The roll-out of iTunes to a few new countries may be causing some user issues today. According to tweets there's some global outages of both iTunes and the Appstore. The addition of porn links in the Russian iTunes store is just a bonus.
So let me get this straight...iTunes 10 was a horrible mess that needed to be fixed ASAP and now iTunes 11 is a horrible mess that needs to be fixed ASAP. Is anyone ever happy? Have we lost sight of the adapt and overcome part of life?
When you rip classical CDs (and some of us do - today physical CDs of classical music are cheaper than file downloads, and gives you an automatic backup), iTunes usually can't find the album art (or it finds the wrong art). If it finds the album art, it will be embedded in the library file, and not in the music file, which means that the album art is lost if you move the file to another library, or play it through another system (like Sonos wireless).
In iTunes 10 you could use the field in the bottom left corner to copy and paste album art that would be embedded in the file, not in the library file. I cannot find a simple way to do that any more. The only way now is to find the album art on the internet, select the album (or work - I usually group music by work, not album - each album typically consists of many works) or albums, choose Show Info, and paste it in the info-window. This is a lot of extra work that was not necessary in iTunes 10.
Also - some times iTunes would find the album art for one work on the album, but not on the others. In iTunes 10 you could just copy the album art from the field in the bottom left corner, in iTunes 11 you can't.
If it finds the album art, it will be embedded in the library file, and not in the music file, which means that the album art is lost if you move the file to another library, or play it through another system (like Sonos wireless).
That… doesn't make sense. Did it just start doing that?
No. It has been doing that all along as far as I know. Whether the album art is conserved across systems depends on how it is imported in the first place. I have 3 copies of my library on different Macs, and some times the album art doesn't survive when I copy from one library to another.
When you play a song click once on the thumbnail in at the top of iTunes (or in mini player) and the album art will pop up like a quickview image. This image will update as the songs change. You can also control the music by mousing over the image.
And now that cover art is covering part of iTunes window and it is (a) an extra click to get to these covered controls and (b) after accessing any extra controls that cover art window is hidden behind the main iTunes window and requires an extra click to be visible again.
I've tried it but bringing that window back into the foreground after every single interaction with iTunes beyond start/stop and skip becomes tired very quickly. And while just browsing your library (in list mode), there is no visual feedback at all anymore (this extra window only shows playing songs, not selected ones).
So let me get this straight...iTunes 10 was a horrible mess that needed to be fixed ASAP and now iTunes 11 is a horrible mess that needs to be fixed ASAP. Is anyone ever happy? Have we lost sight of the adapt and overcome part of life?
Why should we have to adapt and overcome? Why does Apple keep taking away functionality and making applications worse instead of better? If they can't make it better, then they shouldn't change the UI. I've written separately (probably in the thread about the iTunes 11 release) about all the things I find bad about the iTunes11 UI. It's not that I can't use it. It's not that it's that important to me either way because the main thing I do with it is to simply add tracks and then sync to the iPhone. But from a UI design and from an aesthetics standpoint, I think it's really pretty bad. And while aesthetics are subjective, it looks to me more like an ugly enterprise product (which I'm forced to work on every day) that's built on a grid toolbase than anything that would be associated with Apple. Apple used to be the best of anyone at this. Now I frequently see better UI from the competition. (I used to say at work, "Apple would never build an app that looks like this." Now I can't say that anymore.)
Personally, I don't think this UI could be used by a neophyte user without specific instruction. Since you have to place a library track into a playlist in order to move that track to another device, it made sense to always have the library and playlist display in the left hand navigation. Now you only have it in certain views. There are tons of other problems.
Apple used to be brilliant at improving UI over time. They were brilliant at making sure that apps worked property and that instructions and error messages to users were perfectly constructed to convey what they were supposed to convey. I have an Apple doc from decades ago demonstrating all the research they did just to find the right phrase to ask users as to whether or not they were using a color monitor so that there would be no misinterpretation. I have seen so many incomprehensible instructions and error messages from Apple lately that I feel like programmers are writing the error messages with no supervision instead of people who understand language and syntax.
It's not that its unusable, it's just terribly disappointing.
There are a few things that I find really annoying.
Moving the artist browser to the top instead of the left takes up tons and tons of unnesseasry screen space.
These little arrows that pop up when you hover over songs - I keep clicking them on accident, and they don't show any more info than a simple right click does.
Getting a bit tired of Apple trying to fix what isn't broken, and not giving more options to customize the simple features. The new style is a step in the right direction, but the update overall feels like form over function.
Why should we have to adapt and overcome? Why does Apple keep taking away functionality and making applications worse instead of better? If they can't make it better, then they shouldn't change the UI. I've written separately (probably in the thread about the iTunes 11 release) about all the things I find bad about the iTunes11 UI. It's not that I can't use it. It's not that it's that important to me either way because the main thing I do with it is to simply add tracks and then sync to the iPhone. But from a UI design and from an aesthetics standpoint, I think it's really pretty bad. And while aesthetics are subjective, it looks to me more like an ugly enterprise product (which I'm forced to work on every day) that's built on a grid toolbase than anything that would be associated with Apple. Apple used to be the best of anyone at this. Now I frequently see better UI from the competition. (I used to say at work, "Apple would never build an app that looks like this." Now I can't say that anymore.)
Personally, I don't think this UI could be used by a neophyte user without specific instruction. Since you have to place a library track into a playlist in order to move that track to another device, it made sense to always have the library and playlist display in the left hand navigation. Now you only have it in certain views. There are tons of other problems.
Apple used to be brilliant at improving UI over time. They were brilliant at making sure that apps worked property and that instructions and error messages to users were perfectly constructed to convey what they were supposed to convey. I have an Apple doc from decades ago demonstrating all the research they did just to find the right phrase to ask users as to whether or not they were using a color monitor so that there would be no misinterpretation. I have seen so many incomprehensible instructions and error messages from Apple lately that I feel like programmers are writing the error messages with no supervision instead of people who understand language and syntax.
How can you say with any authority that the old design was better? You simply cannot know whether the new design works better for the majority of people or whether it works less good. We can express opinions, we can discuss individual aspects and features but we cannot state it as a fact that, eg, 'Apple is making applications worse instead of better'. That is imposing one's own opinion as a non-debatable fact.
And why should we adapt? Because otherwise we just get stuck in the echo chamber of our own whining. While that might be appealing initially, I don't think it is really helpful or rewarding in the longer term.
I'd like to see real progress; like displaying looked-up song lyrics that can be displayed as a song is playing, or an artist bio like is seen in Pandora. Or how about a tour schedule for bands as you play them. And the visualizers could be mush better, perhaps displaying the items I've suggested.Lots of stuff could be added to enhance the iTunes player.
With all the employees and cash that Apple has, it seems they let a lot of stuff languish.
The iTunes Player looks and seems great but the cover flow should be a setting or just a box in corner because its bigger for people needing that more informational and could be designed better.
The gapless field was removed because it is for the most part needlessly redundant. For some time now, the iTunes application and Apple's iDevices [URL=http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1797]playback as gapless by default already[/URL], regardless of whether the gapless field is checked.
In fact, for some time it's been difficult or impossible to [B]disable[/B] gapless playback. But this is an entirely different complaint.
And now that cover art is covering part of iTunes window and it is (a) an extra click to get to these covered controls and (b) after accessing any extra controls that cover art window is hidden behind the main iTunes window and requires an extra click to be visible again.
I've tried it but bringing that window back into the foreground after every single interaction with iTunes beyond start/stop and skip becomes tired very quickly. And while just browsing your library (in list mode), there is no visual feedback at all anymore (this extra window only shows playing songs, not selected ones).
I don't see why this is such an issue. How many people really feel as you do insofar that thumbnail size is too small but the single-click of the larger one is too big, despite being able to resize it to a 250x250 image.
I don't care for the MiniPlayer and the fact this isn't just a pic of the album cover but a resizable one with overlay controls means I don't have to have the entire window dedicated to my iTunes app.
But it is not possible to copy and paste album art any more. I need that functionality all the time. It is really annoying that this is not possible any more.
Comments
The roll-out of iTunes to a few new countries may be causing some user issues today. According to tweets there's some global outages of both iTunes and the Appstore. The addition of porn links in the Russian iTunes store is just a bonus.
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-screws-up-its-itunes-launch-in-russia-shows-users-porn-sites-2012-12
So let me get this straight...iTunes 10 was a horrible mess that needed to be fixed ASAP and now iTunes 11 is a horrible mess that needs to be fixed ASAP. Is anyone ever happy? Have we lost sight of the adapt and overcome part of life?
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-screws-up-its-itunes-launch-in-russia-shows-users-porn-sites-2012-12
Yeah, no spin in any of those related stories, I'll say. None whatsoever.
When you rip classical CDs (and some of us do - today physical CDs of classical music are cheaper than file downloads, and gives you an automatic backup), iTunes usually can't find the album art (or it finds the wrong art). If it finds the album art, it will be embedded in the library file, and not in the music file, which means that the album art is lost if you move the file to another library, or play it through another system (like Sonos wireless).
In iTunes 10 you could use the field in the bottom left corner to copy and paste album art that would be embedded in the file, not in the library file. I cannot find a simple way to do that any more. The only way now is to find the album art on the internet, select the album (or work - I usually group music by work, not album - each album typically consists of many works) or albums, choose Show Info, and paste it in the info-window. This is a lot of extra work that was not necessary in iTunes 10.
Also - some times iTunes would find the album art for one work on the album, but not on the others. In iTunes 10 you could just copy the album art from the field in the bottom left corner, in iTunes 11 you can't.
Any workarounds?
Originally Posted by tryd
If it finds the album art, it will be embedded in the library file, and not in the music file, which means that the album art is lost if you move the file to another library, or play it through another system (like Sonos wireless).
That… doesn't make sense. Did it just start doing that?
No. It has been doing that all along as far as I know. Whether the album art is conserved across systems depends on how it is imported in the first place. I have 3 copies of my library on different Macs, and some times the album art doesn't survive when I copy from one library to another.
Originally Posted by tryd
No. It has been doing that all along as far as I know.
Never happened to any of my files.
Happens all the time here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by paxman
When you play a song click once on the thumbnail in at the top of iTunes (or in mini player) and the album art will pop up like a quickview image. This image will update as the songs change. You can also control the music by mousing over the image.
And now that cover art is covering part of iTunes window and it is (a) an extra click to get to these covered controls and (b) after accessing any extra controls that cover art window is hidden behind the main iTunes window and requires an extra click to be visible again.
I've tried it but bringing that window back into the foreground after every single interaction with iTunes beyond start/stop and skip becomes tired very quickly. And while just browsing your library (in list mode), there is no visual feedback at all anymore (this extra window only shows playing songs, not selected ones).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gunslinger
So let me get this straight...iTunes 10 was a horrible mess that needed to be fixed ASAP and now iTunes 11 is a horrible mess that needs to be fixed ASAP. Is anyone ever happy? Have we lost sight of the adapt and overcome part of life?
Why should we have to adapt and overcome? Why does Apple keep taking away functionality and making applications worse instead of better? If they can't make it better, then they shouldn't change the UI. I've written separately (probably in the thread about the iTunes 11 release) about all the things I find bad about the iTunes11 UI. It's not that I can't use it. It's not that it's that important to me either way because the main thing I do with it is to simply add tracks and then sync to the iPhone. But from a UI design and from an aesthetics standpoint, I think it's really pretty bad. And while aesthetics are subjective, it looks to me more like an ugly enterprise product (which I'm forced to work on every day) that's built on a grid toolbase than anything that would be associated with Apple. Apple used to be the best of anyone at this. Now I frequently see better UI from the competition. (I used to say at work, "Apple would never build an app that looks like this." Now I can't say that anymore.)
Personally, I don't think this UI could be used by a neophyte user without specific instruction. Since you have to place a library track into a playlist in order to move that track to another device, it made sense to always have the library and playlist display in the left hand navigation. Now you only have it in certain views. There are tons of other problems.
Apple used to be brilliant at improving UI over time. They were brilliant at making sure that apps worked property and that instructions and error messages to users were perfectly constructed to convey what they were supposed to convey. I have an Apple doc from decades ago demonstrating all the research they did just to find the right phrase to ask users as to whether or not they were using a color monitor so that there would be no misinterpretation. I have seen so many incomprehensible instructions and error messages from Apple lately that I feel like programmers are writing the error messages with no supervision instead of people who understand language and syntax.
It's not that its unusable, it's just terribly disappointing.
There are a few things that I find really annoying.
Moving the artist browser to the top instead of the left takes up tons and tons of unnesseasry screen space.
These little arrows that pop up when you hover over songs - I keep clicking them on accident, and they don't show any more info than a simple right click does.
Getting a bit tired of Apple trying to fix what isn't broken, and not giving more options to customize the simple features. The new style is a step in the right direction, but the update overall feels like form over function.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoetmb
Why should we have to adapt and overcome? Why does Apple keep taking away functionality and making applications worse instead of better? If they can't make it better, then they shouldn't change the UI. I've written separately (probably in the thread about the iTunes 11 release) about all the things I find bad about the iTunes11 UI. It's not that I can't use it. It's not that it's that important to me either way because the main thing I do with it is to simply add tracks and then sync to the iPhone. But from a UI design and from an aesthetics standpoint, I think it's really pretty bad. And while aesthetics are subjective, it looks to me more like an ugly enterprise product (which I'm forced to work on every day) that's built on a grid toolbase than anything that would be associated with Apple. Apple used to be the best of anyone at this. Now I frequently see better UI from the competition. (I used to say at work, "Apple would never build an app that looks like this." Now I can't say that anymore.)
Personally, I don't think this UI could be used by a neophyte user without specific instruction. Since you have to place a library track into a playlist in order to move that track to another device, it made sense to always have the library and playlist display in the left hand navigation. Now you only have it in certain views. There are tons of other problems.
Apple used to be brilliant at improving UI over time. They were brilliant at making sure that apps worked property and that instructions and error messages to users were perfectly constructed to convey what they were supposed to convey. I have an Apple doc from decades ago demonstrating all the research they did just to find the right phrase to ask users as to whether or not they were using a color monitor so that there would be no misinterpretation. I have seen so many incomprehensible instructions and error messages from Apple lately that I feel like programmers are writing the error messages with no supervision instead of people who understand language and syntax.
How can you say with any authority that the old design was better? You simply cannot know whether the new design works better for the majority of people or whether it works less good. We can express opinions, we can discuss individual aspects and features but we cannot state it as a fact that, eg, 'Apple is making applications worse instead of better'. That is imposing one's own opinion as a non-debatable fact.
And why should we adapt? Because otherwise we just get stuck in the echo chamber of our own whining. While that might be appealing initially, I don't think it is really helpful or rewarding in the longer term.
Gapless playback is gone?! WTH
I'd like to see real progress; like displaying looked-up song lyrics that can be displayed as a song is playing, or an artist bio like is seen in Pandora. Or how about a tour schedule for bands as you play them. And the visualizers could be mush better, perhaps displaying the items I've suggested.Lots of stuff could be added to enhance the iTunes player.
With all the employees and cash that Apple has, it seems they let a lot of stuff languish.
Originally Posted by davidness
I'd like to see real progress…
You mean subjective progress.
…an artist bio like is seen in Pandora. Or how about a tour schedule for bands as you play them.
Sounds like Ping before people killed it.
…the visualizers could be mush better…
Meaning?
In fact, for some time it's been difficult or impossible to [B]disable[/B] gapless playback. But this is an entirely different complaint.
I don't see why this is such an issue. How many people really feel as you do insofar that thumbnail size is too small but the single-click of the larger one is too big, despite being able to resize it to a 250x250 image.
I don't care for the MiniPlayer and the fact this isn't just a pic of the album cover but a resizable one with overlay controls means I don't have to have the entire window dedicated to my iTunes app.
But it is not possible to copy and paste album art any more. I need that functionality all the time. It is really annoying that this is not possible any more.