Apple Releases iTunes 12.1 With New Yosemite Notification Center Widget

[HenryDJP]

So what do you think Apple's priorities have been lately?

They have certainly been doing a whole lot more than worrying about the color of a app icon. But since you had to ask me that question I can see where your priorities are.

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Oh wow!

Home sharing actually kind of works now too! Just had to log out and log back into home sharing on each device. I suppose this resets it.

Been fighting trying to get this to work for years!

Interesting. I have never had this issue. My iMac holds all my music and I've been able to use the sharing feature to play the music on my Macbook as as well as my iPhone and iPads without issue. Been working perfectly for years.

 

[boston04and07]

Does anyone else remember iSync? Make iTunes just for music, add a videos app just for videos, make the App Store be for both Mac & iOS apps, and make iSync do the syncing of everything. Too many features spoil the broth!

Anyone also remember SoundJam MP? I miss being able to use different skins. Also remember back in the Mac OS 8.5 (?) days where Mac OS actually had a "skin" preference in one of the Control Panels? Not as good as Kaleidoscope.

Yes, this! There is way too much going on in the iTunes app as it is. I'm all for splitting it into several more focused apps.

 

[milo]

People still use iTunes?

There are things I hate about it, but I'm not replacing it until there's an alternative that can sync an iPod and read all the iTunes ratings and playlists (including smart playlists and updating them). If something else does that I'd love to hear about it.

 

[msephton]

You can bring it up by pressing "Playlists" at the top of iTunes.

Yes, but it's not the same. It just feels very clunky design to be honest.

Works for me.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Need a Spotify Notification Center Widget.

 

[bdkennedy1]

How is opening Notification Center to access the widget faster or more convenient than just changing the foreground window to iTunes?

I'm getting tired of all of these gimmicky features.

 

[JHankwitz]

People still use iTunes?

My iTunes runs 24/7 through my whole-house sound system using my AirPort Express for at least the past 5 years. Can't live without it.

Hate the iPhone/iPad interface and difficulty in accessing the volume control.

 

[SolarShane]

Why does this even exist? You already have iTunes controls in Control Center. CC could have been updated to include a "Buy" button as well.

 

[Erastopic]

Why does this even exist? You already have iTunes controls in Control Center. CC could have been updated to include a "Buy" button as well.

Uhm, hate to break this to you, but this is on OS X, not iOS.

OS X does not have a control center.

 

[Trinite]

Yeah, sure thing. Have a look at the 'solved' response at the top of this thread on Apple Discussion forums. I'm 'lazarusnine'. If you have any more questions about applying it to your iTunes icon, let me know.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6603353

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Thanks very much - works perfectly! Much appreciated. I'm not too thrilled with Apple's color palette lately; this helps a lot.

 

[bbeagle]

Bad, you still have to launch app to change the song you want to play.

Not if you have headphones with the pause/play/next song button.

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How is opening Notification Center to access the widget faster or more convenient than just changing the foreground window to iTunes?

I'm getting tired of all of these gimmicky features.

I have a keyboard shortcut to see Notification Center. It's much quicker than control-tabbing between applications, or swiping. And all my Notifications and music are in one spot now. and clicking on the notification takes me right to iTunes. It's more convenient.

If I don't know what the song is that's playing, I'll just hit F13 (or swipe with 2 fingers) and see. It's a habit to hit F13 to see mail, breaking news, alerts, etc. Now it's just another convenience.

 

[lederermc]

I care a lot more about the alleged improvement in syncing performance than I do about the widget!

(i really don't know any OS X users that regularly use their notification center)

Sync does appear to be quicker. However, I use Match so I'm not syncing music. I will say the update (Mac OS 10.10.2) was small in size but long to install requiring two reboots.

 

[bbeagle]

I really wish that Apple would scrap the current iTunes player and start over. Strip the stores from it, strip the apps from it, and make it a music player like on iOS. Go ahead and call the stores iTunes, and rename the music player. iTunes used to be one of my favorite applications, today I groan if I accidentally open it. The latest version is easily the worst version of iTunes ever.

I think that iTunes 12 has been the BEST version I've used in the past 5 years. I think the organization is MUCH better. Click on the graphical icon on the left to switch between Music, Movies, Apps... then use the options in the middle to choose a sub-category. I like how iTunes Store is different when in Music, Movies or Apps.

It's so much cleaner now in my opinion.

 

[BJMRamage]

I have the Notifications set as my Primary/default when I open that side panel.

I can see what's playing there and any notifications. I wish the ability to see the new iTunes info from TODAY and also have in NOTIFICATIONS.

 

[BillyTrimble]

Itunes 12 a triumph of "style" over substance. It's virtually unusable. Apple should simply open source the app and get out of the way.

I'm curious as to where a statement like this comes from. How can you claim that iTunes is style over substance when you provide absolutely NO substance to back up your hysterical claim?

I use iTunes all the time. I have absolutely zero issues with it. I create custom playlists for my iPhone. I listen to internet stations. I view all sorts of programs. It has never crashed. It provides every bit of functionality I desire.

If you want any credibility, you need to back up your rather astounding claim.

We're waiting.

 

[orioncrystalice]

I think that iTunes 12 has been the BEST version I've used in the past 5 years. I think the organization is MUCH better. Click on the graphical icon on the left to switch between Music, Movies, Apps... then use the options in the middle to choose a sub-category. I like how iTunes Store is different when in Music, Movies or Apps.

It's so much cleaner now in my opinion.

I agree, and if it were split up into seperate apps doing other stuff, it would be T-minus one month at best before people clamored to have "one useful app that accomplishes all of these functions" again..

 

[InYou]

I wish there was an itunes update once a quarter.. So many itunes updates! So annoying lol!

 

[Erastopic]

I'm curious as to where a statement like this comes from. How can you claim that iTunes is style over substance when you provide absolutely NO substance to back up your hysterical claim?

I use iTunes all the time. I have absolutely zero issues with it. I create custom playlists for my iPhone. I listen to internet stations. I view all sorts of programs. It has never crashed. It provides every bit of functionality I desire.

If you want any credibility, you need to back up your rather astounding claim.

We're waiting.

Totally support you on this. iTunes is fully functional as it is and I have never had any issues with it except for some song editing glitches that was fixed in this update.

iTunes will always be my go-to music player for songs that I can't find on Spotify or just some albums that I prefer to own in general. It's even the best music player on Windows.

Sure some may argue that previous iTunes versions were better and some complain that Apple hides the sidebar by default but when it is possible to bring back with a few clicks, that should not be a problem to most.

 

[mdelvecchio]

iTunes 12 is a hot mess.

works fine here. is your computer broken?

 

[KALLT]

What is it that you cannot do now that you could do in the old itunes because to me it's the same functionality but with a cleaner look.

How does it look ‘cleaner’? iTunes used to be a lot simpler, it was very Finder-like even before Finder itself. Now you have these very awkward tabs on the left, the middle and the right; tons of different view modes depending on kind; the store is confusingly positioned right next to your music tab; your position within one view is often forgotten when switching to another view or the store; the search function is needlessly complex and inflated. It’s just mind-blowing how complicated and inefficient it has become.

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/11/itunes-through-the-ages/

Itunes 12 a triumph of "style" over substance. It's virtually unusable. Apple should simply open source the app and get out of the way.

Apple has every incentive to put as much eye-candy and quick-purchase buttons everywhere. iTunes has become a shop front and is more about managing your purchases than truly organising your music library. Just managing your song info is a huge pain (ever tried adding track numbers quickly? Good luck!). Most of the time you will be losing more time searching for songs rather than just enjoying them.

 

[name99]

You can bring it up by pressing "Playlists" at the top of iTunes.

But you CAN'T bring back the functionality.
In particular, you can't have multiple windows open for copying data from one playlist to another, or for comparing metadata between playlists.

The best you can do is UTTERLY INSANE workarounds like
- on a second mac, open iTunes to browse the library on the first mac
- one the first mac, use remote desktop to see that second cope of iTunes.
- you can now (with extreme clumsiness) compare two playlists with each other, but still not very easily move songs between them.

This is absurd. We've had windows since 1984, but Apple refuses to let us use them, even for use cases where they make perfect sense.

 

[name99]

I'm curious as to where a statement like this comes from. How can you claim that iTunes is style over substance when you provide absolutely NO substance to back up your hysterical claim?

I use iTunes all the time. I have absolutely zero issues with it. I create custom playlists for my iPhone. I listen to internet stations. I view all sorts of programs. It has never crashed. It provides every bit of functionality I desire.

If you want any credibility, you need to back up your rather astounding claim.

We're waiting.

The endless whining about "OMG iTunes is killing me and my family" is tiresome, as are idiotic complaints like "the icon is the wrong color".
BUT there ARE very real bugs and limitations with iTunes 12 which are constantly annoying.
I mentioned the inability to open playlists in separate windows above. But others include

- you cannot select multiple items of "different types" to edit simultaneously. What counts as "different types"? WTF knows? I accepts that it may not make sense to select a movie and a song to edit simultaneously, but I have this fire all the time when I am selecting material of the SAME type, eg items with a .m4b suffix and with a .m4a suffix that are BOTH of type Audiobook.

- there is inconsistent labelling of fields. The fields called Album or Artist are shown in the main iTunes Window when displaying, eg, a list of TV shows or "Home Movies", but these fields are not what is used when the Command-I Info window comes up

- iTunes uses its own UI primitives instead of the OSX frameworks --- and those UI primitives suck. Eg, bring up an info window. Now try to scroll the main window (that's in the background) using two finger touchpad scrolling. This works in EVERY OSX app which uses the OSX frameworks --- but it doesn't work in iTunes.

- Typing in the main info window resets the location of the line you typed to the top of the screen. Meaning that every time you type, the window then resets where everything is displayed. WTF? No normal app does that.

- editing a property of a song (eg the start or end times) only "takes" when you quit that song, start playing another song, then go back to the original song.

etc etc

Some of these make the app seriously unproductive (especially the lack of separate windows). Most will not kill you, but they show a constant sloppiness, a lack of attention to detail. That may be standard for MS or Google, but the rest of us paid 30% more for our Apple devices because we wanted something that worked WELL. If all I wanted was something that kinda sorta works OK, damnit I could be running Windows 8.

 

[mcgroarty]

iTunes 12.1 broke the unwatched TV sorting order options. The ascending/descending selector does nothing in my library. All those old Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and Outer Limits episodes I bought to get around to some day always come before the chunk of new TV shows now. Anyone else?

They fixed the ability to skip to next/previous song with a hotkey (Command N and Command P), and the cursor doesn't skip off the field one was editing when advancing to the next track. That's a nice win.

So far for me, this release is one up, one down. That's better than the general trajectory of the iTunes team in the last few years.

I was really hopeful about the claim of improved syncing. But iPhone and iPad syncing are still bad for me without aggressively paring down my library. According to crash logs on both, the problem is iOS itself kills the sync process for consuming >50% CPU for too long as a background process. Sometimes that's followed by the iOS device going hot and sluggish for half an hour while it erases the contents of whichever library the aborted sync corrupted. Then I get to watch it sync every last photo, podcast or video over again.

Someday this will all work again. Someday.

 

[eoblaed]

People still use iTunes?

Constantly.

Our entire entertainment/media hub uses it. Purchasing music, movies, tv shows, renting tv shows/movies, watching all of the above (either on our mobile devices, computers, or through Apple TV).

 

[TheGrandMoff]

Get Info appears to be Different

I was just checking some songs. The get info dialog looks different. The text edit areas are more defined now. There is also no check box for compilations.