Upcoming iTunes 11 Update to Restore Duplicate Search, Fix Album Art and Movie Streaming Bugs

So thats how iTunes is about going south

Did Apple care about a certain feature (cover flow)?

• don't care about user experience when changing surroundings (full screen) - controls in the picture all the time instead of fading out doesn't look cool
• don't adjust horizontal scroll/wipe gesture speeds - not funny with more than 1k albums
• let image and text navigation get out of sync
• don't sync image when playlist advances (full screen)

...and then:
tell the community "you didn't use it, so we rather shut it off forever".

What's next? When will they stop magnetosphere in iTunes?

I can't even zoom in on the famous new grid view any more as I could before to view less covers per line.

Is this how Apple is improving user experience today? Is this just a next step in Sculleying users off?

dcorban said:

I thought it was common knowledge that you want to have your system outputting at full volume for best audio quality. So, leave your iTunes set to max volume and use your amplifier to adjust the output.

Otherwise, this voodoo software sounds like those magical green markers people would use on their CDs to make them sound better.

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There's no difference between using iTunes to change the volume or you amplifier's volume knob if both are digital (i.e. they both change volume the same way). You'd have to have a receiver that uses an analog pot to have any difference at all and short of some high-end separates, I'm hard pressed to think of any mainstream products that still use analog volume pots.

But like I said earlier, even analog pots attenuate the signal (that is their function, after all) and that decreases dynamic range in the process as well, largely nullifying any gains you think you might get by using them. Worse yet, analog devices typically add more noise than keeping things digital until the last stage as well so they might end up degrading the signal worse.

I'm afraid what people think is "dull" sound is really just a drop in volume. This is precisely why radio stations and studio managers want LOUD songs for the radio and one of the reasons songs often lack any dynamic range to begin with and may even clip (which sounds awful). As a general rule, people think louder sounds BETTER on a given system (at least until bad things start happening like clipping (power runs out) or overloading drivers until they start distorting, etc., (more common on tiny speakers that can't handle louder sounds like typical computer speakers or cheap all-in-one systems at places like Best Buy).

If you suggest to someone that using the receiver will sound better than iTunes, they might very well think that since the idea has been planted in their mind and they expect a difference. This is precisely what sold green marker pens in the past. "Oh yeah, I can notice a slight improvement in the highs" (or whatever comment). In reality, no difference actually exists and this is easily proven with ABX type switching and double blind tests (something the high end mags never seem to want to use since it might compromise their high-end ads if they pan the stuff those advertisers are selling).

Magnus, I had a debate in the past with you and I am keen with your strong opinion, and the fact that you have loads of spare time to post essay sized responses!

You are eligible to have your opinion as I am eligible to have mine..

atakordie said:

Funny thing that cover flow was removed... Steve was so happy about the cover flow on the phone when it came out. Surprised they are getting rid of this, even if "rarely used." If 1% of iTunes users loved cover flow, that's still a lot of people having to do without it.

Glad I didn't update. I use cover flow every week to flip through the 452 movie posters I have put in so my wife and I can pick a movie to watch in full screen mode rather than browse text or small icons.

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WHAT ??? you mean to tell me you DON'T enjoy reading through endless lines of text instead ? how dare you !? ;-)

Stella said:

Personally, I always thought that Coverflow was candy eye and nothing more so I'm not going to miss it.

I know others like it.. but apparently, those were in the minority. So its gone.

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i never used CoverFlow myself BUT that's oversimplifying things a little : thank goodness most software developers don't apply that same principle to Mac OS - maybe THEN you'd understand how it feels to be dropped like the proverbial hot potato...

in a day & age where fast multicore processors are the norm & RAM has never been cheaper, i can hardly feel it's justifiable to drop a couple of MB ( if that..) out of a program ''because we need to streamline it''

leave it as it was : an option
& please apply the same to dark background ( i LOVE all that white searing my retinas on my 27'' iMac..) same for a volume slider in the mini player - speaking of which could someone please give it a vitamin supplement ? it looks SO ex-Soviet Union in design & jeez, is it me or is that thing REALLY flat as in ( yawn ) BORING ? if i wasn't allergic to it i could easily fall asleep by glancing at it - all that previous tri-dimensionality must have been also a HUGE resource hogger...

SeaFox said:

Apple's stake in portable music players and online music sales isn't the minority, though. They are the Microsoft of digital media sales, and they're apparently learning to act like Microsoft now, too (our way or no way, who cares what the customer really wants).

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that's even sadder given their recent history of success by providing exactly what the ''Big Players'' wouldn't to a minority

oh well....someone WILL come along offering that minority what they want & pull their rug from under their feet if they can't realise this

nuno1959 said:

i never used CoverFlow myself BUT that's oversimplifying things a little : thank goodness most software developers don't apply that same principle to Mac OS - maybe THEN you'd understand how it feels to be dropped like the proverbial hot potato...

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Actually I do.

I was just writing apple's current and long strategy: if the masses don't use feature 'x': remove it. Keep it as an option? Nope - it gives the user a choice.

Reality: If they kept every 'dropped' feature as a choice OSX would be overly bloated so where do you draw the line?

I said elsewheee: I'm surprised the Terminal still exists. it costs them money to keep it there. Only a minority of people use it.

Stella said:

I'm surprised the Terminal still exists. it costs them money to keep it there. Only a minority of people use it.

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It probably doesn't cost them much of anything, and even if a user never uses it, there are lots of things going on with the OS that are handled by terminal commands - don't forget what OSX is based on, and that there are plenty of utilities that come from unix that run via the command line.

Not to mention that Apple probably uses a lot of command line stuff internally as part of development.

milo said:

It probably doesn't cost them much of anything, and even if a user never uses it, there are lots of things going on with the OS that are handled by terminal commands - don't forget what OSX is based on, and that there are plenty of utilities that come from unix that run via the command line.

Not to mention that Apple probably uses a lot of command line stuff internally as part of development.

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It costs them resources and money for further development of apple's own libraries and testing of *nix commands etc. the terminal app itself requires at least regression testing. A lot more than keeping cover flow there! As it is, there's a very obvious bug with sudo command - albeit minor but it's a annoyance.

Internally, apple could use the terminal and remove it from production builds thus saving on the above somewhat.

Unix libraries can still be used as a part of OSX internals ( CUPS is a good example ) doesn't need the terminal app.

Of course supporting anything requires some resources and money, but if it's a tool they consider useful, it's worth those resources. And there is a fair amount of functionality that is only available via the command line. If they dumped terminal, they'd have to provide alternate access to those functions which would be more work.

Something like Cover Flow is just cosmetic so dropping it annoys some people but the machine is still usable. Other things like terminal aren't used by many people but taking them out would leave the machine unable to do certain things.