Apple Details iTunes Changes Coming in macOS Catalina

[LizKat]

Column browser and internet radio is gone.

Radio is one thing. There are other ways to get that. Column browser gone from primary MacOS music app is a deal breaker for me.

Maybe Apple will reinstate it later once they ship the basic MacOS Music app. I realize they must be under time constraints but really, what could they be thinking. The song list view without ability to split the pane and select viewed songs by genre/[composer]/artist/album would be horrendous for large libraries.

 

[NavyEmt]

Radio is one thing. There are other ways to get that. Column browser gone from primary MacOS music app is a deal breaker for me.

Maybe Apple will reinstate it later once they ship the basic MacOS Music app. I realize they must be under time constraints but really, what could they be thinking. The song list view without ability to split the pane and select viewed songs by genre/[composer]/artist/album would be horrendous for large libraries.

From this screen grab it looks like you can view songs by /artist/album. I'm hoping like the current columns you can add more ways to sort your music

 

[ErikGrim]

From this screen grab it looks like you can view songs by /artist/album. I'm hoping like the current columns you can add more ways to sort your music
View attachment 841441

Here's what that looks like. It's indeed a pseudo column browser. Strangely this only works for Artists, not for albums.

[doublepost=1559883059][/doublepost]This is what Apple Music radio looks like. I didn't use Internet Radio that much, so I don't know if it's a 1:1 replacement or more like curated playlists.

 

[NavyEmt]

Here's what that looks like. It's indeed a pseudo column browser. Strangely this only works for Artists, not for albums.

View attachment 841448
[doublepost=1559883059][/doublepost]This is what Apple Music radio looks like. I didn't use Internet Radio that much, so I don't know if it's a 1:1 replacement or more like curated playlists.
View attachment 841449 View attachment 841450

Thanks for your help, While you still have it up is there an option to edit the library like in the current iTunes? To bad it is only letting you see Artists I'm wounder how it is organized if you selected songs.

 

[ErikGrim]

Couple quick questions on somethings I have not seen answered on the forums yet with the new TV app.

1) Can you change the genre of which movies & TV shows are organized?
For Example I have all my MCU movies listed as MCU under genre same with all Bond movies and DC movies.

2) Can you change their sorting name?
For example I have the new Star Trek listed as Star trek I / II / III. This way they show in order.

3) Can you move movies and TV shows into a playlist?
I keep the full HIMYM in one playlist and enjoy playing it on shuffle or running in order with no pauses if your using the appleTV TV app or IOS TV app.

4) How is the file management?
Right now I have a 8TB portable HD that keeps my movie and TV and music library that I have constantly backed up on. When traveling I unplug it from my everyday mac pro and use it on my mac book air. I will not be able update my Mac Pro and will want to update my Mac book. Will this still be possible to do?

I hope these screenshots answers your questions.

[doublepost=1559887652][/doublepost]

Thanks for your help, While you still have it up is there an option to edit the library like in the current iTunes?

Affirmative.

 

[NavyEmt]

I hope these screenshot answers your questions.
View attachment 841458 View attachment 841459 View attachment 841460
[doublepost=1559887652][/doublepost]Affirmative.

View attachment 841461

Yes /Yes /Yes

Thank you

 

[tha_man]

Well that sucks... column browser was the best thing about iTunes, also the main feature that made me switch to it from Winamp, back in the days. It's much better for browsing large libraries than those genre/artist/album selections in sidebar. I use internet radio too, looks like I'll have to install yet another app. Or maybe just switch to another music player, if I find something with iTunes like column browser and support for custom internet radio channels...

 

[BrettArchibald]

Someone else asked about the column browser for ripped music - I can't find it

Wait? What? Oh Hell no, this had better be there, or put back if it's not there!

 

[ambientdaw]

Wait? What? Oh Hell no, this had better be there, or put back if it's not there!

Indeed! Absolutely unacceptable!

 

[BrettArchibald]

You don't have to agree with me. You questioned the widely commented bloat that is iTunes, and when given examples, proceeded to argue that cramming unrelated things into the same app isn't "bloat". Apple has admitted as much by splitting the functionality into separate apps. If you want to continue believing that the toaster and the microwave should be one product, you do that, but I'm not going to agree with you on that either.

Do you want to know what *IS* a bloated confusing mess? The standalone TV app on iOS.
It's got nothing to do with music or podcasts or books or apps, etc. So you think it would be streamlined with no confusion or crossover with non-related items, right?
Wrong!
In the TV app, not only do I have my own transferred video files, but at least that's sectioned off in its own tab, so I'll accept that.
Then there's the fact that there are both TV shows and Movies. These are two different things, IMO, but maybe I'm being picky here, I'll accept that.
But what is really the worst unforgivable thing is that in the primary main section, the "Watch Now" tab, Apple has decided to throw into this one section all sorts of things that should NOT belong together...
I'm offered up (1) TV shows to watch for free from free-to-air TV channels, along with options to (2) purchase / buy / own a TV show or movie, as well as (3) rent one-time a TV show or movie, and (4) subscribe to a streaming service.
All these things are mixed together and presented as the SAME THING when you're browsing down this one section. You have no way of knowing what you can or can't watch, or HOW you can watch it, until you click through into it.
Make no mistake – Apple is not doing this to make it easier for the user. They are doing this to promote their services division to sell you more stuff.

Also, the way I can choose to watch something that is already in my TV app's library is baffling!
I have THREE different places I can choose to watch the SAME thing, and they are all laid out in different ways.
In the main Library section, I have a horizontally-scrolling carousel of my TV shows.
In the TV Shows section, I have two vertical columns, with the TV Show title underneath the preview image.
In the Downloaded section, I have just one vertical column, with the TV Show title to the right of the preview image.
It is a total mess!

And that's just the TV app. I could write a book about how they have messed up the Music app on iOS.
So if Apple does the same thing to their upcoming standalone macOS apps as they did to their standalone iOS apps, then a lot of people here are going to be unhappy.
We don't want services on our Macs, we just want a decent way to manage our own content. iTunes already does this.
So sit back down and try to understand that people have prior history with Apple doing this and genuine concerns with Apple breaking up an application that works perfectly fine as it is.

 

[Stephen.R]

Then there's the fact that there are both TV shows and Movies. These are two different things, IMO, but maybe I'm being picky here, I'll accept that.

I mean.. the difference is the length of the track and where it was [*originally*] "shown" (i.e. a tv network or a cinema). If you're going to expect them to be different, should Studio-recorded albums and Live-performance recordings be in different Apps?

But what is really the worst unforgivable thing is that in the primary main section, the "Watch Now" tab, Apple has decided to throw into this one section all sorts of things that should NOT belong together...
I'm offered up (1) TV shows to watch for free from free-to-air TV channels, along with options to (2) purchase / buy / own a TV show or movie, as well as (3) rent one-time a TV show or movie, and (4) subscribe to a streaming service.

So, a bunch of tv shows and movies from different sources... I don't currently use iTunes Store (I've been bitten by the way cross-border accounts work, I'll buy more when we move back to my home country) or Apple Music, but so long as you can disable the options you don't use, I don't see the issue with showing what's available as a default.

Make no mistake – Apple is not doing this to make it easier for the user. They are doing this to promote their services division to sell you more stuff.

If you can't disable the store/streaming sources, I'll admit this may be a factor. But I thought I'd seen comments saying you can disable those things, just like you could in iTunes?

We don't want services on our Macs

You don't want services. Some do. I'm at the point where the convenience of me/my wife being able to click a button and buy whatever movie, beats the work of adding it from a different source, and given the time involved, even if the "other" source is free, I'd imagine buying it from iTunes is cheaper (compared to not working for that time).

So sit back down and try to understand that people have prior history with Apple doing this and genuine concerns with Apple breaking up an application that works perfectly fine as it is.

When? What previous application has been "broken up" like iTunes? What other application has Apple ever released, that was "does lots of vaguely related tasks in one single App"... Oh wait. I know. It was Claris Works. Later called Apple Works... and it was basically killed off... and the replacement was... WAIT FOR IT. THREE SEPARATE APPS, and they're each better than the component they replaced.

If you're going to cite "prior history" you'd better have some actual instances not just "oh they always do X" when you want to complain about any change ever.

 

[LizKat]

I mean.. the difference is the length of the track and where it was [*originally*] "shown" (i.e. a tv network or a cinema). If you're going to expect them to be different, should Studio-recorded albums and Live-performance recordings be in different Apps?

Not the same thing. There are more differences, potentially, at least when thinking of a television series. Those will involve shows, seasons and episodes, even if some other TV productions are one-off presentations with metadata where a show's complete info would approximate what's in a single track as for a movie.

So TV and movie items don't have to be in different apps but the way one may need to view them will differ. Now, in the list view in Mojave/iTunes of some TV items, I definitely use column browser to split the list pane and let me view the episodes by genre / show / season.

Yet supposedly in Catalina's Music app we're not going to have the column browser even for music tracks. And so if we own some long running TV series, ugh, we'll be scrolling and scrolling the way we'll have to scroll through tracks in the list view of music.

Apple needs to bring back column browser for list views. Without it, the effect is like when in iTunes now if you have an iPhone or iPod mounted and click on the device's "Music" section in the sidebar panel without first putting main iTunes window focus on the device content rather than the iTunes library content: just this endless list of tracks and no way to split the list pane (column browser won't come up in iTunes for the i-device when the sidebar pane contains both iTunes library and device summaries).

 

[repete7]

May I suggest Plex? Trust me, it's much much better and if you have a 24/7 server on, the way to go.
[doublepost=1559819622][/doublepost]

Movies never got added to the music list - only audiobooks did this - and yes they should have read the file extension as an audiobook, however many ripped audiobooks are mp3s so that wouldn't always be reliable anyway and a proper ripped audiobook with the file extension would have had it's metadata correctly set anyway - you can't really blame itunes for incorrectly made metadata.

So, if I'm trying to import an mp3 audiobook, would I import it into "Books" (since iTunes will be gone) and it will treat it like an audiobook? Not send it off to "Music" because it looks like a music album?

 

[Stephen.R]

There are more differences, potentially, at least when thinking of a television series. Those will involve shows, seasons and episodes,

These days, I think some of the same metrics could be applied to a lot of movies too.

Look at the Bond movies - I don't think you'd call me crazy if I categories the whole series as a "show", each Bond-actor's tenure as a "season" and each film as an "episode".

At the very least, a decent number of films now have either a sequel or are a series of films.

I realise that they have some different characteristics, but they're inherently a lot more similar than they are to music, IMO.

Yet supposedly in Catalina's Music app we're not going to have the column browser even for music tracks.

That definitely sounds like a step backwards, (assuming by 'column browser' people mean the same as the Finder's "column" view?)

 

[axantas]

And in Books you cannot transfer to your devices by drag and drop. Do you want to transfer 1 book? Well you just need to sync your whole damn library (in my case 5404 books). No manual transfer possible. I wonder if the people who design and code ever use the apps they create.

You CAN add a single/multiple books by copying it to iCloud, dropbox etc. , „opening“ it in the files app, choosing open in books - and it is in your library. If you have your library in iCloud as well, it appears on all your devices and in iBooks om the Mac.

 

[LizKat]

So, if I'm trying to import an mp3 audiobook, would I import it into "Books" (since iTunes will be gone) and it will treat it like an audiobook? Not send it off to "Music" because it looks like a music album?

I wonder about that too. I would think that format would land it in Music. The support docu Apple put out says your libraries will be migrated, it's not very clear though about importing stuff later.

Right now in Mojave, if I stick any spoken-word file in mp3 format on my desktop , launch Books app and go to File menu and pick "Add to library..." and then navigate to the desktop, the mp3 file is greyed out and cannot be selected. So I'd think that would remain the case in Catalina Books app and that you'd have to import audiobooks in mp3 format to Music app in Catalina.

Most audiobooks I have were purchased in Audible format and I happen to keep the data files in a special folder "Purchased from Audible" inside the ~/Music folder.

So far under Mojave I still add Audible format tracks to iTunes using the File menu "Add to library" and navigate to that special data folder. I can make playlists of them and actually play them on my laptop in iTunes. But if I connect a mobile device and drag those playlists to it they go over but the data gets divorced from the playlist and ends up in the content shown for Books app, not the Music app, and the playlists in Music show up empty. So Music app on the iOS side already definitely regards Audible-format tracks as Book app material.

 

[BrettArchibald]

What previous application has been "broken up" like iTunes? What other application has Apple ever released, that was "does lots of vaguely related tasks in one single App"...
If you're going to cite "prior history" you'd better have some actual instances not just "oh they always do X" when you want to complain about any change ever.

The iPod app that was on the phone before Apple split it into Music, TV and Podcasts. Is that a good enough actual instance for you?
The iTunes Store app is where you bought your music, tv show and movies (if you even wanted to buy anything, rather than simply transfer your own files), and the iPod app is where you played them back.
I'll admit that in my experience, Podcasts work better in a standalone app, because all the podcasts, by their nature, are downloaded. But the standalone TV and Music apps have their fair share of issues that were not an issue in the iPod app.

So this example is VERY relevant to this discussion, because these are the exact same apps that we're discussing for the Mac.
So do you understand it now?

 

[Stephen.R]

So this example is VERY relevant to this discussion, because these are the exact same apps that we're discussing for the Mac.

That is true. I’d forgotten about that. So glad they fixed that monstrosity too!

 

[Amanda Ripanykhazova]

[QUOTE="Chris Grande, post: 27433487, member: 17931"Yes, and you can still burn playlists to discs.

Music is basically iTunes with all the other stuff torn out /QUOTE]

Does anyone know how this change will affect Android users? I am an unusual customer who, I'll bet Apple doesn't want:

Basically a Galaxy user who uses iTunes largely to rip CDs. I have 300 CDs ripped (and possibly 2-3 Podcasts for when I need to listen to OnTheMedia over again). So I use Doubletwist on my MBP. I update to newly ripped CDs simply by putting my SD card into a USB reader. I also use an iPod in my car and my in-dash player reads iTunes directly

I installed Catalina on a secondary retina iMac yesterday and iTunes no longer even starts (neither does iPhoto, which I have always found infinitely preferable to the lousy Photos app).

Is anything likely to change when Catalina gets out of Beta? Will I always be able to use my (local) iTunes library to update doubletwist (if iTunes is now called Music for these purposes?) and/or should I now start to consider other programs to handle my 300 CD iTunes library?

I havent looked around for a half decade since I started using doubletwist/android but is there any other way of playing a local iTunes library on an Android device using Catalina now?

Do I dare update my primary computer to Catalina when it comes out of Beta or is it more likely that I will lose my use of music on my Android device?

 

[Smellmet]

[QUOTE="Chris Grande, post: 27433487, member: 17931"Yes, and you can still burn playlists to discs.

Music is basically iTunes with all the other stuff torn out /QUOTE]

Does anyone know how this change will affect Android users? I am an unusual customer who, I'll bet Apple doesn't want:

Basically a Galaxy user who uses iTunes largely to rip CDs. I have 300 CDs ripped (and possibly 2-3 Podcasts for when I need to listen to OnTheMedia over again). So I use Doubletwist on my MBP. I update to newly ripped CDs simply by putting my SD card into a USB reader. I also use an iPod in my car and my in-dash player reads iTunes directly

I installed Catalina on a secondary retina iMac yesterday and iTunes no longer even starts (neither does iPhoto, which I have always found infinitely preferable to the lousy Photos app).

Is anything likely to change when Catalina gets out of Beta? Will I always be able to use my (local) iTunes library to update doubletwist (if iTunes is now called Music for these purposes?) and/or should I now start to consider other programs to handle my 300 CD iTunes library?

I havent looked around for a half decade since I started using doubletwist/android but is there any other way of playing a local iTunes library on an Android device using Catalina now?

Do I dare update my primary computer to Catalina when it comes out of Beta or is it more likely that I will lose my use of music on my Android device?

As far as I know the new music app will still support your local library and metadata. I'm a similar sort of user to yourself - I'm running an S7 Edge and have iTunes installed on my Windows laptop with a very carefully curated library of 16000 songs. My car also supports my iPod really well but I've not used it for years - I've uploaded my iTunes library to Google Play Music (which is free for up to 50,000 songs unlike match) which took a while but was worth it as it preserves your playlists. I've then downloaded them to the SD card in my phone so I can stream them via bluetooth or AUX, and I've found the sound quality to be much better than the iPod.

 

[Jus1973]

Well, overall it appears a mixed reception here. I currently have iTunes library on a USB3 drive (4.5Tb worth) and was just about to transition to a NAS drive, with RAID, but until we know if the Movies and TV shows app plays ripped video files consistently well, and from an external drive, ideally networked, I’m going to hold off. It looks like there is a lot of work to do before we are all going to be moving over, which precludes me switching to iPadOS too I’m guessing.
Not the smartest move Apple. I think you’re going to have to get a lot of work done before its really ready for the way we actually use your software.

 

[mikey8811]

OK so I'll basically end up using the Music app just as I used to use iTunes, to sync my library of ripped music. I do not purchase any music from Apple.

The entire iTunes library or folder contents actually resides on an external HDD instead of on my Mac. is this going to be an issue with the transition?

Also, I sync and backup my iPhone to iTunes. Likewise, the backup itself resides on an external HDD and not on my Mac, by way of an alias.

Is this also going to be an issue with the transition?

I do not envisage using either the TV or Movies apps.

 

[Stephen.R]

plays ripped video files consistently well, and from an external drive

The source of the files shouldn't be an issue, so long as they're using the appropriate codec (i.e. likely h.264, and some combination of aac, ac3 or I believe dts more recently?). The question about an external library is still unanswered from what I've seen, but e.g. Photos is much newer than iPhoto, and allows storing externally.

 

[Mr Todhunter]

You CAN add a single/multiple books by copying it to iCloud, dropbox etc. , „opening“ it in the files app, choosing open in books - and it is in your library. If you have your library in iCloud as well, it appears on all your devices and in iBooks om the Mac.

I was giving an example. Of course I could mail the book to me, that’s not the issue here. To have my library in the Cloud I would need 30 gb for books, 2 Tb for music and 100 Tb for movies.

 

[Amanda Ripanykhazova]

Yes, this is what bothers me a bit, I dont actually buy music from Apple at all either and am not sure they CAN have my best interests at heart when they make changes to what is, after all, their music sales site.

I m intrigued to hear that google Music is of better sound quality than iTunes? Can it be used as flexibly as iTunes/DoubleTwist? I thought it a bit of a mess? But I wonder if we should transfer all out music and artwork to it immediately and before we stop being able to do so? I have found in the past that (where for example I need to use a ringtone from my music library) if I have a CD ripped into an iTunes library on my S7 Edge, I can easily pull it up along with its artwork in google music.

Or are there better standalone programs out there for Android devices with better sound quality that users who care about sound quality should start to use?