Rumor: Apple Redesigning iTunes 11 With New Layout, iCloud Support

[Yamcha]

I bet it'll look like iTunes in iOS5 ..

 

[baryon]

At first I was like "Yay, Redesigned iTunes!",
but then I was like "remember what they did to Final Cut Pro X and Mission Control?"

Whoever does software at Apple has gone mad! We're doomed!

 

[Dex4788]

At the risk of attracting fanboy heat, Zune software has been kicking iTune's ass in UI and application smoothness. It's pretty weird to see that MS has been more Apple-like than Apple themselves, in this regard.

I really hope they redesign the thing from the ground-up. It's incredibly outdated at this point, and I expect more from the company that rides on the coattails of premium design.

 

[arashamedani]

iTunes 10.4 is completely bricked for me on Windows 7...so I'm kind of hoping for a fix for that first

 

[kiljoy616]

64-bit for Windows please, and can it be less bloaty?

Mine seems to freeze on a very regular basis when doing very simple things.
Especially when I connect my iPhone or iPad to it, it freezes up for a solid minute, plus it takes nearly a minute to open. This is the same across my 3 PC's with varying specs.

Yes majorly less bloated would be nice.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

At first I was like "Yay, Redesigned iTunes!",
but then I was like "remember what they did to Final Cut Pro X and Mission Control?"

Whoever does software at Apple has gone mad! We're doomed!

Are you scared there might be professional iTunes users?

 

[BaldiMac]

Can we please stop the separate app thingy? In general maybe it makes sense to have more than one app, if you are just starting now. Now it doesn't make sense to split one app into 100 apps and it will not remove bloat, because after iTunes went 64 bit cocoa there isn't any. If you have huge library it's whole other problem, because you know it takes time, CPU and RAM to load big library and there is nothing you can do about it.

It's one of those criticisms that makes complete sense until you think about it. And, of course, bloat is completely undefined, so you can't really prove it wrong. Perfect propaganda.

 

[philgilder]

i assume it will follow iOS 5 and split into four or five apps, as the iPod app on the iPhone now only plays music, has been renamed to Music and splits videos into a separate app (including music videos apparently) much like the iPod Touch and iPad

 

[zombierunner]

Needs to be lighter on windows 7. Would like to see Twitter integration built into itunes .. that'd be nice.

 

[jlgolson]

It's Jordan Golson, the new guy. I can tell his articles from those by arn or Eric with almost perfect accuracy. Jordan's style is much more "personal-blog" like, which I don't think fits with this site and the way it's been. I prefer the objective tone, and would prefer more limited interjections of personal references/anecdotes/humor.

Yeah, he sucks.

But seriously, my email address is at the bottom left corner of the page, I welcome any and all feedback. jlgolson@macrumors.com

Agreed. I'd be reading engadget.com if I wanted his personal, and at times snarky, take on the tech world.

Geez, usually I get accused of sounding like Gizmodo.

 

[benthewraith]

64-bit for Windows please, and can it be less bloaty?

Mine seems to freeze on a very regular basis when doing very simple things.
Especially when I connect my iPhone or iPad to it, it freezes up for a solid minute, plus it takes nearly a minute to open. This is the same across my 3 PC's with varying specs.

I'm sure there will be a 64-bit version of iTunes for Windows. There's a 64-bit version of iTunes for Windows now.

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1427

 

[alvindarkness]

Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but I liked it better when MR kept to the 3rd person and approached things from a more professional reporting standpoint.

I clicked on comments simply to see if I was the only one that found it so out of kilter.

The lack of 3rd person reporting was the worst of it, but there was also the interjected opinions and trying to argue the validity of the rumour in an overtly aggressive manner.

It's their site and they can do as they please, but IMO Jordans recent "articles" leave a lot to be desired in terms of professionalism.

 

[morespce54]

...Rather than the iTunes Store being essentially a web browser, the Store will actually be integrated into the entire app-- much like Spotify is currently.

Sorry but from a non-Spotify user, how's the store can be "more integrated into the entire app"?

 

[tigres]

More grey, here we come.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

Yeah, he sucks.

What he said.

 

[morespce54]

...Mine seems to freeze on a very regular basis when doing very simple things.
Especially when I connect my iPhone or iPad to it, it freezes up for a solid minute, plus it takes nearly a minute to open...

Unfortunately, I don't think that's what they meant by "slick"...

Oh and BTW, please can we drop the Ping thing now?

 

[heisetax]

Gray is the new Pink!

Lets hope it gets some color back. It's looking quite pale ... euh gray.

This all started with the loss of color from the apple Apple logo. Just look at the scroll bars under Mac OS 10.7 Lion. Now wonder they don't want them shown most of the time. Even the designers are ashamed of them. If you want color you'll have to be like me & use non-Apple to control as much of your Mac life as you can. This is just another loss to gray that we will have to endure. Even if we use third party colorful apps when we can there are certain things that can only be done through Apple's color color scheme set of programs & OS.

Windows is not really an option. Linux will be for some. So for those that want the ease of use with some color we will have to contact our many good 3rd party Mac software companies & ask them to put some color back into our Mac experience. Our any third party software suppliers tend to listen much better & more often than Apple does. But there is only so much that can be done. Now is the time for these suppliers to show just how much they can do for us. Then we can show them how much we can do for them by purchasing these products.

 

[Kevenly]

64-bit for Windows please, and can it be less bloaty?

Mine seems to freeze on a very regular basis when doing very simple things.
Especially when I connect my iPhone or iPad to it, it freezes up for a solid minute, plus it takes nearly a minute to open. This is the same across my 3 PC's with varying specs.

I have a 2010 Mac and iTunes has all these little freezes just the same. When connected an iDevice, during syncing, when connecting to the iTunes store. And one thing I hate is when it is already connecting to the iTunes store, sometimes it brings up an additional small window that redundantly says "Connecting to the iTunes store" and if you try to click anywhere you get an error beep. I don't see why connecting to anything on the net should cause a complete app lock down. It drives me nuts. But anyway, it's not just Windows that has that issue.

 

[milo]

I'm sure there will be a 64-bit version of iTunes for Windows. There's a 64-bit version of iTunes for Windows now.

No there isn't. That's 32 bit iTunes with a 64 bit installer - it's not a 64 bit version but a version that's compatible with the 64 bit version of windows.

 

[smallnshort247]

I know a lot of people hate the current iTunes, calling it all kinds of things... but I'm going to miss the old design. Just ilke the old iTunes logo, the current layout is pretty iconic imo.

 

[moderngamenewb]

iTunes is such bloatware. They need to give us an application 'like' itunes JUST for playing back music without all the other crap, not everyone has a need for support for ipod, iphone, ipad, itms, movies, ping, tv shows or any of the other CRAP thats making itunes slow, a ram and resource hog.

Apple should also rename it to iMedia if it intends to keep stuffing useless garbage into what was originally intended to be a music player.

I agree. They need to make it like the App Store, which isn't a part of iTunes. A separate app for iPhone/touch/iPad apps, a separate app for iBooks, and then just have music/videos in the regular iTunes store. It would make it a lot more simple to search for items

 

[cozmot]

Image

Remember this? Remember how much people whined when it was dropped!

What's that shiny thing under the music note?

 

[MacFly123]

i'm ready for a new layout

ME TOO!!!

Hopefully it doesn't take its design cues from the iPad app in iOS 5

Honestly, I think it will. They took the Address Book and Calendar design cues from iOS for Lion. I think they're trying to unify both platforms with the same look as much as possible.

Hopefully it DOES! The new music app is sooo sleek and pretty It very likely will! See attached below.

iTunes needs more than a "facelift." It was designed for music back in the late 90s (before Apple owned it). Since then Apple has tacked on movies and books, podcasts, apps, & ringtones so I think it's fair to say the iTunes we know today needs to be completely razed to the ground and rebuilt. Let's hope iTunes 11 is more than a tweak.

Oh, and don't screw it up with a ridiculous skin like on the Lion version of iCal or Address Book.

I agree with you that iTunes is diversified far beyond its original intent and has thus become kind of a mess! Maybe they should even separate some functions, like they are doing in iOS 5 by making separate music and video apps!

I think I would really like having just a Music app, Videos app, iBooks app and then one Store app. The problem is how to handle the overlap of all those areas between the apps etc.

Also the new iPadesque look of Address Book and iCal in Lion are beautiful! LOVE THEM!!!

Why can't Apple just put all of it's "stores" in a seperate app. It's ridiculous for me to use the "Mac App Store", then go to iTunes for all the other stores. Just make a Store App that let's me look at everything in one app. The downloads can then go to their respective apps. iCloud should be the dedicated syncing app when I want to manage my iDevices. And seriously, iChat AND Facetime app? Come on. Think it through and use what you already have to add functionality. Frankly the iCloud should be a seperate app for me to view what I have and can pull down from the cloud, especially when on the go. I don't like how it's embedded in the iTunes app and "app stores".

I agree with what you are saying. I have thought for a while that the Mac App Store implementation is weird with the App Store also in iTunes and everything else. They need to bring that all together somehow or handle the overlap better. See my comment right above this one. But let's take it even further... How about a universal app that works on the Mac, iPad, iPhone AND Apple TV all in one to make the platforms seamless??? That would be awesome! In the case of the Apple TV it might be through AirPlay Mirroring, in which case why not do that for cars too? I get in my car, there is a dock, i dock my iPhone, it automatically goes into AirPlay Mirroring mode and the nice big touchscreen in the dash of the car has my iPhone UI on it! NOW we are getting interesting

 

[HelveticaRoman]

Apple could call it iTunes Pro X and design it so it cannot play any of the music you already own.

 

[anti-microsoft]

Here's my take on the redesign.