Huh. I kinda like it. (Mac user). It’s different — I know that tends to shake people up at first, it certainly did for me until I started playing with it a bit.
On my system, it’s zippier than the older version. I’ve never been a huge sidebar user. I always thought it was a bunch of wasted space. I think that the distinct viewing styles for songs/albums/artists/etc. makes a lot of sense, rather than everything being the traditional list view (that said, I do tend to stick with viewing by “Songs” which is the traditional list view. I also like that they’re using Helvetica throughout the interface, but then I’m a font nerd.
There are however, a few things that are minor annoyances for my own idiosyncratic way of use:
[ul]
[li]The miniplayer requires an extra click before the user can adjust the volume[/li][li]The miniplayer button is off in the upper right corner — I’m sure I’ll get used to it after a while.[/li][li]It’s dropped all support for multiple windows, including the iTunes Store.[/li][/ul]
All in all, I think they did a good job and I disagree with the charge of bloatware. I’m not sure what features they could remove that wouldn’t get users in an uproar.
Then install 10.7. Now fire up iTunes and you’ll be good to go. I just did all this and am happy again!
I really wish Apple would pay some attention to us classical music lovers by making it easier to sort by composer. I know we are a small minority of music listeners, but still.
I read three articles about it last night. The first was about iTunes being bloated and suffering feature creep. The second was about 5 features removed in iTunes 11. The third was about the 7 features that iTunes still lacks. I think I can see why they can’t win unless they can solve that little conundrum - simultaneously curing feature creep, not removing any existing features, and adding new features.
I don’t mind it, in fact, I like it better, overall.
The “bloat ware” doesn’t really get in my way, I keep it mostly all hidden, and it’s cleaner. New Up Next is very nice, and I never used cover flow. Didn’t see the benefit; especially with the default album grid view.
In iTunes 11: in Songs or Playlist views, View / Column Browser / Composers will show Composer in the browser thing near the top. View / View Options / Composer will add it as a column in the list.
In previous versions, I had a Classical Music playlist that was organised by composer. I’m pretty sure it was there by default. In v 11 the playlist is still there but it works differently now. The old version was better, but it’s still usable now. (And even like this, iTunes support for classical metadata is still far better than Spotify or Rdio).
I’ve been pissed off since upgrading from iTunes 4, I think-- whenever it was that they killed off user sharing, the last great feature. Now it’s. . . 292Mb? How can that be?! So I use Vox if I need to run many other programs at the same time.
Haven’t upgraded yet, but have survived previous upgrades and am sure I’ll survive this one. Wouldn’t mind a simpler alternative on the laptop, though.
Sorry but, iTunes is meant to be run on fairly modern equipment. I have an '11 iMac and iTunes loads in a hair under a second. That means loading in “Album View” which is the old “Grid View.”
This program is not '97 Winamp. It does a lot more obviously, but is far from bloatware. Because your crappy comp. has trouble loading software does not make the software bad. Frankly your Norton or Mcaffee running- Windows PC has its stomach so full of bloatware it can’t digest sh*t
I understand those who are upset for losing “Cover Flow.” I never used it but it was unusual enough to have some type of cult following. I have been using “Grid Flow” for a longtime and now it is enhanced, but now called “Album View.” When you single-click (one finger tap) an album cover, it opens a new window (the same color as the album) with a new set of controls to deal with the album.
For those reading about things that are now missing, you might want to explore it yourself because very little is missing actually. It can be configured to be just like it was before, only marginally different.
The bottom line is that if you have a 2007 comp. running Windows XP, you might not be the ideal candidate for the latest iteration of iTunes. But if you have a good, quick computer, than this will run great.
I haven’t tried iTunes 11 yet, but on my who-knows-how-old desktop running XP and my roughly 2007 laptop running Vista, 10.7 works fine for me. Since finding a nice app to sync my Android phone’s music library with iTunes, I’m content.
My only real grumble is the difficulty of keeping libraries synced between computers, but a Facebook friend pointed me at a Macro$loth utility that actually does the job decently.
Is list view still an option in v11? That works better for me than album covers and such.
“List View” is the same, only it is called “Song View.” When 11 loads, the Side Bar is no longer visible but if you go up to “View,” you can make it visible again.
Eh? In my experience there are a lot of Mac Fanboys and girls here. Dopers with references in their name. I don’t particularly like the company’s products for empirical reasons, but the issue here is iTunes not iOS or iPod (really like my Classic, even if Apple seems to ignore it).
I played Skyrim earlier, I think it can handle an non-accelerated application. Win7, running MSE because even the Microsoft haters on here like it. I was prepared to steer clear. And MS is behind a lot of bloat, but MSE is, very surprisingly, not one of these.
And sorry, I don’t miss Cover Flow per se, but just, for example, the ability to see the cover in songs mode when it’s not the size of my fingernail.
If the old features are still there but hidden behind a layer of obfuscation, then something’s wrong.
It’s $25 a month, but iTunes Match was made to help people do just that. Plus they give you high-quality versions of lower-quality versions you already have, regardless of where they came from. (I’m not shilling for Apple, I’m just sharing information that exists in the world).
I appreciate the thought, but since I’ve found a free utility that works well enough to suit me, I have no great urge to shell out $300/year, especially with my husband being laid off next June/July.
I have to admit I’ve warmed to the upgrade a lot over the last couple of days as I’ve gotten more familiar with it. The Up Next feature is great, the artist scroll bar and album displays are very nice. Moving from song to song or album to album can be a little annoying because sometimes it shifts me to artist or album view from song view, and there are some other minor inconveniences. On the other hand because of the changes, if I look up songs by The Band it can actually show me The Band and not every artist I have whose name includes “The” and “Band.” So I’m no longer calling this terrible.
It might not be what you’re looking for, but just so you know, if you click on the album artwork thumbnail in the main window, it produces “album art” miniplayer (which I kinda prefer to the actual miniplayer.)
The “bloatware” comments weren’t aimed at you…because you didn’t complain about that.
One thing I do agree with, I like to be able to hover over a button and read what it does.
But I will stand by the idea that there is alot of Apple hate around here. Please read this thread I am just venting about that. Like everything, there is good and bad in all, but I think Apple does things a little bit different than many can handle so people’s reaction is “This is different, I don’t like it.” Most people naturally don’t like things that they aren’t used to.
And I think this is quite an upgrade, of course I have been using the album view for a while anyway, and it has some great new features. Like someone else has already mentioned the album art miniplayer vs the main miniplayer. I still use list view sometimes and it is the same as ever.
Am I the only person who likes a straight up list of entries? I can see a greater number of songs at once than the grid and scan them quicker to boot. I don’t really care about the album art. It’s what I can hear that I’m interested in.
utility that actually does the job decently.
I am just venting about that. Like everything, there is good and bad in all, but I think Apple does things a little bit different than many can handle so people’s reaction is “This is different, I don’t like it.” Most people naturally don’t like things that they aren’t used to.