't stand it.

Also, how can I turn off that bloody Ping logo in the side bar? I could care less what 'the social' is listening to.

I don't think we will see eye to eye on this one. Guidelines are for guidance. Sort of "if you haven't a clue, this is a good way of sorting your stuff out". You adhere to rules, not guidelines. There's no reason why an app, even one from Apple, cannot tread it's own path in small areas of it's interface usage. It might be because Steve wanted it that way, it may be a way of gauging real life usage information for a potential future implementation on a wider scale. People don't like change, sometimes the only way to acheive it is to thrust it upon people. If the general opinion after 12 months usage is that the buttons don't work, or provide usage problems for users who cannot adjust, meybe they will change it back. Just like they did with the iPod shuffle. Or we may all come to love it, and ask for more. One things for sure, if this was just mooted as an idea it would never get off the ground due to peoples reluctance to alter what they find familiar.

I really don't understand why Apple doesn't follow its own UI in what is probably its most important piece of software. That's just bizarre.

Sometimes "creative destruction" gets confused with "design for design's sake". Not quite the same.

You're absolutely right, how could they possibly do this to us?! Unbelievable, I feel so violated.

Time to look for a PC replacement, this is just inexcusable.

Ok, on the positive side, this is really fast and snapy.

But there's an important negative too where apple shot themselves in a very unapplelike fashion on the feet. Wtf is up with everything being greyed out? Basic neuroscience tells us people can tell images apart faster than words, why on earth would they grey out the preferences icons, as well as the sidebar. This makes absolutely no sense at all. Instead of enabling playlists to have icons akin to album art (something that I ve been wishing they do for a long time) they go and grey everything out....

As someone said, it does hurt the eyes so much, that to my, tired, eyes it's almost unusable. As Steve said they "are not perfect". I see this grey thing being in the past at most in a few weeks.

No kidding. I am still in shock. The colors in the interface were very important to me. Let's hope everyone submits a complaint so they put the color back in the first update.
1. Put Color Sidebar Back.
2. Put MB amount back in Free Space when it's less than 1GB. Don't want to know fractions of GB.
3. Ping is unusable if you have written hundreds of reviews under a nickname you're known for. No option to keep your nickname and you forfeit future use of your established nickname if you join Ping. That is an incredibly stupid rule.

Please use this link to formally submit negative feedback to the Apple iTunes Development Team

All videos played through iTunes are now all pixely looking. Is anyone else experiencing this?

What's the deal?

Scale a video up and you will see what I mean.

It's like Quartz Extreme smoothing has been deactivated.

USER INTERFACE is really the KEY to someone Accepting or Immediately disliking the program and have to be won over. A perfect example is the IPHONE4, people loved the way it looked and were enthused.
APPLE either has something in mind or missed the boat with ITUNES 10. Its just awkward and Cold.

execute this from Terminal and get back the horizontal window buttons for your iTunes.:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -int -1

Also, if you hate the new icon save the old icon before you update, and then put it back.

i probably won't be the only one to point this out, but the last major version of gnome just swapped the default side for the window buttons...

I like everything, well at least, now that I restored the window buttons. The dock icon is fine, better than the old one. I don't particularly like complicated icons. I prefer the adobe creative suite style so this iTunes look is a step in the right direction in my opinion.

Why don't people read?

'Major version' is the key point. If you change something then make it consistent across the OS when you do a new release. I'm pretty sure if you open up a terminal window in that version all the window buttons aren't suddenly changed from any other window you open correct?

Yeah, Gnome or KDE, that's the answer. Ha, ha, ha! Good one!

Some people seem to have thought you were serious.