First look: Apple's overhauled iTunes 11 - Page 6

Quote:

Originally Posted by KPOM 

Hopefully with iOS 7 Apple starts to put in place some semblance of a file system. I'd like to be able to copy, use, and share PDFs a bit more easily between my PC and iPad. My employer restricts the use of iCloud Document matching and services like DropBox, so I need to use the somewhat clunky iTunes method of file exchange.

Why?  That's kind of silly.

Originally Posted by drblank 
Why?  That's kind of silly.

Extraordinarily silly, in fact.

Apps should see only what they can edit; we shouldn't have to care where that is.

Has anyone figured out how to turn off the 'Show in iTunes store' link? You used to to be able turn it off in version 10 with a defaults.write, but that doesn't work in iTunes 11.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy 
Has anyone figured out how to turn off the 'Show in iTunes store' link? You used to to be able turn it off in version 10 with a defaults.write, but that doesn't work in iTunes 11.

I'm sure Secrets will have a fix in a few weeks. If it's still possible, that is.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

I'm sure Secrets will have a fix in a few weeks. If it's still possible, that is.

Not so sure on this one, as the old settings was specifically to turn it off, and it no longer works :|

I find the link entirely useless and it gets in the way. Why would I need to link to the store when I already have it? I've heard a few suggest that you can see any other tunes off that artists album, but I just find it gets in the way. Chances are when I bought it, that I specifically chose NOT to buy the other tunes in the album.

Ah well, I'll hold out hope that some fix comes along.

Originally Posted by DJRumpy 
Not so sure on this one, as the old settings was specifically to turn it off, and it no longer works :|

Well if it's still a setting, they've just changed the reference name.

I know! Really it should only show up if it's something that is in the iTunes Store that iTunes hasn't found already associated with your account. I'd be fine with that; that's reasonable.

But I'm seeing it both on things that 1. are associated with my account (even though the local files in question aren't the files from iTunes; they're ALAC) and 2. things that couldn't possibly be in the iTunes Store and for which it therefore shouldn't appear in the first place. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by AppleSauce007 

The new iTunes 11 can be configured to look and behave like to older versions.  The media organization exactly the same.  It just has a different default presentation.

 

Try View->Show Sidebar and them press Songs across the top.  Boom!  There is your old iTunes.

 

This is an awesome piece of software.  Enjoy!

That's not entirely accurate - this option is missing the artwork.  And that's one of my biggest gripes.  I preferred the old option of being able to see the album cover and then customize which columns I wanted to include.  We no longer have this option.  We can customize the columns, but have to forego the covers.  Or we can have covers, but are forced to view the information Apple decides we should see.

My other issue is that I actually don't like the vertical and horizontal track listings under Albums when you select an album.  Not only is it visually not intuitive to look in two different directions to search for something, but longer song titles don't fit there.  Most of my collection is classical music.  A track name might say Variations on Righini's "Venni Amore" in D major, WoO 65: Variation XXIV. Allegro - Allegro stringendo - Presto assai.  Well, this isn't going to fit and there doesn't appear to be any way to fix this.

One other strange issue, especially since in this version Apple wants us to scroll through album art is that the covers aren't very large.  They are smaller in the new version than they were the last time (which was smaller than the version before that.)  I don't understand why Apple won't let us decide how big we want the artwork to be?

In general I find the current version is a lot less customizable.  Which I find just bizarre.  

BTW, the closest view that I come to liking is the Artist/Artist List view.  But I hate the Artist browser that is forced to be part of it.  If I could get rid of that browser I could live with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DmitryB 

 

In general I find the current version is a lot less customizable.  Which I find just bizarre.  

I don't think it's bizarre, but rather just V11.0. Much like new versions of iOS were pretty bare, they developed into a richer client. Given that we know they had issues getting this ready on time and missed their deadlines, it's probably safe to assume that not everything made it into day 0. I'm hoping they close some of the obvious gaffes in short order.

Originally Posted by DmitryB 
In general I find the current version is a lot less customizable.  Which I find just bizarre.  

Does no one remember the days when you could even set the behavior of imported media? You could have it play as it imports, not play as it imports, play only after it's done completely importing… 

That was last seen in, what, iTunes 7? Talk about your Windows-level customization.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sapienssapiens 

 

3- After I start playback I always minimize the player. It takes very little space on my 13" screen.In  iTunes 10 it was possible to change the volume from the mini player. The new mini player lost this and now shows a tiny pic of the album cover.

 

There is still a volume control on the new mini-player along with the tiny picture. You can also enlarge the tiny pic and there's a second volume control on the bigger picture.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lamewing 


I just wish I still had the CD Album art at the bottom left of the sidebar (left side). I would double-click that and use it as a mini player....a better mini than the actual mini player.
Am I missing it somewhere? Hmmmm....I guess I just need to look up. Thanks Stephenbw....just dumb luck I found your post above mine.
I still find it clunky that I have to open the mini player, double-click the pick, and then close the mini player to get the album art player. More steps than in the past version.

You don't have to open the mini player at all. Once the music starts playing just click once on the small picture at the top left of the title/progress box to get the album art player.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tallest Skil 

 

Does no one remember the days when you could even set the behavior of imported media? You could have it play as it imports, not play as it imports, play only after it's done completely importing… 

 

That was last seen in, what, iTunes 7? Talk about your Windows-level customization.

You know, I hadn't even noticed that had gone, as it was only occasionally that I wanted to play as it imported. When I did, I just started playing once the first track had finished importing, and I see that you can still do that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DmitryB 

My other issue is that I actually don't like the vertical and horizontal track listings under Albums when you select an album.  Not only is it visually not intuitive to look in two different directions to search for something, but longer song titles don't fit there.  Most of my collection is classical music.  A track name might say Variations on Righini's "Venni Amore" in D major, WoO 65: Variation XXIV. Allegro - Allegro stringendo - Presto assai.  Well, this isn't going to fit and there doesn't appear to be any way to fix this.

Make your iTunes window wider or narrower and the titles will fit.I have a song titled, "Serenade in D, "Serenata Notturna": Rondeau (Allegretto - Adagio - Allegro)" and it all fits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by chabig 

Make your iTunes window wider or narrower and the titles will fit.I have a song titled, "Serenade in D, "Serenata Notturna": Rondeau (Allegretto - Adagio - Allegro)" and it all fits.

Thank you for the suggestion.  But my iTunes is already covering the entire (27'') iMac screen.  No way to make it wider.  And I think iTunes is deciding how much text to fit depending on how many tracks there are on the album.  If it needs to make 3 columns - there is less room for text in those columns.

One question: can anyone figure out why iTues is including artist name under the song title for some albums, but not for others?  See attached image.  As far as I can tell the metadata is identical as far as artist names (both artist and album artist, as well as sort artist) are identical.  It seems to be random and changes from playlist to playlist, as well as within the individual playlists. 

You won't see internet radio with the sidebar on. Turn it off (Option + Command + S) and you'll find it under Music. I'm not following on the 'dropdown play button' though? My play button works fine but I may be misunderstanding.

Edit: Scratch that. Just turn radio on in your prefs ;)

Ah. I just use the main Play/Pause buttons at the top. You seem to have created a playlist, rather than just double clicking on the radio station broadcast.

Just set them as a compilation and they will appear in the same album.

Has anyone figured out why, in Artist List mode, sometimes iTunes displays the artist name underneath each song and sometimes it doesn't?  I don't see any rhyme or reason to it.  It changes from playlist to playlist and sometimes even within the same playlist some albums will have the artist name and some won't.  (For the record I'd like to have the artist name displayed.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by guapochino 

Just set them as a compilation and they will appear in the same album.

Which post were you replying to?

Originally Posted by sjk 
Which post were you replying to?

We really need to get rid of that reply button…

Quote:

Originally Posted by DmitryB 

Has anyone figured out why, in Artist List mode, sometimes iTunes displays the artist name underneath each song and sometimes it doesn't?  I don't see any rhyme or reason to it.  It changes from playlist to playlist and sometimes even within the same playlist some albums will have the artist name and some won't.  (For the record I'd like to have the artist name displayed.)

From what I can tell iTunes 11 does this when the Album Artist differs from the Artist.  Even if only one track on the album has a different Artist name, the Artist will be displayed for each track.

Makes sense really.  Why list The Beach Boys under each track on Pet Sounds?  Listing the artist is very helpful though with a compilation album such as a movie soundtrack.

Quote:

Originally Posted by yensid98 

From what I can tell iTunes 11 does this when the Album Artist differs from the Artist.  Even if only one track on the album has a different Artist name, the Artist will be displayed for each track.

 

Makes sense really.  Why list The Beach Boys under each track on Pet Sounds?  Listing the artist is very helpful though with a compilation album such as a movie soundtrack.

That would make sense!  But sadly isn't the case.  For example, on Madonna's "Like a Prayer" the Album Artist is listed as Madonna, but one of the songs is listed as "Madonna & Prince" - and yet the view does not include a second line to highlight the fact that it's a duet.  I also recently bought the compilation of all the Bond movie songs, where every single track has a different Artist (and Album Artist simply says Various Artists.)  And yet iTunes does not show the second line to help identify who sings which song.  I've found that to be the case with multiple albums.  Coincidentally, Madonna's "True Blue," which features no duets and does not include any secondary artists listed in the Artist column, does show the second line under the song titles.  That's why I can't figure out what the program is reacting to and why it's showing different information.

It is very strange to see that the reactions on iTunes 11 are so silently disregarded. On the Maps issue there was not even installed by most of the users and continuous coverage was going on day by day.

For sure the iTunes is far more important than Maps but Apple insider is keeping silence.

There are many users protesting on forums on the features that were iconic for iTunes providing in the same time good functionality and pleasant graphical aspect. 

Maybe some personal preferences of some are in the favour of new iTunes but these were fulfilled also in the old version. What was happening now was that beside the deletion of main features, the interface customization was reduced almost to 0. Now everybody must enjoy the preference of the new iTunes "genius".

It was supposed that Apple Insider is an objective and constructive observer of the Apple user world but maybe I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by Lucser 
It is very strange to see that the reactions on iTunes 11 are so silently disregarded. On the Maps issue there was not even installed by most of the users and continuous coverage was going on day by day.

Probably because they're nothing at all alike and received reactions that were wholly different.

About what is there to report?

Increased dramatically, actually. Removing Cover Flow ≠ "reduced almost to zero".

Nope. Don't use Genius, never have; doubt I ever will.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhilBoogie 


Could it be the field: 'Sort Artist'? Enter something obscure, like, say, Android, and then play that track. See what it displays...

Once I rebooted my computer (for reasons unrelated to iTunes) - it does seem to have adjusted the second line, as you mentioned above, to reflect if one of the songs has a different artist from the rest.  So it doesn't reflect changes in real time (which is a bug, I suppose.)

@Tallest Skil Regarding the maps I think that was too much fuss. It is not too different from Google Maps from my point of view. It is possible that I'm wrong as in the country that I live now Google maps was unusable (no directions or route available) but Maps coulld calculate a route. Anyhow for real navigation I use a dedicated GPS. What I was trying to say was that for so little was so much noise and almost immediately after release as maybe not so many users start to use it, that was somehow strange. But again, maybe I'm wrong.

"About what is there to report?"

There are many to complain from the Coverflow feature to Duplicates. There are many problems described also here in these forums and there are workarounds for many of them but as it say that make it simpler was the idea why to spend additional clicks for usual operations. There are many problems with the libraries, lost content or artwork. For sure most of them could be solved with a lot of time wasted. etc etc. What I was willing to say is that the reality is not so pink. There are many users with real complains and just disregarding this is not OK. Just praising what is good in the new version without commenting on what was good and lost from the previous version is also not OK.

"For a good time, call 1-800-MY-APPLE."

Not everybody is living in the USA! I take it anyhow as a joke as I'm pretty sure that even the biggest Apple fanboy it is very sure that calling apple for a complain will help it in any way. On the other hand I have the experience to call to the service center ~5 times and even if I must admit that finally my problems were solved this was far from being easy. Each call was for ~45min-1 hour and most of the time was spent with really stupid explanations and excuses. As I said I'm at least happy that finally problems were solved.

"Increased dramatically, actually. Removing Cover Flow ≠ "reduced almost to zero"."

I really don't see how was increasing + the Coverflow was a major feature in the previous versions. At least, for the ones that don't like it was possible to disable it and this is customization. Now you don't have many options about how a playlist or songlist is displayed. Same goes for columns and sorting feature. It is true that many of us have very different ways to arrange these lists and to choose how to be displayed and to provide the means so that users could find their preferences fulfilled = Customization.

"Nope. Don't use Genius, never have; doubt I ever will."

I don't use it either and this is why I wrote it without capitalization. I was just saying that somebody seems to think about itself that is such a genius that his ideas and preferences will suit everybody so. About the Genius I must to admit that I could not understand the use of such feature. I must say that I still like to rely on my own brain/logic/memory.

In the end I feel that I must to apologize for my English. It is not my language and it seems that I could not express what I want in a more clear and logical way.

I'd love to be able to download iTunes 11 to check it out.....BUT that app store is offline for updates. What gives?

When I click on my device listed in iTunes 11 - on the left side in the listings of devices connected, then click the TV Shows button to see which TV Shows I want to download to any of my devices (iPod, iPad3, iPhones5), it only lists the first 6-7 TV Show titles, out of easliy 200+ full shows that I have multiple seasons on. 

The ONLY way to "scroll down" to other TV Shows is to press the down arrow, BUT, you can't see what the TV show is, just the Seasons because the scroll area of listed TV Shows does NOT advance in the window.  Only the "Seasons available" advances.  In other words... It doesn't show what show it is on, but it does show the seasons from the "mystery TV Show" selected (which you can't see).

If you're like me and named your Seasons Episode: "Episode 1, Episode 2, etc..." you're really screwed!

Honest to God, this is such a BASIC yet MAJOR function - to pick what you want on your device... how on Earth could anyone possibly NOT have beta tested this??  How could anyone with just basic knowledge have NOT found that in under 45 seconds flat - the time it took me to find it.  I'm just a record producer - NOT a computer whiz kid and even I found it.

Really??

UPDATE:  Hey guys??  Anyone home?? When filling out a report via the web site... It asks "What version of itunes are you using?", hummmmmm the problem I am having is with iTunes 11 .... WHICH IS NOT LISTED AS AN OPTION TO CHOOSE!  Smooth move.  <lol>

Did the dude who beta tested iTunes 11 who didn't catch that the TV Shows do not advance in the device window...  also setup this "report a problem" part of the web site leaving off the very version that is causing the problem?  If so, this guy should be fired.  So no one is able to tell you guys which iTunes is causing this problem?  Or is everyone choosing 10.6.3 (the last version) sending tech support on a wild goose chase because there's no way to choose iTunes 11? Brilliant!

The recessed song display panel in the header bar is horrible. It is too close to the edges top and bottom - the space around items is very important for visual differentiation and aesthetic balance. The graduation inside is too strong and interferes with legibility and is inconsistent with any other UI element.

I don't know if their regular UI team were on holiday but Apple, please take note, these details matter!