I think iTunes looks horrible

[baryon]

I just want to share my personal opinion here because I'm not seeing anyone being upset about this yet, which I find strange.

Sierra looks great all around, and then I go to iTunes and... what the hell happened? Did someone accidentally swap it out for the Windows 8 version of the app? Or the HTML version if there is such a thing?

What's with this absolutely massive cover art? Why is there no cover art in the Artist list on the left? All my music has cover art. What's with these huge blue circle buttons that sometimes have a circle and sometimes don't? Where did all the settings for view options go, where I could choose the size and layout of this whole mess? Why does it say "Shuffle" if there's a shuffle icon right next to it? Why don't other buttons have text then? Why doesn't the "Dot dot dot in a circle" button say "Dot dot dot" next to it then? Why is there a line between every single track? UUHH! It's just so... bad...

Apple should just have stopped refreshing iTunes about 3 years ago and it would be fine. Just please stop making it worse every year.

 

[blindpcguy]

i wouldn't say its bad but i wish that apple wouldn't of went down the flat route. itunes and os x in general looked so much better prer yosemite.

 

[Voenix Rising]

Whew...here I thought I was the only one missing the artist art! But hey...at least when I sync with my iPhone the album art no longer randomly disappears, so there's that!

 

[fisherking]

i don't see any pixelated cover art; check your source; if the image is really small, it will (of course) look like that when it's enlarged.

i agree about the artist images, but overall.. think it's an improvement (it certainly is on the phone, in ios 10)...

 

[baryon]

i don't see any pixelated cover art; check your source; if the image is really small, it will (of course) look like that when it's enlarged.

i agree about the artist images, but overall.. think it's an improvement (it certainly is on the phone, in ios 10)...

Yes I know it's pixellated because when I added the art, I wasn't expecting it to be blown up so HUGE. The size I used was fine for something that isn't so outrageously huge. It would be fine if the album art size was smaller, like in the previous versions.

 

[Horizon Man]

I'm also missing the artist covers which really is a pain as it made it much easier to find artists with a huge collection.
I also miss the way the colors would change depending on the album cover, I really thought that was a nice touch before. Otherwise I'm ok with the new itunes so far...

 

[colourfastt]

I'm also missing the artist covers which really is a pain as it made it much easier to find artists with a huge collection.
I also miss the way the colors would change depending on the album cover, I really thought that was a nice touch before. Otherwise I'm ok with the new itunes so far...

I haven't noticed any glaring changes, then again I only use iTunes for the internet radio. When you mentioned it, I checked it and the background colour changing is gone; that's rather sad as it was a nice little touch .... something rather rare with Apple these days.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I also noted the artists list is the cover art or pictures.

I am using iTunes less and less with each new version. It really baffles me how Apple can be consistently making it worse and worse with every new version.

 

[fisherking]

Yes I know it's pixellated because when I added the art, I wasn't expecting it to be blown up so HUGE. The size I used was fine for something that isn't so outrageously huge. It would be fine if the album art size was smaller, like in the previous versions.

then that's on you. you can easily download larger cover art.

i think the whole idea is to restore the power/value of album art, and personally, am happy to see the larger covers...

 

[baryon]

then that's on you. you can easily download larger cover art.

No, I can't easily download the cover art for millions of songs that I spent years making sure has the right cover art. This was done one at a time, song by song, and doing it all in one go would be torture. There are better things to do in life than this, and in the previous version this wasn't even an issue. Most people are fine with blank album art but I liked having it, and now not only does it look crap but it doesn't appear in the Artist list where it would make it easier to find.

The issue isn't simply that the cover art is pixellated. It's comically huge, regardless of whether I can download better quality art or not. It takes up too much of my screen. Before, you could choose the size with a simple slider, and now it just defaults to this humongous size and there's nothing to do about it.

Also, if I had a million songs that I've been collecting for the past 10 years, I could not have possibly accounted for the fact that Apple will one day force an album size that is larger than my head. I'm definitely not going back and updating each and every song I have, it's nice enough that I bothered adding cover art to all my songs at some point in the past. I'm not doing that all over again. If they kept the album size what it was in the previous version, then it would not be a problem.

I really don't think anyone every thought "Damn, I wish my cover art was 10 times bigger!". When I use iTunes I want to quickly find a song and then leave iTunes to do other stuff while listening to music. With the album taking up half of the screen, there's a lot less information being displayed, which means more scrolling, more wasted screen space, more time spent using iTunes and less time spent listening to music.

 

[fisherking]

No, I can't easily download the cover art for millions of songs that I spent years making sure has the right cover art. This was done one at a time, song by song, and doing it all in one go would be torture. There are better things to do in life than this, and in the previous version this wasn't even an issue. Most people are fine with blank album art but I liked having it, and now not only does it look crap but it doesn't appear in the Artist list where it would make it easier to find.

The issue isn't simply that the cover art is pixellated. It's comically huge, regardless of whether I can download better quality art or not. It takes up too much of my screen. Before, you could choose the size with a simple slider, and now it just defaults to this humongous size and there's nothing to do about it.

Also, if I had a million songs that I've been collecting for the past 10 years, I could not have possibly accounted for the fact that Apple will one day force an album size that is larger than my head. I'm definitely not going back and updating each and every song I have, it's nice enough that I bothered adding cover art to all my songs at some point in the past. I'm not doing that all over again. If they kept the album size what it was in the previous version, then it would not be a problem.

I really don't think anyone every thought "Damn, I wish my cover art was 10 times bigger!". When I use iTunes I want to quickly find a song and then leave iTunes to do other stuff while listening to music. With the album taking up half of the screen, there's a lot less information being displayed, which means more scrolling, more wasted screen space, more time spent using iTunes and less time spent listening to music.

"comically huge"? like vinyl? or cd covers? and have you tried resizing the itunes window?? try that at least.
meanwhile, how is it apple's fault that you chose to download tiny album art?

just think this is a non-issue. i have art for all my music as well, and like that. but i realized a long time ago: download large images; things always scale down better than they do up.

 

[Alrescha]

It's comically huge, regardless of whether I can download better quality art or not. It takes up too much of my screen.

It is interesting, because if you are looking at Movies instead of Music, the choices for displaying cover art (and size) are still there.

A.

Addendum: If you are in Songs view as Takuro suggests below, the cover art and size options are there for Music.

 

[Takuro]

@OP, large cover art is just a design trend. It's kind of inescapable, especially considering a lot of people have retina displays and view cover art on Apple TV. If you listen to some really niche music that doesn't pull the correct or any results via the "get album artwork" Library menu option, then all you can really do is deal with it.

I'm kind of confused though. Why do you browse music in the "artist" view if you don't like seeing huge artwork? You could always move to the "songs" view where you can customize the look a bit sort by artist while showing a much smaller album thumbnail.

I'm personally glad they are adding more color to iTunes. I welcome some color to the rating / heart, iCloud, shuffle, and "..." (more) buttons. It makes them pop out a lot more in what is otherwise a sea of blackish grey text.

I'd actually really like to see them reintroduced colored sidebar icons. Maybe not fully multi colored like in old releases, but a single color to fit the simplistic UI.

As far as why only the top "..." button is circled in blue -- probably to differentiate it as a separate button from the shuffle button to the left of it. Otherwise, it could be kind of confusing.

 

[baryon]

@OP, large cover art is just a design trend. It's kind of inescapable, especially considering a lot of people have retina displays and view cover art on Apple TV. If you listen to some really niche music that doesn't pull the correct or any results via the "get album artwork" Library menu option, then all you can really do is deal with it.

I'm kind of confused though. Why do you browse music in the "artist" view if you don't like seeing huge artwork? You could always move to the "songs" view where you can customize the look a bit sort by artist while showing a much smaller album thumbnail.

I'm personally glad they are adding more color to iTunes. I welcome some color to the rating / heart, iCloud, shuffle, and "..." (more) buttons. It makes them pop out a lot more in what is otherwise a sea of blackish grey text.

I'd actually really like to see them reintroduced colored sidebar icons. Maybe not fully multi colored like in old releases, but a single color to fit the simplistic UI.

As far as why only the top "..." button is circled in blue -- probably to differentiate it as a separate button from the shuffle button to the left of it. Otherwise, it could be kind of confusing.

Good idea about the "Songs" view, that at least looks like it did years ago. I used the Artists view out of habit because it was easy to use in the previous version, but now it seems the Songs view is just more efficient.

I don't mind color, but the proportions and spacing somehow just remind me of the newer, badly designed versions of Skype or one of those bogus virus scanners you get for Windows rather than a well-designed Apple app. Safari, Mail, Calendar, etc... all have good proportions and it's all very consistent. You don't see giant blue circle buttons (suited for touch screens not Macs) in Safari or Mail. A button is always a white rounded rectangle, and the UI takes up the least amount of space possible, which I think makes sense for Apple's minimalistic look.

"comically huge"? like vinyl? or cd covers? and have you tried resizing the itunes window?? try that at least.
meanwhile, how is it apple's fault that you chose to download tiny album art?

just think this is a non-issue. i have art for all my music as well, and like that. but i realized a long time ago: download large images; things always scale down better than they do up.

I can resize the window if I exit full screen mode, which does reduce the album art size at least. But then I can't use full screen mode. Kind of dumb! I had no issues with the previous release (nor the ones before that).

 

[KALLT]

The size of the cover art depends on the width of the canvas. You can either change the window size or you widen the sidebar and artist list.

 

[fisherking]

Good idea about the "Songs" view, that at least looks like it did years ago. I used the Artists view out of habit because it was easy to use in the previous version, but now it seems the Songs view is just more efficient.

I don't mind color, but the proportions and spacing somehow just remind me of the newer, badly designed versions of Skype or one of those bogus virus scanners you get for Windows rather than a well-designed Apple app. Safari, Mail, Calendar, etc... all have good proportions and it's all very consistent. You don't see giant blue circle buttons (suited for touch screens not Macs) in Safari or Mail. A button is always a white rounded rectangle, and the UI takes up the least amount of space possible, which I think makes sense for Apple's minimalistic look.



I can resize the window if I exit full screen mode, which does reduce the album art size at least. But then I can't use full screen mode. Kind of dumb! I had no issues with the previous release (nor the ones before that).

right, so... adapt. what else is there? for example, don't use fullscreen mode... really, there are at least options. find the option that works best for you.

 

[Takuro]

Good idea about the "Songs" view, that at least looks like it did years ago. I used the Artists view out of habit because it was easy to use in the previous version, but now it seems the Songs view is just more efficient.

If you're prone to habits, you can right click the sidebar which brings up an "edit" menu. You can actually deselect artist view and drag the "songs" view to the top. This is what I did because I don't particularly care for it either. As you said, the "songs" view is the traditional view that spans back to really early versions of iTunes and also affords more flexibility.

Artist view is useless IMO. I really sincerely struggle to see what unique advantages it offers.

[rant]

I'm just going to go ahead and be very blunt here: I think it was added as pure filler because some engineer at Apple realized the sidebar is pretty sparse now that the "Music" "Movies" "Apps" etc. library selectors got moved to their own drop down menu at the top. Ever since they made this change, this has been a total mess.

In the last iTunes version, the sidebar was optional but only visible from some views. In this version, it's more prominent again and available in all views, but oddly empty unless you have a lot of playlists. I think another form of compensating is that they added the option to show "all playlists" regardless of what library you're browsing, meaning you can potentially start playing a music playlist from the movies section or vice-versa. At that point, this defeats the idea of separate libraries. They should just admit that they made a bad UI decision and bring back the unified sidebar where all types of content can be accessed at once.

We get it, iTunes is a bloated app and aims to do what would normally be handled by several discrete apps in iOS. Even so, the library dropdown just makes things harder to navigate through and makes the UI look odd in many scenarios.

By the way, why do we continue to call this app "iTunes"? I know the name has stuck for a while, but think about it for a second. It's not descriptive of what the app is anymore.

[/rant]