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Apple Releases iTunes 9: New Media Syncing Options, Genius Mixes, iPhone App Organization

For those of you who really dislike the new grid view white background (I count myself in that group), please vent constructively here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/itunesapp.html

I've already filed a bug on it in Apple's bug reporter, but if more people complain they may reconsider.

For what it's worth, I'm all for UI change, progression, evolution, etc., but this update is kind of making me sad (and the white is giving me a headache).
 
Alright I just dragged some songs that were not on my tower from my MacBook's Library using Home Sharing. :D

I'm getting the hang of this. It even copied over the ratings too.
 
itunes tore sets a good example...

the new itunes store is perfect! white writing on black and wow is it sleek, a huge improvement on the old white pasty background.... wait... what have they done to the rest of itunes!? they swapped the two! Why didn't they take a leaf out of their OWN book and keep the music, movies and TV shows the same blacky goodness, or if they did HAVE to change it, smarten it up in line with what they've done with the store? crazy fools...
 
How does a white background make people's eyes hurt? How do they survive using Google? Or Finder for that matter? I like the white background, it's much more modern.

Though if a white background sends you running to the feedback site, this must be a win for Apple.
 
Pundle said:
How does a white background make people's eyes hurt? How do they survive using Google? Or Finder for that matter? I like the white background, it's much more modern.

Though if a white background sends you running to the feedback site, this must be a win for Apple.
Click to expand...

How?
 
JackieTreehorn said:
Well, I would love to hear any solution you may come up with. I used this solution: an iTunes 8.2.1 dmg file.

I'm going back to 8.2.1.

And if it wasn't for this breaking my AppleTV stuff, then I'd go back anyways for that awful white background in 9.0. What is Apple thinking lately, stylistically? I got used to the grey, now we're back with iTunes White.
Click to expand...

How can you go back to 8.2.1?
 
did they take out sub genres in the app store? I remember when you would go in games for example you could see a sub menu for different types. cards, puzzle. etc. or am i just not seeing it?
 
Pundle said:
All the features they've added and the most you can complain about is the shade of a background? I'd be happy with that sort of success.
Click to expand...

Ahh makes sense. Other than the white background (which I think I'll get used to you) this is a pretty fine update. Now all I want is to play HD movies on my iPhone.
 
I'm glad the facebook thing isn't what I thought at least you have to go out of your way to do it and its kinda pointless.
 
upgrade (or downgrade ) the encode quality

You can now upgrade ( or downgrade ) the quality of the MP3s in your collection. Meaning no re-inserting your CDs one by one. But this does not work on iTunes bought music. Select a song (or group of songs) and then under advance there's an option for "Convert to AAC" ( or whatever your input settings are.) This is REALLY handy. Like an iTunes plus upgrade for your own collection.

edit: I dont think this is new but it's still awesome.
 
yancey47 said:
You can now upgrade ( or downgrade ) the quality of the MP3s in your collection. Meaning no re-inserting your CDs one by one. But this does not work on iTunes bought music. Select a song (or group of songs) and then under advance there's an option for "Convert to AAC" ( or whatever your input settings are.) This is REALLY handy. Like an iTunes plus upgrade for your own collection.

edit: I dont think this is new but it's still awesome.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's not new. It's been there forever. :p
 
LoganT said:
What I will say that I really enjoy about the new iTunes is that I can now use Genius for songs that are not in the iTunes store. So like mashups, mixes, songs not available now work.
Click to expand...

I know I love that! My thing is how does it know?
 
Genius Mixes: Grid View ONLY? WTF?

Yeah, add me to the list of people that are NOT happy with this update. As previously mentioned, it definitely has an "unfinished" feel to it.

The main reason I updated was for the Genius Mixes. I am a HUGE fan of Genius; I have a *very* large music library and it has allowed me discover/remember a lot of great music that I already own. I was very excited about Genius Mixes and although I will still likely use it a lot - WHY is it in Grid View only? (The fact that Grid View is horrendously ugly now doesn't help matters.)

Yes, I get that since it is an "endless" playlist and that it would be difficult (though not impossible) to display the entire Genius Mix playlist. Why not at least let me see the next 50 or 100 songs and allow Cover Flow and List view? Why am I forced to look at a view showing other Genius Mixes when I have already chosen a Genius Mix? At the **very least** I want the other Genius Mixes to go away, and the artwork for the currently playing song from the active Genius Mix to fill the iTunes window. I see no reason why this is not possible.

For those that wonder why this is such a big deal to me - I have iTunes running on my Mini, connected to to my TV and use my Harmony (along with Remote Buddy) to control it. I usually leave iTunes in Cover Flow, Full Screen since it looks better than any of the other views, IMHO. In fact, I like Cover Flow so much...that it's the main reason that I prefer iTunes to Front Row or my AppleTV for a media center front end (at least for music). So now if I am playing a Genius Mix....I am forced to look at the crappy, ugly Grid View.

Ok, I know that we all use iTunes differently and it's inevitable that some updates will anger some and please others - but this still feels like a very unfinished update to me. For me personally, this is the most frustrating update in recent memory. My guess as to the explanation as to why it feels "unfinished"? Because it's *not*finished. Of course it had to be released today....but my guess (hope?) is that we will see an update before long that fixes some of this silliness/ugliness.
 
yancey47 said:
You can now upgrade ( or downgrade ) the quality of the MP3s in your collection. Meaning no re-inserting your CDs one by one. But this does not work on iTunes bought music. Select a song (or group of songs) and then under advance there's an option for "Convert to AAC" ( or whatever your input settings are.) This is REALLY handy. Like an iTunes plus upgrade for your own collection.

edit: I dont think this is new but it's still awesome.
Click to expand...

that feature won't 'upgrade' a lossy file...
 
I "upgraded" to iTunes v8.2(23)!

I say "upgraded" because I didn't like the white background in the Grid view or in the iTunes Store. I sent Apple feedback about it too. I told them that I was moving back to v8 as soon as I could. I also didn't care for the "slick" UI in the iTunes store. I liken this iTunes "upgrade" to the debacle of Apple's iMovie HD successor version.
 
Home Share but no DJ

Home share is a nice touch for those that need it, but personally, I don't want to have multiple copies of song files on different computers as it wastes disc space.

What I would rather have is the ability to include shared libraries when using iTunes DJ. If Apple is letting my copy the music from one library to another, why can't I use it with features like the DJ?

I know, I could copy it over and then use DJ, but again it wastes space, and is clumsy.
 
My initial thoughts are (apologies for any repetition of other posts):

- Clicking the green.zoom button no longer gives me the mini player. That sucks, used that all the time. I don't see the point of that change at all. Defintely the worst change I've encountered so far, it's a fundamental usability issue. Don't give me the keyboard shortcuts reply, I want a button, even if it's not the green/zoom button (I do understand the arguments for wanting consistency of UI buttons across the OS - but in iTunes I think the mini player is much more useful, to me at least, than the standard zoom function is).

- More white text on black in the store - I hate it. Even worse than in the SL dock. I really hope Apple doesn't expand the use of this white text on black trend too much further - it's bad enough for a few words here and there, but block text in this scheme hurts my eyes. Overall the store is ok, not sure if I would call it an improvement though, seems more like a refresh for the sake of it really. I would have no problem Apple giving people the option for those who prefer white on black though.

+ I can now tell iTunes that any file is a podcast and it puts it in the podcast section! Hurrah! This would have been near the top of my list for new iTunes features, though quite why it took so long is still beyond me.

+? Home Sharing seems like a great idea but I haven't tried it out yet.

+App organisation of my iPod Touch, wonderful.

- No Blu-ray playback? A shame, but having though about it since that rumour came out a while ago I never really saw how iTunes was the place for that... seems more likely iTunes will simply do something with picking up digital copies on BDs at some point maybe...

± The general look is less bland (good) but a little too the other way - a bit too bling/shiny. I do think a consistent style for the UI is important to some degree, but I also think that every window looking really similar can be a negative thing too - there needs to be a balance where you can see everything has a common overarching design to it, but with enough room for some individuality where suitable. iTunes 8 was a little too like a finder window if you exposéd it, this is more distinct. Overall I like most of it (with some reservations about the store, see above).
 
mrr said:
I was just trying out CoverFlow in iTunes 9.0 to browse though my applications (kinda useless since you can't really do anything with them on your Mac) and it occurred to me:

Why not have CoverFlow for your apps ON the iPhone?

Better yet why not let you actually USE YOUR IPHONE APPS on your desktop machine in iTunes!!!

THAT would be cool !
Click to expand...

I would like to see that too!
 
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but they've made some changes to the consolidate library function. The main change being the addition of a new option to move everything in to separate folders within the iTunes library, so all music is now moved to a Music folder. You want to be careful with this option if you backup your library with Time Machine.

Best feature for me though is the speed increase. I have a large library (60k songs) and it was painfully slow when adding or updating songs, whilst it still isn't instantaneous it is a lot quicker than it used to be which will save me a massive amount of time.
 
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