iPod Windows Media Player 11...

why is the background all the same color on that first image thats up there? How can you tell where one column or box ends and the next begins?

nor are there any lines running down the column as a separator....

jimN said:

... better than iTunes according to the impartial people over at pcmag.com.

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PCMag is about as impartial as Steve Balmer talking Google. (I can think of better example's but they're more political )

For example PCMag have the most bias Vista review ever, compare to them Paul Thurrot's is 'Fair and Balanced' (actually it is pretty fair IMHO).

The review makes some interesting points, the album art view is cool, though fall's down massively if your music isn't on the database.
It seems however (as it's not mentioned in the review) that WMP doesn't do auto-sync yet, and that it doesn't load music automatically as you click and drag (bad implimentation)

it looks a little prettier but i have yet to see anything that would motivate a move from iTunes to WMP 11. That said i will try it out. I am fine wit a some more players at the table that will encourage Apple to aggressively defend its space.

backupdrummer said:

I am fine wit a some more players at the table that will encourage Apple to aggressively defend its space.

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Same here.

iTunes has been so great compared to WMP that Apple's really had to do very little to it.

Now that WMP's "stepped up to the plate", I can't wait to see what Apple does with the next iTunes update!

It's a future product...it's not inconceivable that it'll be better. Especially given the computer industry's penchance for skirting the lines of plagiarism. The question is what will happen to iTunes next.

jimN said:

I would have hoped that an English-er would have spotted a post that dripped with sarcasm as heavily as this one.

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Sorry, i didn't pick up on it... I must be loosing my touch (or maybe it's just because i do a maths degree, and we're not known for being social animals )

I'm trying not to sound like a mac zealot here, but that interface is hideous. It looks confusing and it doesn't look pretty one bit.

This is all they can do?

edit: the bottom bar with the play and search buttons don't look too bad at second glance but everything else is so barren...

Has anyone noticed the aqua buttons, it kinds of feels like windows is copying yet another thing from the mac

So it looks like you have to paste album art manually with WMP too. I wish Apple would implement a better method of obtaining album art so people don't have to find third party programs to do it. :\

Apple's solution to album art = buy everything from iTunes and they'll include it.

It does look enticing to the average viewer. Their color and composition psychologists did well here; however, the UI really is a copy of apple stuff.

I'm sure the player will be fairly big. We shouldn't worry since apple is about 4-5 years ahead in these design elements. Plus, iPod.

looks like the same ol' clunky wmp 10.0 to me

CubaTBird said:

looks like the same ol' clunky wmp 10.0 to me

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Same here! And I bet they'll have to patch it up with some crapy skins too.

aristobrat said:

Apple's solution to album art = buy everything from iTunes and they'll include it.

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And I guess that's fair enough, honestly. If nothing else, I'd say it's more of a pie in the sky wish.

In the meantime I'm just happy I took two weeks to tag my entire collection, and I'll just keep it up as I rip things.

i got it, put it on my work computer

and who is the idiot comparing this to itunes.. its no better than anything else i have tried. and years behind of itunes.

it looks better thats all. but functionality is not there

Intuitive navigation?

I downloaded WMP 11, and yes, I must accept is a HUGE improvement from WMP 10, but IMO iTunes is still a much more user friendly music player. I found adding music to WMP11 is much more confusing that with iTunes. Microsoft tend to make things sofisticated.

iTunes also has a much better color combination. It has less bottons and a more direct user interface.

WMP11 has the nice feature of being able to search for the album information. Something that iTunes lacks. Importing Artwork with iTunes has always been such a tedius work. (At least on PC's).

But iTunes has the iPod and what I think is the best online music store. Lets see how WMP 11 works when it is no longer on beta version.

It would be cool if Apple turns up with an update that adds cool futures to iTunes, leaving MS again in the back. Because it seems the "war" of the music player and stores has started.

I found a screen shot somewhere's else of WMA 11, and found two quite nice MP3 players on the screen.

i fell like i could launch into a epic detailed rant about all of the reasons why windows media player sucks, but it's getting near my bedtime...

that said, windows media player does, in fact, suck. end of story.

Clearly, Apple need to incorporate some kind of album cover browser into iTunes.

I am astounded that they havent just bought CoverFlow, or have something as equally beautiful in iTunes 7

I don't think it looks better than iTunes, I reckon it looks dodgy, that same "machine gunned into the screen" windows font, no real delineation of anything, it just looks like a reskinned WMP 10.

Who cares about album art browsing, Apple could introduce a Front Row like browsing interface with a point update to iTunes 6 and take the lead again.

A big old fat "meh" going straight to Microsoft from me, again.

iNeedtoSwitch said:

I found a screen shot somewhere's else of WMA 11, and found two quite nice MP3 players on the screen.

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I think that's a result of Paul Thurrott's schizophrenic love/hate relationship with Apple. I'm sure he'll decide whether he likes us one of these days.

Wow, looking at the pictures Mad Jew posted, I'm amazed at how clunky WMP 11 looks. I've been so very spoiled with iTunes. I'm sure the functionality is no better than the appearance.

Why on earth would you want your playlists ABOVE your Library?

Think about it.

I have like over 100 playlists in iTunes?

Screw scrolling all the way down to see my library?

JESUS.