iTunes 11, good or bad?

[Shadow%20Mac]

while the new features are nice, how has it been performing for you?

[pedromartins]

Originally Posted by Shadow%20Mac

while the new features are nice, how has it been performing for you?

it's so fast! I cannot even see the "bounce" effect.

i7 2011 air, 40gb library.

and it's beautiful!

(it looks like it's still very slow on windows... but who cares..)

[chriscl]

Very fast. Much faster then 10.7

Impressed.

[RoelJuun]

The Up Next is incredible, they made it really really good! When opening and album, the background of that window changes color to that of the cover art. Beautiful. Adding items to playlists is also great. The mini-player is finally useable and really good, all because of Up Next.

The downside is the lay-out of the Store, the horizontal scroll with sidebar on top of that.

I don't spend much time in the Store though, so for me it's minor.

[whathesaid]

I like.

The only gripe is I really liked the grid feature of the artists, rather than the being listed to the side. But I guess I'll get used to it.

But overall, it looks and works pretty slick.

[Saladinos]

All these people saying it's so fast - have you tried it in full-screen mode?

That's how I usually use iTunes. I'm finding it awfully slow. Much worse than 10.7. Once I stick it in to windowed mode, performance improves a bit. But that's not how I like to use it.

I don't love or hate this new release. The 'up next' thing is long overdue, the UI in general is nice although it clearly needs more work. So there are some positives.

On the other hand, it's become much slower for me (RMBP). Also, the column track layout is very poorly thought out (e.g. it mixes disks in to the same columns). That's something I actually think Steve Jobs would have noticed; being a long-time music lover. Typically (going right back through CDs, cassettes and vinyl), "SIDE A" and "SIDE B" were shown in separate columns. (example here).

If Apple had gone that route, the new iTunes layout would look beautiful and slide right in to music history. Right now it's just a sloppy mess.

[ThunderRoad]

Only thing I don't like about is that I prefer the classic view that the 'Songs' section has, but you can't display album artwork that way.

[Mikey86uk]

Love it.

Now it has the look of an Apple product.

Which is a good thing.

Only small thing i dont like is, i cant use the mini player when i have iTunes in full screen mode.

So for that, i will stick with Bowtie.

[stridemat]

I really like it. Even fast with movies and TV shows stored on my NAS So far, one happy camper!

[sammich]

Love the 'play next' and 'add to play next'. It's what DJ (or whatever it was called) should've been.

I'm disappointed that multiple genre's didn't make it in.

[northernbaldy]

Yeah, seems okay so far

[Hephaestus]

I love it, much better than the previous versions.

[pedromartins]

Originally Posted by Saladinos

All these people saying it's so fast - have you tried it in full-screen mode?

That's how I usually use iTunes. I'm finding it awfully slow. Much worse than 10.7. Once I stick it in to windowed mode, performance improves a bit. But that's not how I like to use it.

I don't love or hate this new release. The 'up next' thing is long overdue, the UI in general is nice although it clearly needs more work. So there are some positives.

On the other hand, it's become much slower for me (RMBP). Also, the column track layout is very poorly thought out (e.g. it mixes disks in to the same columns). That's something I actually think Steve Jobs would have noticed; being a long-time music lover. Typically (going right back through CDs, cassettes and vinyl), "SIDE A" and "SIDE B" were shown in separate columns. (example here).

If Apple had gone that route, the new iTunes layout would look beautiful and slide right in to music history. Right now it's just a sloppy mess.

I use it in fullscreen mode 90% of the time. it's lightning fast.

However, i have an SSD and I believe that anyone that buys/uses a new mac (post 2011) without some sort of SSD does not know what he is doing.

[AdeFowler]

Love it.

[goMac]

It's not perfect, but it's better than the last version!

[Small White Car]

I can't really pick any of these voting options. It's better and I'm glad I updated, but I don't "love it."

Mostly, I'm confused that, after so many changes, there still seems to be a lot of confusing, messy things they didn't touch at all. Like, was this a total re-design or not? Sort of 'yes'...but just half of it?

It's just weird to me. I appreciate the things they made better, but why does it feel like thy stopped halfway?

[OddThomas]

Originally Posted by Mikey86uk

Love it.

Now it has the look of an Apple product.

Which is a good thing.

Only small thing i dont like is, i cant use the mini player when i have iTunes in full screen mode.

So for that, i will stick with Bowtie.

If you click on the album art at top of iTunes you will get an album art windows just like Bowtie even in full screen... is cool.

[urkel]

To be honest, Im not sure what the praise is for. So I'd love to hear what I'm missing out on because we were told it would be a major overhaul butin the end it doesnt really feel much different than the last versions.

So far here's my Pros and Cons:

+ I dont seem to be dropping my wireless synching on iOS devices anymore
+ Prettier? (I dont know, i just wanted to have more than one positive note)

- Display Duplicates is gone (or moved. I cant find it and help no longer mentions it)
- iTunes Match still has no new options (fix metadata. rematching items clearly in the iTunes catalog)
- App store still ridiculously slow
- Poor duplication control. iTunes Match seems to have created a lot of duplicates that werent there before and I dont know how to safely clean it out.


Despite what appears to be complaining, I neither love nor hate the software. I just wish it was a true overhaul rather than an optimization of the same old stuff.

Edit: ARGH! 3 out of 4 of our iOS devices no longer are visible under devices... again! Its the same issue with the last few versions of iTunes where I need to plug in for it to be recognized and available for wireless sync.

[sweigner]

I would say my only disappointment at the moment is under TV shows. If you have Multiple Seasons for Example The Walking Dead, it will only show the artwork for the first season and not the other seasons. Other than that, I like it.

[acorntoy]

Is extremely sluggish on my core 2 duo iMac.

Other then that I like it, very elegant and sleek.

[OddThomas]

is it gone?

[ReggaeFire]

Originally Posted by urkel

- Display Duplicates is gone (or moved. I cant find it and help no longer mentions it)
- Poor duplication control. iTunes Match seems to have created a lot of duplicates that werent there before and I dont know how to safely clean it out.

WTF. You're right on both counts. I use Display Duplicates constantly (I add a few albums every week, and there will always be some overlap with stuff I already have).

And the iCloud duplicates thing is annoying as hell, if you've ever changed anything from the original file you downloaded, it shows up again, with the itunes store metadata.

[iHailCarlo]

So far I really like it, the only that kinda bothers me is that the TV shows only show cover art for the 1st season. I would much rather it just have each season as its own entity.

[ReggaeFire]

Poking around a bit more, I see more little annoyances. The ways albums are sorted in any view other than song list is alphabetical not chronological and there doesn't appear to be any way to change that. Correction, I found how to change the ordering, you have to go to View Options, which is different for each view. It's hidden well, but it's there.

As others have mentioned, you can no longer resize the covers in any view.

In general it seems like they took some views that have existed for years that most people were unaware of and simplified them a great deal, reducing their usefulness to the more hardcore users. I can understand this, but it doesn't please me.

[ReggaeFire]

Originally Posted by ThunderRoad

Only thing I don't like about is that I prefer the classic view that the 'Songs' section has, but you can't display album artwork that way.

I made a not great but workable alternative to this. Click on the art in the now playing window on top, reduce it to the size you want, drag it to the lower left corner. In preferences select "Keep Movie Window on top of other windows". There is an annoying drop shadow, but it's better than nothing.