Apple seeds iTunes 12 beta 3 to developers ahead of OS X Yosemite launch
Apple on Thursday issued the third beta build of iTunes 12 to developers and members of its Apple Seed program, bringing minor tweaks and backend enhancements to the stalwart media app.
The most recent iTunes 12 release does not appear to contain any substantial modifications and, aside from a few user interface tweaks, remains largely unchanged from the last beta build released in September, which itself was a near carbon copy of the initial beta seeded in July .
When it launches alongside OS X 10.10 Yosemite this fall, Apple's iTunes 12 will bring a refined design fitting in with the next-generation operating system's "flat" aesthetic. The media storage, purchase and playback platform will feature translucent windows, reorganized navigation bar and new library viewing options, among other UI adjustments.
iTunes 12 will also support new Apple cloud service features rolled out with iOS 8 like Family Sharing, which allows content sharing between up to six family members registered under the same credit card.
Apple is expected to release iTunes 12 to the public alongside OS X Yosemite some time this fall, with the latest rumors pointing to a debut in October.
Developers and AppleSeed members can download the latest iTunes 12 beta through the Software Update mechanism in OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
The most recent iTunes 12 release does not appear to contain any substantial modifications and, aside from a few user interface tweaks, remains largely unchanged from the last beta build released in September, which itself was a near carbon copy of the initial beta seeded in July .
When it launches alongside OS X 10.10 Yosemite this fall, Apple's iTunes 12 will bring a refined design fitting in with the next-generation operating system's "flat" aesthetic. The media storage, purchase and playback platform will feature translucent windows, reorganized navigation bar and new library viewing options, among other UI adjustments.
iTunes 12 will also support new Apple cloud service features rolled out with iOS 8 like Family Sharing, which allows content sharing between up to six family members registered under the same credit card.
Apple is expected to release iTunes 12 to the public alongside OS X Yosemite some time this fall, with the latest rumors pointing to a debut in October.
Developers and AppleSeed members can download the latest iTunes 12 beta through the Software Update mechanism in OS X 10.10 Yosemite.
Comments
Unfortunately that is where it ends. Extensive album, movie etc. lists scroll like molasses, constantly reloading artwork while displaying a SPOD (and no, that's not because of the beta state, it did work in beta 1 and got worse with every improvement). The handy sidebar view is gone. WiFi Sync still unreliable. Newest 'feature' in beta 3 is no more grouping of TV Show seasons.. series with 10 and more seasons now show as a list of 100 and more episodes %u2013 add the terrible scrolling behavior and you have a winner :-(
In addition to removing the sidebar feature (which is bad), the new Store integration is not well thought out. E.g. you can't change from the movie page in the store to your local music with one click; if you click on Music you get to the music page in the store and need a second click to show local contents. The other bad joke is the implementation of the 'Devices' popup. It just takes over the application and even Mission Control. If you watch a movie in full screen mode and a known device gets on the WLAN (e.g. girlfriend returns from shopping) then the device popup will open and the active space on the Mac changes from the full screen movie to the main iTunes window.
Bugs are unavoidable with complex software, but neither does Apple read feedback, nor does iTunes 12 add anything useful to justify them. Sincerely hope that this will not be released before it gets a lot more work.
It's overcomplex.
I hope Apple will switch to an entire new system after this version:
Music - Beats and iTunes songs app.
Photos - As planned, browser and editor.
Videos - Video browser and simple editor.
And I hope they will get rid of 'videos' on iOS as well because it's very inconsistent with Photos and Music on iOS (it's basically iTunes for videos)
Do you use any Shared Libraries? I ask because that is how I mostly use iTunes; I don't have much local data, but I have an old Mac with a RAIDed external drive that I used as my "iTunes Server" until such time as Apple graces us with a proper Home Media (and Time Machine) Server.
More specifically, I have Smart Playlists set up in iTunes on that old Mac I'm using via Home Sharing. I typically set up this up show content for various shows that have been played less than 1 time. However, with the first beta of iTunes 12 this "feature" of showing Playlists of shared devices was gone. Would you happen to know if it's back?
(That was a very long intro to ask an otherwise simple question)
iTunes Radio now says how many skips are left(it didn't in the previous version).
Do you use any Shared Libraries? I ask because that is how I mostly use iTunes; I don't have much local data, but I have an old Mac with a RAIDed external drive that I used as my "iTunes Server" until such time as Apple graces us with a proper Home Media (and Time Machine) Server.
More specifically, I have Smart Playlists set up in iTunes on that old Mac I'm using via Home Sharing. I typically set up this up show content for various shows that have been played less than 1 time. However, with the first beta of iTunes 12 this "feature" of showing Playlists of shared devices was gone. Would you happen to know if it's back?
(That was a very long intro to ask an otherwise simple question)
My setup mainly consists of a Mini Server in the closet with a Pegasus ThunderBolt RAID 6 keeping the iTunes library (plus my main Aperture library). So yes, I access a Shared Library constantly, and no, the newest beta does still not show playlists from it (also does not show playlists from attached iDevices).
But, just for clarity, as far as my performance related comments are concerned, I did try hooking up the RAID to my testing Retina MBP directly (with Spotlight disabled to eliminate indexing related slowdowns) and the scrolling problems persist even with the TB RAID directly attached (as my 2012 rMBP has a pre-PCIe SSD, the external RAID is actually faster than the internal one).
Edit: nm.
The look is nice, yes.
Unfortunately that is where it ends. Extensive album, movie etc. lists scroll like molasses, constantly reloading artwork while displaying a SPOD (and no, that's not because of the beta state, it did work in beta 1 and got worse with every improvement). The handy sidebar view is gone. WiFi Sync still unreliable. Newest 'feature' in beta 3 is no more grouping of TV Show seasons.. series with 10 and more seasons now show as a list of 100 and more episodes %u2013 add the terrible scrolling behavior and you have a winner :-(
In addition to removing the sidebar feature (which is bad), the new Store integration is not well thought out. E.g. you can't change from the movie page in the store to your local music with one click; if you click on Music you get to the music page in the store and need a second click to show local contents. The other bad joke is the implementation of the 'Devices' popup. It just takes over the application and even Mission Control. If you watch a movie in full screen mode and a known device gets on the WLAN (e.g. girlfriend returns from shopping) then the device popup will open and the active space on the Mac changes from the full screen movie to the main iTunes window.
Bugs are unavoidable with complex software, but neither does Apple read feedback, nor does iTunes 12 add anything useful to justify them. Sincerely hope that this will not be released before it gets a lot more work.
I hope that you have fed this back to Apple, because your comments are certainly worrying.
They deleted the multiple windows view 2yrs ago and managing the library is a pain, by example.
There is this silly trend of making the simple difficult in the name of minimalism ...
In the end iTunes now is (and will be) about serving aapl content and to manage your digital assets you should work with third parties. Once I find a good solution for managing digital content that works well with iOS devices I will use iTunes for "aapl only" and that's it
I don't like the last version. There are many many views you can switch between and its not immediately clear which choice results in what view.
It's overcomplex.
I hope Apple will switch to an entire new system after this version:
Music - Beats and iTunes songs app.
Photos - As planned, browser and editor.
Videos - Video browser and simple editor.
And I hope they will get rid of 'videos' on iOS as well because it's very inconsistent with Photos and Music on iOS (it's basically iTunes for videos)
A dedicated music app with storefront.
A dedicated video app with storefront.
A dedicated photos app.
That'd be awesome indeed. It would lay the foundation for Apple to go social in the cloud:
Beats as alternative to myspace, mixcloud and Soundcloud.
? video as alternative to youtube and vimeo.
? photo as alternative to flickr.
A dedicated music app with storefront.
A dedicated video app with storefront.
A dedicated photos app.
That'd be awesome indeed. It would lay the foundation for Apple to go social in the cloud:
Beats as alternative to myspace, mixcloud and Soundcloud.
? video as alternative to youtube and vimeo.
? photo as alternative to flickr.
I'm 50/50 on whether it makes sense to, after all this, separate Music and Video into separate apps.
It makes sense, but then again, doesn't. You're essentially creating separate things to manage....separate apps that all have to log in to iCloud/iTunes Store. Separate Apps that all need Home Sharing enabled. Separate Library files to keep track of and make sure you move/backup when getting a new Mac.
Lot of headache there.
it should also be noted that the Yosemite GM Candidate seeded is officially not the GM, or at least, the public release, as of this iTunes seed.
Can someone answer the simple question of why, to date, iTunes can't cache artwork properly, and always forces it to reload when scrolling the list (worst time imaginable)?
I’d like to know why a playlist can’t be given its own artwork.
I sure did. I have submitted almost 150 bug reports since DP1, almost 30 of them for iTunes 12. While most 10.10 issues have cleared up, I do not see any real progress with iTunes, performance wise it keeps getting worse with every update. ITunes 11 killed WiFI syncing reliability, their target for 12 seems to be to make its complete slouch in every regard. Whoever is still on iTunes 10.x should really think twice before upgrading, it was the last good version.
I’d like to know why a playlist can’t be given its own artwork.
Or at the very least, why a regular playlist doesn't get a dynamic artwork collage like Genius lists do.
In addition to removing the sidebar feature (which is bad), the new Store integration is not well thought out. E.g. you can't change from the movie page in the store to your local music with one click; if you click on Music you get to the music page in the store and need a second click to show local contents.
WHY does Apple have such a hard-on for killing the sidebar?! It's the single most useful feature of iTunes! If the sidebar is good for Finder windows, why is it bad for iTunes?
I'm really trying to get my head around Apple's vision for how iTunes should be used, but I'm just not getting it. It actually seems like there IS no "vision" of an overall approach to interacting with it.
They're even expanding the sidebar concept to iOS for the new iPhones when held in landscape mode. I'm all for changes and trying new things but this is one I don't get since it seems to me that 1) it makes iTunes less intuitive since more stuff is hidden (I know too many people that don't understand iTunes as it is) and 2) requires additional steps to complete the same task than the current implementation.
They're even expanding the sidebar concept to iOS for the new iPhones when held in landscape mode. I'm all for changes and trying new things but this is one I don't get since it seems to me that 1) it makes iTunes less intuitive since more stuff is hidden (I know too many people that don't understand iTunes as it is) and 2) requires additional steps to complete the same task than the current implementation.
I've been using iTunes 12 and it feels like they're trying to blur the distinction between what's in your library and what's on the store. I wonder if it's a stepping stone to going to a streaming model for content?
Either that or they are grouping store movies with your movies under one tab, store music with your music under one tab, etc, as a stepping stone to separating each tab in to it's own app like iOS has. Either way it seems like they are trying to head somewhere, rather than trying to make an optimal GUI for where we are now.
Either that or they are grouping store movies with your movies under one tab, store music with your music under one tab, etc, as a stepping stone to separating each tab in to it's own app like iOS has. Either way it seems like they are trying to head somewhere, rather than trying to make an optimal GUI for where we are now.[/QUOTE]
That sounds like a plausible hypothesis to me, and if that's what they are doing I'm not happy about it.
On the ?TV one of my biggest issues are those "channels" for Music, Movies, and TV Shows that take you to the iTunes Store, yet I have to go into some archaically named Computers "channel" to locate my iTunes Server shared library around all shared libraries on the household Macs with iTunes currently running. I find that to be as horrible to the user experience as other companies that force their content down your throat.