The disaster called iTunes 11?

[BRLawyer]

Well, it seems like my worst prediction has come true: less-than-intelligent Apple designers have decided to make the iTunes for Mac UI similar to that of the horrendous, ridiculous, pathetic iTunes app for iPad.

No, I am NOT talking about iTunes 10.7, which is just a minor compatibility update for the new iDevices. I am talking about the "reinvention for the worse" of an app which, despite its currently-bloated status, is EXTREMELY easy to interact with as far as music is concerned.

Now my only hope is: can we still keep the old interface active as opposed to that POC iPad-like UI? Any advice is more than welcome.

[BornAgainMac]

I was expecting a more radical change. A new name, a way to handle mega large libraries across multiple drives, an easier and better way to organize apps to your devices. I haven't used the new one but the Web page explaining the new features was really weak.

I didn't see "Ping".

[Aidoneus]

iTunes 11 looks like it will add a great deal to the music experience; I'm really looking forward to it!

[bbfc]

Originally Posted by Aidoneus

iTunes 11 looks like it will add a great deal to the music experience; I'm really looking forward to it!

Me too! Was the best thing about the keynote. It's about time iTunes got a massive overhaul, we've waited long enough for it!

[Porco]

I don't like the look of it (both literally and figuratively speaking) but I'll reserve judgement until I actually use it.

As I posted on another thread, the first screenshot of it i saw scared me a lot because of its similarity to the iPad music app, which I find terrible, and a step down from the previous/original iPad music app.

I know a lot of people have been calling for a completely re-written iTunes for some time, and that iTunes does too much in one app. Whilst not strongly agreeing, I can appreciate those feelings. There are things in iTunes I have no need for and could happily do without too - the problem is that if we lose features, we'll need other apps to replace those functions, and what is one person's useless bloat is another person's favourite feature that they'd keep above all others.

So as I've said elsewhere, I just hope they buried features rather than removing them altogether - I don't mind so much if they put features few average users use, or streamline the interface but still allow easy access to more, it's the worry that they'll remove useful stuff entirely that concerns me.

Aesthetically I'm not really a fan of the new look either, but I can get over that. We'll see soon I guess...

[wikiverse]

I am delighted that iTunes has changed.

Personally, I think iTunes is the single worst piece of software apple have ever created.

I have deleted iTunes from every Mac I've ever used. It is bloated, slow and not at all user friendly.

I hate it so much that I refused to buy an iPhone because you are forced to use iTunes.

I am considering an iPhone 5 now because iOS6 is pretty much iTunes free, I can use PhoneView to interact with the phone and if for some reason I ever need to use iTunes, hopefully v11 won't be anywhere near as crap as every other version Apple has made.

[iSee]

From what I've seen so far it looks good.
But I haven't seen much... Apple seems obsessed with showing us the Albums view, which looks great, but I'll rarely use it. Still, the full reorganization implied looks good and is badly needed. The mini player looks great.

[DaveTheRave]

As long as it runs faster I'll be happy.

[ipedro]

Completely opposite to what the OP said, iTunes 11 has been redesigned from the ground up to make enjoying your music a lot more intuitive and streamlined.

iTunes becomes ALL about Music, ALL about Movies, ALL about TV shows, ALL about Books, ALL about Podcasts as you need each one. No distractions. No bloat.

The Album view is how I think a lot of people will start enjoying their music again. You click an album and the screen splits open below like an iOS folder to view the songs in that album. You can play both songs that you own in that album and preview songs you don't have. This is great! The iTunes Store is built right in as is interaction with the artists.

Playlists have gotten a lot more useful and easier to modify too. The Play Next feature is one that I have wanted for a long time. Just slotting a song into the currently playing list and then getting back to the Playlist is the way a lot of us enjoy music but had to do manually before.

I'm really looking forward to enjoying my music again. Album art is front and centre and Albums are important again.

[MCAsan]

From what I see, I am all for it.

[mmomega]

I'm all for it as well, next to the phone it is what I am looking forward to.

Currently my iTunes opens very quickly and plays songs practically instantaneously.
I mean I am sure some people have problems with it but it works exactly the way it should. (For me)

[matrix07]

Originally Posted by Aidoneus

iTunes 11 looks like it will add a great deal to the music experience; I'm really looking forward to it!

+1. Love what I see so far. October can't come soon enough.

Also, can't wait to try mini player. Looks cute!

[BornAgainMac]

After seeing the keynote. iTunes 11 didn't seem so bad. I am curious what features I use or need that will be dropped. For example, I like the Visualizer that has been there since iTunes 1.0. The worst disappointment was waiting until October.

[shulerg]

Originally Posted by BRLawyer

Well, it seems like my worst prediction has come true: less-than-intelligent Apple designers have decided to make the iTunes for Mac UI similar to that of the horrendous, ridiculous, pathetic iTunes app for iPad.

No, I am NOT talking about iTunes 10.7, which is just a minor compatibility update for the new iDevices. I am talking about the "reinvention for the worse" of an app which, despite its currently-bloated status, is EXTREMELY easy to interact with as far as music is concerned.

Now my only hope is: can we still keep the old interface active as opposed to that POC iPad-like UI? Any advice is more than welcome.

Yes, they showed in the keynote that you could switch back to, say, library scroll view whenever you want. I imagine you can turn off the iCloud features and the instant recommendations as well.

I've always liked iTunes, too. It's easy, and I have fond memories of it all the way back to version 1.0, when I was using it on OS 9 (iMac) in middle school. It has gotten bigger over the years, but I like most of the features. Besides, they're finally killing Ping!

[Hammie]

I'm not sure about this version yet.

I don't use iTunes to its fullest though. I run it on a Mac Mini server running Snow Leopard. I use Pure Music as the actual player in order to stream my hi-res audio to my home stereo.

The one thing I would like to see is the management of apps and iDevices easier. Seeing how they have the capability to have playlists pop up when you start to drag music, I would like to see something like that with iDevices. You start to drag an app and the list of iDevices pops up. Something like that. I don't know, but it seems a little archaic still with the way it is currently managed.

[Dustman]

Originally Posted by wikiverse

I am delighted that iTunes has changed.

Personally, I think iTunes is the single worst piece of software apple have ever created.

I have deleted iTunes from every Mac I've ever used. It is bloated, slow and not at all user friendly.

I hate it so much that I refused to buy an iPhone because you are forced to use iTunes.

I am considering an iPhone 5 now because iOS6 is pretty much iTunes free, I can use PhoneView to interact with the phone and if for some reason I ever need to use iTunes, hopefully v11 won't be anywhere near as crap as every other version Apple has made.

Not every version is crap. 1.0 - 4.x we're fantastic. Actually 5.0 was good as well. It was after that when the installer size jumped from 19mbs to 80mbs. (and that 19mbs included quicktime as well)

[JohnLuc]

Is there any possibility that Apple decide to include features such as automatic change of bit frequency ( I'm tolking about HD audio files) and memory playing (ram) ?

[xlii]

Originally Posted by BornAgainMac

I was expecting a more radical change. A new name, a way to handle mega large libraries across multiple drives, an easier and better way to organize apps to your devices. I haven't used the new one but the Web page explaining the new features was really weak.

I didn't see "Ping".

My biggest want is to allow one library on multiple drives. That way I could keep my favorite groups on my laptop for travel and have the rest of the music and movies at home on the external drives. You can do that now, but you need 2 libraries and you need to switch between the two. It would be nice to have it seamless and invisible to the user.

[BornAgainMac]

Originally Posted by xlii

My biggest want is to allow one library on multiple drives. That way I could keep my favorite groups on my laptop for travel and have the rest of the music and movies at home on the external drives. You can do that now, but you need 2 libraries and you need to switch between the two. It would be nice to have it seamless and invisible to the user.

I have over a dozen libraries spaning over 4 TBs. I keep my music, books, audio books, and apps dedicated for my iOS devices and drag in any video or podcasts from my other libraries as I need them. It isn't very Apple like but it works. For apps that don't use iCloud to store gaming scores, I have to use a third party product to save it separately if I wanted to take the game off my iOS for some reason.

I also want to redownload all my 720p videos as 1080p. I wish there was a single click to upgrade all my content.

I would pay for iTunes Pro if it was available.

[displaced]

Looks great from what I've seen.

...and I'll save any wailing and rending of clothing about any missing features until I've actually installed the thing and found out if any are actually missing.

Since the launch of iCloud, iTunes has pretty much been 'fire and forget'. I've built a set of nice Smart Playlists that keep me entertained - and when I need to sync with iTunes, I just start it hidden and sync over WiFi.

[henry72]

Really? I love the new design and I can't wait to update it

[Kebabselector]

Can someone clone Steve Jobs please, seems the OP wont be happy until he returns.

[petsounds]

Unless it offers a way to add iPhoto-esque tags to songs, it's dead to me.

[gorskiegangsta]

Originally Posted by mmomega

I'm all for it as well, next to the phone it is what I am looking forward to.

Currently my iTunes opens very quickly and plays songs practically instantaneously.
I mean I am sure some people have problems with it but it works exactly the way it should. (For me)

Personally, my main problems with iTunes have nothing to do with its interface or speed. My main problem(s) with the darn thing is how it handles manual device synching (namely with apps and backups) and how it sorts the library (namely the not-so-smart playlists). By the looks of it, at least one of those things, which has been bugging me for years, has been taken care of.

[tod]

Originally Posted by ipedro

I'm really looking forward to enjoying my music again. Album art is front and centre and Albums are important again.

It's not such a great idea. A lot of my music consists of classical recordings which usually have totally generic album covers. And I have a lot of music that has no album art at all. The only reason I'll upgrade is because I'm a developer and I need to know what my customers are using.