iTunes 11, good or bad?

[quaffa]

I hate it.

The one feature that I used all the time was the shuffle feature, which enabled one to shuffle a playlist into random play. With iTunes 11 that is just no longer possible!

Sure, one can play playlists in iTunes itself in shuffle mode, but it no longer actually shuffles the actual playlist. (The song listing remains in numerical order in the grid rather than being mixed up as before.)

The upshot of this, and it is serious for me, is that I can no longer sync a shuffled playlist onto my iPod; they all remain in numerical order when they arrive on the iPod. I used to do this a lot before.

Having shuffled and unshuffled lists on the iPod meant that it wasn't necessary to keep delving into the iPod menu to shuffle and unshuffle. It worked a treat... and now it's gone.

[joshsand66]

The new itunes interface is really nice. It has little hidden features that are well thought out.
In syncing ipad the player allows you to click between sync and current song being played.
Had one problem- Syncing my ipad 1 because I had added 200 new photos to an iPhoto Event - all went well till step 7. And it would not sync the new photos - just hung - ipad was set to Auto update all events/photos etc.
Eventually got it to update by doing a manual sync of all ticked events and all albums. It really had to think long and hard at photo 1 of 200 but eventually it did it. Phew! I wondered if it because my ipad i can only run iOS ver 5.1.1 as the latest ver.

[Carl Sagan]

Very nice, so bloody fast it's incredible!

[Pultost]

I have used it now for a day and mostly like it, it will always take some time to get familiar with a major uppgrade.
I have some issues that i wonder if any could help me with.
Bee patient with my english, i am Norwegian..

1. I like to open some of my playlists or iTunes store in seperate windows, but i can not find a way to do that, is that gone or is it me that just dont find it.

2. When i go from artist view to another view, say a playlist and then back again to the artist view i am not comming back to where i was. I come back to the top and must then find where i was again every time i switch. That workt well in. 10.7. Is there any way to fix that. (I have a huge liberary so it is anoying)

3. I use a lot of albumartists, so when i go to artists many of my albums are missing there, so for me that is useless. I find a way to fix it. I made a smart playlist with all my music. So there i can see everything, display artwork too

[Porco]

For me, the poll needed a 'hmm… mixed bag' in-between option…

It would be fine if they hadn't removed a couple of features I use all the time.

It all feels like a bit of a pointless new lick of paint really. Which in some ways I'm happy about, because I was scared they'd remove much more functionality than they have when we first saw it previewed. I just don't know why they have to remove stuff that works perfectly well and doesn't really get in the way for people who don't use it.

Staying with iTunes 10.7 for now.

[kaielement]

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.

Yes loved the cover artwork flow you could set it to. Might take some time to get used to not seeing it.

[muffysimba]

How do you stop a song from playing?

[skitzogreg]

Originally Posted by muffysimba

How do you stop a song from playing?

Hit the play button again (pause is hidden).

[jessica.]

Beach ball in first 10 minutes but I like some of the changes. I prefer iTunes 5.

[r.j.s]

I like it. It seems a lot faster on my machine than iTunes 10.

The interface is a big change though, and that will take some getting used to.

[teleromeo]

Originally Posted by muffysimba

How do you stop a song from playing?

Hit the space bar or use the play/pause button on your F8 key.

[odinsride]

Cover Flow is gone, as well as the ability to group by album/view album artwork in song list view on the left side.

WTF Apple?

[coocooforcocoap]

I upgraded one machine, which looked the same in v10, but now in v11 I don't see the "Library" click, which is the view I use the most. Anyone know how to get that back?

See attachments for illustrations!

NEVERMIND: found it, it was moved...

[Chantelle]

I love it, thumbs up for sure.

[31rhcp]

I absolutely despise the new search. It's one of Apple's attempts at catering to the masses by making something pretty but actually adding a step or two and making the process less efficient. Does anyone know if there's a way to restore the old search functionality?

Apart from that, I'm pleased. I like that the sidebar has colours again and I absolutely love Up Next, which was the one feature that I was really looking forward to. It's also nice to have a new UI for no other reason than to have a new UI every now and again.

[coocooforcocoap]

This is still broken: podcasts not picking up cover art, even though in the iTunes store, it's there in the description:

[tkermit]

Originally Posted by 31rhcp

I absolutely despise the new search. It's one of Apple's attempts at catering to the masses by making something pretty but actually adding a step or two and making the process less efficient. Does anyone know if there's a way to restore the old search functionality?

Pressing 'Enter' after you've entered your search query or unchecking the 'Search Entire Library' option should get you what you're looking for.

[bogoss]

actually the whole point of iTunes 11 is prettier but dumber for me, what a transformation lol

I updated and thought I could live with it, but:

1. the font change hurt me, who approved that?
2. the search hurt me, i don't need ***** popping out to interrupt my search process, the live search results from earlier version was good enough, I could always get 100% what I was looking for efficiently
3. no cover flow nor artwork display from the left bottom corner hurt me
4. the fact that Apple wants to sell the album grid view hurts me, I never listen to one entire album over and over, and it cannot shuffle a playlist, so except comforting myself about the artwork I collected, I wouldn't use this in a longterm, I prefer songs... but in Songs view, apple almost disabled the artwork display.
5. the fact that Apple thinks it's better without sidebar hurt me, but when adding songs to playlist, it's coming back, and so on, which slower the whole thing and adding more steps.

So yeah, had to go back to my dear iTunes old style that was approved by Steve Jobs possibly, more possibly than 11, and enjoy the music+artwork experience that's been there for years, for a reason

[Gemütlichkeit]

I love it

I only wish you could group artist albums together in album view


-----------------------
artist
[album][album][album
-----------------------
artist
[album][album]
-----------------------

and so on…

[vastoholic]

Originally Posted by quaffa

I hate it.

The one feature that I used all the time was the shuffle feature, which enabled one to shuffle a playlist into random play. With iTunes 11 that is just no longer possible!

This is one of my bigger complaints.

Everyone is saying its much faster, but I'm having the opposite affect. My guess is because my iTunes library is stored on a NAS but it is connected by FireWire 800. I don't believe it should be this slow and definitely not slower than before. I'm getting several beach balls or just general slowness when switching between music and movies and loading cover art.

Overall, I'm not exactly impressed with it. I do like the new design. Also the iTunes DJ being removed is kind of a low blow. I was actually planning on using that at my class reunion next year as I volunteered to be the DJ. I'm not quite sure how "up next" will compare but I'll play around with it. But from reading it appears the functionality I wanted is gone.

[msh]

Originally Posted by mixxiah

B) Dropped Features that should be reinstated:
i) iTunes DJ
ii) The little 'circle-with arrow' icon next to the playing track's progress bar. This was great for taking you instantly back to the playing track - no matter where you are in iTunes...
Playlist to Disc'

iii) Gapless playback.

[paulsalter]

it's growing on me a little bit

if I just want to play an album it's fine

biggest issue is the missing iTunes DJ, this has made most of my smart playlists now pointless

[iHacker0390]

I use iTunes Match and now I cant set the iCloud status as a view option, meaning I cant see the tracks that have been uploaded vs matched, it just show everything as matched. Very annoying to me, also I can't still cant multiple select tracks with the mouse? ugh. Especially since that the track listing is now split in half and not one list.

This is a Fail for me.

[vastoholic]

Some one earlier mentioned this, but I can't find it so I'll say it again. TV show seasons display the same "album" cover for every season. Wtf again? After I spent all that time importing and organizing my TV shows by season with different art work for each season and now iTunes 11 doesn't even show it. Makes me feel retarded.

[djshack]

Originally Posted by msh

iii) Gapless playback.

Is gapless playback really missing??