Apple Releases iTunes 12.4 With Design Tweaks [Updated]

[Tech198]

I was just getting used to the side bar being hidden.. Dang it..!!

Did Apple do away with the "back" and "forward" buttons in album View (Get info) list view ?
I can't remember if this was there before, as an easy way to navigate between previous and next while still displaying Get info pane, or was this always for TV shows and Music only?

*scratches head* old age is creepin' in... I can't tell the difference between performance...

 

[Smellmet]

Since updating, some of my playlists have the music note icon on them and some don't and are just four horizontal lines with no icon. Does anyone know what this means?

 

[markgpearse]

So, I am in the new iTunes. I have "TV Shows" in the dropdown. Under "TV Show Playlists" there is a section called "Purchased". What shows in the main screen is purchased music. Anyone know why?

When I switch the dropdown to "Movies" none of my purchased movies show.

 

[simonmet]

Hi guys and gals,

Can someone tell me how can I delete a song in this new bloody version?
The only 'Delete' that I found is in menu 'Song' and it is deactivated...

Cheers

Um, the delete key doesn't work for you? This removes it from the library only.

Command-Delete gives you option to move the song(s) to the trash as always.
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I was just getting used to the side bar being hidden.. Dang it..!

As others have said, the side-bar can still be hidden for good if you like. The only downside is if you want to change the view type (such as albums to songs or tv series to episodes for instance) you have to temporarily show the sidebar and then hide it again. This could be considered more annoying than the previous design if you change the view a lot but I bet most people (including myself) tended to stick to the one view for each media type and so simplifying the UI is better in this instance. It doesn't take long to memorise the shortcut anyway. Option-Command-S (for sidebar).

I never liked the previous iTunes so I think the change is in the right direction. I like the improved Snappiness™ also. Thanks Apple but don't give up now!

 

[merkava]

Right-click - 'get album artwork' - that's disappeared.

Also, playlist folders always revert to collapsed state, when restarting or simply switching between content.

 

[Schwyz]

One step closer back to perfection: iTunes 9

 

[Explorz]

Nope. That didn't help. Since I am on a MB Pro, I tried Backspace, fn + Backspace, cmd + Backspace, cmd + shift + Backspace, fn + shift + Backspace. No luck...

Might you be in a smart playlist, from which songs can't be deleted?

 

[RedOrchestra]

Could there be a more ugly iTunes UI, than this one?

Say what you want about skeuomorphism BUT at least there was some depth and some character to it's appearance, this is just FLAT out ugly.

 

[JimmyHook]

A nice change but I still cross my fingers in hopes we get a suite of Apple applications that each have their own function

iBooks
Movies
Shows
Apple Music
iTunes (local music & podcasts)

Bad idea. The conventional "break up the app" wisdom is contrary to Apple values that I've seen since I was a kid. I need one app for syncing, one app for managing music, one for my books, etc. That's too complicated. One app, as long as it is well designed, is the proper way to go. Those suggesting an app break up aren't considering the ramifications
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Still no Windows version...grr...

Yeah. And?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Oh joy, oh rapture, oh bliss...

Apparently iTunes updated itself last night... Ironically, I feel like I just woke up after a night at a bar, to a strange thing in the bed next to me.

Thanks Apple. So, where is the list of bugs that are tossing people's content? Any workarounds yet?

*sigh*

 

[mbc2237]

This will likely be buried here in the comments and it does have relevance but can anyone recommend an app (ios and/or OSX) that will allow me to play an artist in ascending album order? ITunes still doesn't. I have tried cesium and it allows me to sort in ascending chronological order but I can only play one album at a time.

 

[sbailey4]

Why is it still so slow to load? iTunes is bar none the slowest app to load ever. I am running Win10 with i7 and SSD drive and everything loads in a snap EXCEPT iTunes. It drags to the point where you think maybe you didnt double click it. then finally oh there it is. I forgot what I was wanting to look at in there now. Not that I have an extremely large music collection in there either. Its just slow as crap period.

 

[lkalliance]

I feel it's a cart and horse thing...is the iTunes interface confusing because the application does too much, or does the application appear to do too much because the interface is confusing?

I remember, I think it was 2009, when Apple scrapped iMovie and started over, losing a lot of features in going to a new, more steamlined workflow. Over time, the features came back into iMovie, but the new workflow has served it well.

I'd love to see iTunes do something similar. Strip it down to the bare minimum it has to do, and make it do all of that as uncomplicatedly as possible. Lose a lot of features, and probably upset a lot of people along the way, but then begin to build it back up. It absolutely has to...

...play my music and video, with optional randomize and repeat
...sync content to my iPod/Phone/Pad
...present a list of my music tracks, movies, TV shows, and other video
...allow me to create and manage playlists
...provide me access to Apple Music
...provide me access to the iTunes Store
...allow me to manage my podcasts

Anything else? Strip out everything else. There are going to be things that advanced users will complain about. Just like with iMovie. Just like with Final Cut. Keep Apple Music streaming separate from my iTunes library. Don't give me five ways to look at my songs: just simple list format, sortable and filterable. MAYBE allow me to either see lists of songs, albums or artists in individual views. On second thought, scrap that for now. Add it in later.

Bare bones. Make it fast, make it easy to understand, make it stable. Then start adding things back in, with the simple rule: nothing can detract from the simplicity. A thousand "no's" for every "yes," etc. I hate that I dread opening iTunes. It used to be simple, uncluttered, did a small amount of easily distinguishable tasks, did them well, did them simply. It doesn't feel like that any more. Perhaps it does and I'm just stuck in the past.

 

[haravikk]

I don't like it.

In the previous version I could do everything I needed from the main music view (no sidebar) with a handy recently added bar at the top. I only needed the sidebar when I wanted to use playlists, and it opened automatically when switching to playlists.

Now I have to manually show/hide the sidebar, and there's no recently added bar at all, only the recently added view, which doesn't seem to load all of my album/tv series artwork properly.


Not that I expect iTunes updates to improve anything, the last time that happened was about 8 major versions ago

 

[aloshka]

Does it feel much slower for you guys? Laggy, rough animations and delays before playing songs. Not complaining. Just wondering.

 

[Harry110]

Small hiccup. After an initial crash... my library and playlists were gone.

After a few moments of panic, I was able to restore. But I'd consider this a strike against.

 

[Mike MA]

I hated that recently added music was always listed at the beginning of my library. So a welcome improvement.

 

[drcre8tive]

Not sure if this has been said before on this thread, but why can't we double click the tittle bar in iTunes to minimize to the dock like EVERY OTHER app does???

 

[Tech198]

Um, the delete key doesn't work for you? This removes it from the library only.

Command-Delete gives you option to move the song(s) to the trash as always.
[doublepost=1463494081][/doublepost]

As others have said, the side-bar can still be hidden for good if you like. The only downside is if you want to change the view type (such as albums to songs or tv series to episodes for instance) you have to temporarily show the sidebar and then hide it again. This could be considered more annoying than the previous design if you change the view a lot but I bet most people (including myself) tended to stick to the one view for each media type and so simplifying the UI is better in this instance. It doesn't take long to memorise the shortcut anyway. Option-Command-S (for sidebar).

I never liked the previous iTunes so I think the change is in the right direction. I like the improved Snappiness™ also. Thanks Apple but don't give up now!

kewl....


No need for being temporary,.... iTunes 'remembers' what view u like.. (Albums, list etc)

The only snag, is yes,, u do have to temporary show side bar to switch current view, but afterwards u can hide it and iTunes will always remember, even across closing/opening app. Problem averted It's just it's different to before..

 

[mdwsta4]

How did you do a restore? My playlists and music went missing to. I had to restore from a backup

Small hiccup. After an initial crash... my library and playlists were gone.

After a few moments of panic, I was able to restore. But I'd consider this a strike against.

 

[JoeInMilwaukee]

Direct download link?

I'm waiting for this as well. I used to be able to download the Mac version of iTunes from Windows but now Apple's iTunes download page always takes me to the Windows version without an option to download the Mac version. (I prefer to download Apple software at work where the bandwidth is high but I'm stuck using Windows!)

 

[Fried Chicken]

Did apple pull this update?

 

[seanrt]

You used to be able to essentially have it as a drop down menu if you wanted as shown in the attached photo -

The old way was better and essentially allowed users who wanted a drop down menu to have it or for people who prefer the convenience of a quick way to swap between sections on iTunes, also to do that.

Given how much I swap between those things, clicking a bloody drop down menu is annoying, just like the flawed iOS music app.
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That doesn't make it any less of a highly annoying move...

Use keyboard shortcuts to switch between media. CMD 1 for music 2 for Movies 3 for TV shows. I love them, quick and easy

 

[SeaFox]

Updated last night as part of doing the El Capitan update on my Macbook, and also updated my Windows tablet.

Nice to have the sidebar back... but shared libraries still require visiting the drop-down menu instead of appearing in the sidebar as we had before. Close, but not quite there for what I wanted on those two devices.

I actually wish I could just set iTunes to connect and display my shared library automatically, instead of the local music collection.

 

[NATO]

Could there be a more ugly iTunes UI, than this one?

Say what you want about skeuomorphism BUT at least there was some depth and some character to it's appearance, this is just FLAT out ugly.

Try using it on a high-DPI display in Windows, visually it's an abomination. I'd believe you if you told me it was some undergrad project and not the result from a multi-billion dollar computer corporation.

(I still like it functionally, but I really wish they'd give the UI some love as it really, really doesn't work well with Windows 10's DPI scaling feature)
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Did apple pull this update?

No, I've just had it download through the software updater utility in Windows.