iTunes 7 is here!

[Neuro]

I think iTunes 7 looks great. The main improvement to me is the speed increase. I find scrolling up and down the library is so much faster. Hopefully this is a nod to new UI components in Leopard?

In terms of people finding it slower, isn't this just because it's working out all your gapless audio and downloading cover art after installing??

I also like the new scrollbars etc. I think if anything, they are more Unix or Sun/Java-like, certainly not Windows. I honestly think the candy-blue Aqua theme is disgusting. It served a purpose to be different, but now it needs to look sophisticated, which I think they have achieved.

The eye-candy of the cover-art view is brilliant. It really works as a UI. It genuinely makes me look at my library in a different way. I've already listened to loads of stuff that was gathering dust.

Well done Apple.

 

[phytonix]

what is
This package installs iTunes Phone Driver
when u do customized installation?

 

[mooncaine]

Holy moley, you mean it starts downloading cover art without asking or letting you turn that off? I don't want cover art, and I sure as heck don't want to use up bandwidth on my connection for cover art downloads, much less send out reports on what I care to keep in my playlists.

 

[dunc85]

Holy moley, you mean it starts downloading cover art without asking or letting you turn that off? I don't want cover art, and I sure as heck don't want to use up bandwidth on my connection for cover art downloads, much less send out reports on what I care to keep in my playlists.

No, you turn it on in Preferences.

 

[artifex]

Let me be the first to lament:

THEY BROKE iTUNES 5.x!

Well, you can still use it for playback and music management. But you can't use the shopping cart any more.

 

[decksnap]

WTF have they done?? I think I'm going to overwrite the new control buttons with the old ones.

 

[Jackie.Cane]

I like CoverFlow and the free album art but...

Good god this thing is an ugly beast! From the side navigation panel to the scrollbars and buttons, to the Store itself - this has got to be the least asthetically appealing consumer app from Apple in a very long time. Windows XP style FTW!

 

[hiyel]

It works for soundtracks or compilations, It is used to organize the albums better. Its very handy.

For soundtracks and compilations I use "compilation" tag and they show up under "compilation" instead of their artists in the browser. "Album Artist" tag is supposed to be for albums that have songs that are 'performed' by multiple artists, not for albums that have songs from different artists. Compilations and Soundtracks fall into the latter.

I have this album called "Friday Night in San Francisco". It's a live concert by Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, and Paco DeLucia. I used to have all the names in the artist tag, and it would show up as a separate artist "Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, Paco DeLucia", which was annoying. Now, having this new tag, I thought it would solve this problem, and the album would show up under all the artists. That's the intuitive way I think. When you browse for an artist you want to see songs from that artist right? And the songs in this album are both form Al DiMeola, John McLaughlin, and Paco DeLucia. So they should appear under them all.

When I put the three names in the "Album Artist" tag, nothing has changed in the way browser works. If this tag is just a static storage for an extra string I call this Lame. I had so much expectations from it I guess.

 

[the dr]

.

Gah!! This gapless playback thing is annoying me. I upgraded as soon as the keynote finished and it's still analysing my library (37825 songs). What's it even for?!

 

[Fukui]

Frankly, I'm shocked no one has complained about the actual changes to the 'iTunes Store'! Yet. I'm looking at it using iTunes 6 and its like:

They've like basically overhauled the entire browser in there! I'm not too sure how I feel about it...

Yea, its all ugly-fied. Looks like sony connect. Bleh...

Hey, maybe thats what those "Hired Sony Engineers" were doing!

 

[Neuro]

Gah!! This gapless playback thing is annoying me. I upgraded as soon as the keynote finished and it's still analysing my library (37825 songs). What's it even for?!

Um, albums that don't have gaps in... Dj Mixes, live performances, soundtracks etc...

It's actually an incredibly nice feature that millions of people have been waiting for.

 

[*GG*]

If any of you have bought albums off iTunes with interact booklets I have discovered a problem - they don't work!!! - It plays it for a second as if it is a tune - it doesn't open it. arrgggh.

 

[daneoni]

erm is there a way to go back to iTunes 6 without a complete re-install. Using this thing is giving me a headache

 

[Lixivial]

Ack, when I have my iPod connected, my load times take FOREVER on my MacBook. It takes at least two minutes to simply bring up the UI.

I'm finding it interesting that the OS X version is lacking a feature that the PC version has. It's no doubt for troubleshooting, but weird. It's called "Run Diagnostics..." and presents the attached window.

I guess it's so Apple's iTMS support doesn't have to know Windows to get relevant information.

 

[hiyel]

Example: I have a song by Joe Blow, a song by Suzy Suck, and a song where they collaborated.

If I add an artist tag "Joe Blow, Suzy Suck", it's one tag. It's not Joe's tag, and Suzy's tag, and it's also not the same as "Suzy Suck, Joe Blow" ... though, to the user, it should be. A search for Suck and Blow should turn up any song that has both artists in the Artists tag.

That was exactly what I expected from this new "Album Artist" tag. but no luck.

Especially important for Genre tags. Many tunes could be classified as several genres, but if I put Joe's tune down as "Blues Rock", it isn't "Blues" and it isn't "Rock".

I use the "grouping" tag for this purpose. I use the "genre" tag for a general genre clasiification, and I just pile the sub genre's, moods and stuff in "grouping". Then I can call them by creating a smart playlist that looks in grouping tag.

 

[artifex]

If any of you have bought albums off iTunes with interact booklets I have discovered a problem - they don't work!!! - It plays it for a second as if it is a tune - it doesn't open it. arrgggh.

My U2 booklet has been broken since a week or so after I downloaded the set, which was the first week they had the set available after delivering my U2 iPod (b&w of course).

Apple won't fix it, either. Every time I ask them to, they can't understand what I'm talking about, and offer to let me redownload the whole music set "just this once." But the booklet isn't ever re-sent.

 

[Jovian9]

Did the Apple engineers forget to add a music video icon on the left side of iTunes 7? Everthing else is there except music video.

That's what I'm wondering. I have tons of music videos and now there is no listing of them for me to look through.

 

[chillywilly]

auto album art fetch isn't working for me, even on manual try. Anyone else having that issue?

I'm having the same problem here. It looks like it's going to work, but then does nothing.

And I know the song is there because I went to make sure it was there when it didn't work the first time.

 

[Groovey]

That's what I'm wondering. I have tons of music videos and now there is no listing of them for me to look through.

Mine's in the movies-section.

 

[Peace]

That's what I'm wondering. I have tons of music videos and now there is no listing of them for me to look through.

It's now a PLAYLIST

 

[Groovey]

It's now a PLAYLIST

True. The ones I meant are actually videos I've imported myself.

 

[balamw]

"Album Artist" tag is supposed to be for albums that have songs that are 'performed' by multiple artists, not for albums that have songs from different artists.

Yup, so for example you might have a track, "South Side" by Moby (featuring Gwen Stefani) and assign Album Artist as "Moby". It'll get files under Moby if you view the Album Artist tag, but it'll still find it if you search for Gwen Stefani.

Another example is that I have "The Best of Geroge Harrison", where half the tracks are by "The Beatles", I'd like the Album Artist to be "George Harrison", but have the individual tracks also tagges as Beatles tracks.

It is useful, but it's definitely not intended for "multiples" in the way you want it. (Me too).

B

 

[StokeLee]

Unfortunately, you can't buy the games separately for the equivalent of 5 bucks each like you can in the US, you have to buy all nine as a bundle for 36 quid!

Marky_Mark

If you click on the game you want, then you can download it, for £3.99

 

[displaced]

Well, I rushed home tonight to get me a look at all the news today. What a waste of bloody time.

No iTunes 7 in the UK (see screenshot).

iTMS has games, but STILL no TV shows or movies.

Unfortunately, you can't buy the games separately for the equivalent of 5 bucks each like you can in the US, you have to buy all nine as a bundle for 36 quid!



And although I haven't installed iT7 (although I could download it from the States I suppose -- what would the US version of the software do to my UK iTMS purchased tracks, I wonder?) I ain't gonna because it looks like friggin' VISTA! What's that all about then?!



And another thing -- unless I'm wrong -- they still haven't got crossfade on the iPod. I've been asking for that for at least eighteen months. Bollx.

www.apple.com/uk/itunes/ is showing iTunes 7 for me. Either your machine's loading a cached page, or your ISP is running caches which are still serving the old page.

Meh. iTunes looks different, sure. Given the choice, I'd say I preferred the previous appearance... but it's hardly the end of the world. Gapless playback is quite nice for some of my live recordings, and the Fetch Album Art seems to have worked as well as can be expected, considering some of my tracks aren't tagged as well as they should be.

CoverFlow's gorgeous

 

[Maxiseller]

AGREED. 100%. WTF have they done?? I think I'm going to overwrite the new control buttons with the old ones.

For gods sake, what a bunch of whiners.

It's a neat sleek user interface and I really like the changes. It looks less cluttered, and more importantly easier to use. Everything has nice clear spacing - and the move away from Aqua which has been with us forever is NOT a bad thing.

Aqua looks a little outdated now, and I like the fact that Apple are experimenting with new design ideas. I hope iTunes is the template that affects the rest of the OS.