iTunes 12.4 Update to Feature Minor Redesign With New Sidebar, Improved Navigation

[Razeus]

Apple has lost their way.

It's clear that Tim Cook isn't involved with the nuances of Apple. Steve was on top of all the software right down to the look and feel and colors. Tim is giving too much free reign to their designers. But I forget, he's not a visionary, he's a corporate numbers guy.

It is what it is.

 

[Wheelie4]

Not sure without using it of course, but it seems that the persistent sidebar coming back is a good thing. For the most part though, my iTunes looks like it always did back in the day, with the menu on the left always there.

I don't understand why people keep saying the sidebar was gone. I've always used a sidebar.

 

[gnasher729]

This is so presumptuous. We don't know how much user testing was done or anything about what went on in the design process to start calling for people to be fired. People have always complained about iTunes since waaaaaaay before SJ died. I'm not saying it can't be improved but your post reads as hyperbolic IMO.

Since iTunes nowadays is just unadulterated crap, we know that they haven't done enough user testing.
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The list of things wrong with iTunes is very very long. I hardly know where to start.
1) It is far to complicated. My wife can't even use it.

Just bolded that. It has to be said. She cannot create a playlist for her phone because it is just mechanically impossible.
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Exactly what TC told the ever breathless Apple family -

" We are going to give you things you can't live without that you just don't know you need today."

As an example: Today, I played the two first chapters of an audiobook on the way to work, and two CDs or so at work. All stored on my iPhone. On the way back, 45 minute train journey, everything was gone. "Books" shows an empty bookshelf. "Music": It tells me "Don't miss a beat. Find your favourites in iTunes, then come back and enjoy them here". I can't even express how angry I was. **** whoever wrote that ****. You ****ers remove the music from my phone or hide it, and then on top of that you come up with **** like that. "We lost your music. We are really sorry". That's bad. "Don't miss a beat. Find your favourites in iTunes, then come back and enjoy them here". I want to punch the person who wrote that in the face for ages.

 

[dannys1]

It's here:

On the MacBook above the MacRumors logo.

Ah good spot my friend, its on a screenshot inside of a screenshot haha.
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I don't understand why people keep saying the sidebar was gone. I've always used a sidebar.

View attachment 630635

I thought that too, but its because it only exists in the playlist tab at the moment - the update is going to replace the way the way the My Music tab works.

For You is so bad, I think they should just get rid of it along with Connect. Two failures.

 

[AppliedMicro]

It's 2016 and the only officially-supported way I can make a local backup of an iOS device is via an app called "iTunes"

It isn't the only way.
You can also create backups in Apple Configurator.

I've actually been prefering this over iTunes lately (though I use Configurator now and then to create simple configuration profiles as well).

 

[dan110]

Thank the Lord. They apparently have been surfing our comments on MacRumors.

 

[Avenged110]

How do you do that? It's only because it's not connected to the Internet, it backs up fine.

In the device popover on OS X's Airport Utility, next to "Status" should be a dropdown menu with an "Ignore" option, similar to this.

 

[Rud3Bwoy]

can we get proper scaling for 4k monitors on windows 10 for itunes ?ok thanks.

 

[Ian Howlett]

iTunes on the Mac, and the Music app on the iPhone, are ridiculously hard to use. It's only a music app, it should so simple! Their user interface from years ago was much better than it is today.

Time to just scrap both these apps and start again.

 

[verpeiler]

can we get proper scaling for 4k monitors on windows 10 for itunes ?ok thanks.

Maybe you should propose this directly to Apple instead of posting in a fan-forum ;-)

 

[040]

What a mess it's been, and why I've held on to 10.7! I truly do hate when Apple takes software that works just fine, then messes with it, makes it more complicated, often involving extra steps (ala Windows), and even removes some essential functionality. To me, it seems like there's a pool of developers & programmers who feel they must keep doing more & more, just to justify their employment, whether it makes for a better user experience, or not.

It was so much better "back in the day", smoothly functional, intuitive...

Indeed, staying on 10.7 saves a lot of headaches, but at the same time presents a different problem for me. For a long time I refused to update my iPhone 5 beyond iOS 6 (initially because of aesthetics, later mainly because it will inevitably slow it down and the Music app sucks). Now in 2016 when I really do like to update or get the iPhone SE, I am presented with the huge dilemma that an device with a newer iOS will also require the latest iTunes. And that's just not going to happen.

Since Apple's decline in software quality, I am terribly put off by the idea of their ecosystem wherein products are dependent on each other. (Desperately waiting for an nice, high-end 4" Android phone...)

Why not just implement tab browsing like in modern web browsers?

Using iTunes in a single window is like still using an old Internet Explorer 6 today...

Tab workflow works pretty good for years, why is it so hard to realize that iTunes should implement it too?

• Middle-click to open playlist/new search/For you/etc. in a new tab
• Cmd+T to open a new tab with a search ombibox and list of your playlists,
• easily interrupt your current browsing flow by hitting Cmd+T any time
• just hit Cmd+T and type to search
• with tabs, easily have multiple search results and switch between them
• easily get back to your previously interrupted work/search/music browsing by closing the tab (Cmd+W), or switching to the older tab.
• Duplicate the tab
• Navigate the tabs back and forth
• drag tabs away to separate it to a new window
• easily manage your library with multiple windows opened side-by-side
• do you have long playlists and want to rearrange them? open the same playlist multiple times on different scroll positions.. again, you need multiple tabs/windows to do it...
• do I need to go on?

Hell yeah, this would be great. Another great idea would be the ability to tag songs with certain user-defined keywords. It would work great with smart playlists. I know you can sorta get the same thing by being creative with the ID3 tags, but that can get messy.

http://leolabs.org/blog/technology/idevices/rethinking-music-management-in-itunes-with-tags/

 

[drbroom]

What has happened to Apple's UI team : (

What UI team? Apple sent all those people packing a long time ago! Worse then that they forgot about their own rules of UI... never fix what ain't broke AND remember that is people have learned a way of doing a thing you don't want to change that unless you are 1Billion % sure that this way is both easier and better.

BTW focusing on Apple Music... a service I would never use and hate so much I have seriously considered getting my music from other sources exclusively. anyone who uses Apple's (cough cough) music (stealing) service should read this guys blog <https://blog.vellumatlanta.com/2016/05/04/apple-stole-my-music-no-seriously/>. So not cool!

 

[saytheenay]

If still needed, the sync feature would be much better off in a standalone sync app for those 10s of people who still sync their iOS device to iTunes.

Speak for yourself. I work for a NASA contractor that allows BYOD with one condition: no cloud services, especially iCloud; only direct cable syncing, thanks to celebrity photo hack in 2014.

I disabled all services I don't use (Apple Music, iTunes U, Movies, TV), and it has worked fine. Sure the UI could be better, but it works ok as-is.

My big issue with iTunes 12.3.x is that on El Crapistain, iTunes won't show the login popup (can't authorize, sign in, buy anything, etc.), so I had to downgrade to 10.10.5 and the same 12.3.x version of iTunes works fine.

 

[mkldev]

I suppose this highlights the difficulty that Apple have, how do you group your terms.
You think consumption is common so group it all together and have a separate place for purchase. I feel that media type is common. Have one app that deals with content created by musicians, I can go to that app for consumption, purchase and organisation. When I know I need to listen to my 1980s rock ballads I know which icon to click, it's called 'music'. When I need to watch back to the further again, my home movies or even some junk of a to programme, I click Films, if I need to rent and by one, I can do it right in that app. Simples.

Either way, it doesn't negate the point I was trying to make, which is that the problem with Apple's iTunes UI is that the UI is chaos, filled with multiple controls that all conceptually do the same thing, and without any real sense of how they interact with one another.

You could pretty much apply the same set of design improvements that I suggested to separate Music, Movies, and AudioBooks apps just as easily as you could apply them to a single, unified app, and the only major difference it would make would be that the separate apps would have fewer levels of indirection in a content filtering hierarchical menu or whatever.

The big problem with multiple apps is that it makes device content management much harder. You'd pretty much have to put device content management into its own app, so that you could manage the music, audiobooks, and movies on your devices in a single app. Otherwise, you'd have multiple apps all competing for limited disk space. That would probably be a disaster. And putting the syncing into only one app would cause confusion, because users would wonder why you're syncing movies in Music and not in Movies....

I'd say that the only usable choices would be to either have a separate iDevices app or to keep everything together in iTunes. Given the momentum involved, I would not expect iTunes to become multiple apps any time soon. Here's hoping that they at least give some serious thought to redesigning the UI from the ground up....

 

[Otaviano]

iTunes is like Microsoft Word. New versions aren't better, just more complicated.

This really hits the nail on the head. iTunes is to Apple what Office is to Microsoft.

I remember when the iPhone came out a lot of Apple pundits praised Apple for not being scared to cannibalize their own product. Going on to point out how Microsoft famously became all about protecting the cash cows like Office and Windows. I find that Apple has fallen into that trap with iTunes. Where because of the install base and probably because of some of the revenue it generates they are scared to harm iTunes.

I truly believe that iTunes needs to die, both as a program and even as a brand. On the Mac it should be split into separate apps (Sync, Music, Films & TV, Podcasts). The iTunes Music Store (where you pay to own) should be the default on Apple Music when there is not an active subscription. Activating a subscription changes the store to allow you to play and save (add to your library) anything you like. On iOS the iTunes app would disappear and it's various sections would live inside the individual apps they represent.

I had hoped the Apple Music fiasco would help push them in this direction, but it seems like after nearly a year all we are getting is an updated iTunes that attempts to address some of the worse UI decisions from recent years.

A big disappointment. I remember when Apple renamed Mac apps to make them match their iOS counterparts. Yet we continue to go forward with iTunes which has the same logo as the iOS Music app and contains a bunch of non-related stuff that has separate apps in iOS. There is a missed opportunity to streamline and have a matching experience across the ecosystem.

 

[fabian9]

Speak for yourself.

Apologies if I upset anyone with my slightly exaggerated comment. Of course there are more tha 99 users still using iTunes sync.

I just can't imagine very many people still use iTunes to sync their iOS devices and this functionality would be better off as a standalone app rather than clouding the "iTunes experience".

 

[ajambrosino]

What has happened to Apple's UI team : (

The Apple UI Team (HI), which is actually fairly good, does not design. the iTunes team designs iTunes, and they're terrible. HI designs Music for iOS, which is why that's so much better.

 

[zahuh]

The Apple UI Team (HI), which is actually fairly good, does not design. the iTunes team designs iTunes, and they're terrible. HI designs Music for iOS, which is why that's so much better.

LOL MUSIC IS HORRIBLE AND BLOTTED!

 

[redfirebird08]

iTunes on the Mac, and the Music app on the iPhone, are ridiculously hard to use. It's only a music app, it should so simple! Their user interface from years ago was much better than it is today.

Time to just scrap both these apps and start again.

I hate that the Music app on the phone doesn't allow you to sort albums by release date for each artist. I use the "Picky" app and it's great. Gives exactly the type of navigation I want. Costs $2.99 in the App Store and probably one of the best apps I've purchased.

 

[ErikGrim]

iTunes on the Mac, and the Music app on the iPhone, are ridiculously hard to use. It's only a music app, it should so simple! Their user interface from years ago was much better than it is today.

Someone clearly didn't read my post. You can have pretty much exactly the same interface by turning off what you don't use.

 

[R2FX]

Someone clearly didn't read my post. You can have pretty much exactly the same interface by turning off what you don't use.

how exactly can I force Music app to sort albums from oldest to newest on iOS9? on my two iOS6 devices albums from one artist are sorted ascending from oldest to newest, which is what I want and prefer, in iOS9 it's always from newest to oldest.

iOS6 UI is/was way better for organising and finding songs than current version of the app

 

[ErikGrim]

how exactly can I force Music app to sort albums from oldest to newest on iOS9? on my two iOS6 devices albums from one artist are sorted ascending from oldest to newest, which is what I want and prefer, in iOS9 it's always from newest to oldest.

iOS6 UI is/was way better for organising and finding songs than current version of the app

What has this got to do with iTunes?

 

[navaira]

So this seems a big disappointment – when I remove the sidebar there seems to be no options to look at my playlists...

 

[The Skins Factory]

Persistent sidebar - good.
Media selector dropdown - don't see the point. Put them back in the sidebar if you're bringing it back, duh!

I still want multiple windows back for easy and enjoyable playlist creation.

I also want the sidebar artwork viewer back. Again, if you have the sidebar back there is no good reason to not have that available, plus it was always so much easier to add artwork with a single drag and drop on the selected items than having to get-info, then switch to the artwork tab first like you have to now.

How about the slider to increase the size of the artwork back? I'm down for that.