iTunes 11 is terrible

[filamentary]

@VinylTurnip

In previous versions, when I’d refresh the list of subscribed podcasts it would show me the new podcasts available for download, but they’d be unchecked and greyed out (which is what I’d prefer, so I can easily distinguish the podcasts I’ve already downloaded and want to sync from the ones I haven’t downloaded yet). In iTunes 11, when I refresh the list all the new (undownloaded) podcasts are checked by default. It’s visually confusing, and doesn’t make logical sense because the check/uncheck is supposed to indicate which items you want to sync, and of course you can’t sync what you haven’t downloaded. It would be like the Music page showing a bunch of songs you don’t even own with the “include in sync” check box selected.

Vinyl Turnip: i don’t think that’s a minor change. that’s a serious flaw. if you, like me, only choose to download and listen to certain podcasts, then this is a major functional change. i’ve spent who knows how many hours reading the descriptions next to countless ‘fresh air’, ‘this american life’, ‘the story’, and ‘stuff you should know’ podcasts, deciding which ones i care to listen to, and which i’ll leave undownloaded. if they essentially wipe out all my choices, and all my hard work, then that’s pretty major. luckily for me, i separated them a long time ago by putting the ones i wanted to listen to (i listen on an ipod while i exercise) into a playlist. if my playlist was deleted, that would put me in the same boat as you. but you have every right to be totally annoyed, on the same level as if my playlist were deleted by updating itunes. because it is functionally equivalent, what you’re stuck with.

now, granted, you may find a work-around. but what really irks me is how everything that MOST people want to do with the software is done by a work-around, whereas the normal way it functions is totally un-intuitive and often gets IN THE WAY of how we want to use the program. when i was a computer science student, this was the very definition of BAD DESIGN.

p.s.: have you looked at / tinkered with the many (again, not intuitive or straightforward) settings they’ve included for managing your ipod? if you’re syncing with music, so that only a small subset of your music library is getting included on your ipod, and you are happy to listen to something again (unlike a podcast, you don’t listen to a song just once), the new settings that allow you to totally automate the population of your ipod with tracks is actually sensible. the problem is, they invested so heavily in this feature that getting it to behave properly with us who need to manually choose what goes on our ipods is a real kludge.

also, you can’t change these settings until your ipod is plugged in. ALSO, you better back up into playlists whatever’s currently on your ipod, b/c several times over in tinkering you will find that it starts automatically adding things to your ipod (and removing others). it’s so convoluted that it’s hard to explain how you do it, and would take too many words for inclusion on this thread. but i can tell you that you need to have your ipod connected, you need to choose to INCLUDE podcasts (and any other type of media you like, and each has its own options) as items that automatically sync. the key here is that they’re not items that MUST sync – you’re indicating they’re items you will ALLOW to sync. because even copying stuff over onto your ipod manually is being called “syncing”, i guess because they wanted fewer verbs in the language of the menus? really not sure. when you do enable those, it will automatically switch on a bunch of things you didn’t intend. at which point you have to go to the top (most likely) and click the (x) to stop it syncing the full (in my case) 16gb. even if you don’t, you will have to go to the ipod settings (the general ones) and tell it HOW you want it to sync. this is where you can either allow it to sync from a particular playlist (which doesn’t actually work properly. it will omit certain items from your playlist and though it gives you a “more info” screen where it supposedly tells you why, the reason is thoroughly unclear), or you can stop it syncing with anything automatically by manually managing ipod content. then you can go through the frustrating process of trying to add stuff to your ipod. HAVE FUN!

actually, i’m about to find out just how far back i can go with itunes software and still use it with my new nano. i wasn’t using the latest version prior to itunes 11, so maybe there’s a version somewhere in between that still actually JUST WORKS and is also compatible with the new nano (7th gen). if you’re not using apple’s most recent ipod line (6th gen nano, for instance, worked fine with the itunes version i’d had for several years), it is probably far faster to uninstall itunes 11 and install an older version. you can find any previous version of itunes at oldversion.com. here’s the direct link to the itunes page w/ every previous version: Download Old Versions of iTunes for Windows - OldVersion.com

good luck! i’ll come back and post a solution if i find one (and remember to do so).

[pancakes3]

I think they had to change the podcast due to a lawsuit. It’s very infuriating and now the dicks are suing podcasters themselves if those podcasts have an app that uses the old, better, and apparently non-apple-proprietary setup.

[filamentary]

okay, anyone using the latest versions of ipods (such as the nano 7th gen), the oldest version of itunes you can use is 10.7. crossing my fingers it will not be such a POS.

[thelurkinghorror]

I will dial back some of my anger. I won’t say like it more, but it’s grown on my some. But:

[ul]
[li]Why do I have album covers if I can’t see them? I don’t wanna use the goddamn MiniPlayer.[/li][li]When I search for a song, please don’t switch my view mode.[/li][li]When I search for something, I don’t want to just play the songs that fit the criteria on random. I said I wanted to randomize every song, so keep doing that. Because if I want to play “Shock the Monkey,” sometimes I will type “shock” in the search box, then scan the list and double click the song. I do not need to search the whole phrase because it’s unnecessary. And I don’t necessarily only want to head the Bioshock soundtrack and the Electro-Shock Blues after that[/li][/ul]

FWIW: the only DRM track I have is from 2009, so they didn’t stop it before that. Unusually, it has DRM but was free?

[VinylTurnip]

Just to be clear what I’m complaining about, at one time the podcast list view looked something like this. Un-downloaded podcasts are easily recognized because they’re greyed out and have a nice big “GET” button next to the episode title. The check mark column is only available for podcasts that have been downloaded, as you would expect.

Now in iTunes 11, it’s more like this. They replaced the “GET” button with a down arrow (OK, whatever) but now even the podcasts that haven’t been downloaded yet are un-greyed and have a check mark beside them. I can de-select them manually and they then appear greyed out, but why isn’t that the default - or better yet, why is there even an option to check/uncheck them before they’ve been downloaded?

I don’t actually have any problems with the actual syncing process or playing them from my iPod, but the new interface design is really stupid.

[filamentary]

@VinylTurnip

Now in iTunes 11, it’s more like this. They replaced the “GET” button with a down arrow (OK, whatever) but now even the podcasts that haven’t been downloaded yet are un-greyed and have a check mark beside them. I can de-select them manually and they then appear greyed out, but why isn’t that the default - or better yet, why is there even an option to check/uncheck them before they’ve been downloaded

Vinyl Turnip: i guess what i had imagined was the following: if you didn’t sit and manually uncheck those files, and then you plugged in your ipod, and then it synced, it would automatically download and sync those files, and suddenly you wouldn’t have your carefully curated list, you’d have all the new and old podcasts mixed together with nothing to distinguish which you’d intentionally chosen to download and which you’d downloaded (in past versions of itunes) because you specifically wanted to listen to them. and that would be the equivalent of what i’d said. for someone who didn’t know they’d be checked, and didn’t stop to notice, this is indeed what would happen, and they’d be really, really irked when it happened. but i guess because every time you go into itunes, you uncheck all the new, undownloaded podcasts (one program at a time, i assume?), you avoid this muddle. for me, that would take on the order of 15 minutes to do for all the different podcast subscriptions i’ve got in itunes. i just couldn’t do it. good thing for me i’ve already separated the ones i want into a playlist, so i am not fussing with this checking and unchecking yet. i suppose i will once i start picking out the next set of podcasts to listen to while i exercise. i’ve got a couple hundred hours of podcasts to listen to sitting on my nano right now, though, and i don’t even get in a full hour per day of exercise. so, luckily for me, i won’t have to do this for a very long time!

[VinylTurnip]

@filamentary

Vinyl Turnip: i guess what i had imagined was the following: if you didn’t sit and manually uncheck those files, and then you plugged in your ipod, and then it synced, it would automatically download and sync those files, and suddenly you wouldn’t have your carefully curated list, you’d have all the new and old podcasts mixed together with nothing to distinguish which you’d intentionally chosen to download and which you’d downloaded (in past versions of itunes) because you specifically wanted to listen to them. and that would be the equivalent of what i’d said. for someone who didn’t know they’d be checked, and didn’t stop to notice, this is indeed what would happen, and they’d be really, really irked when it happened. but i guess because every time you go into itunes, you uncheck all the new, undownloaded podcasts (one program at a time, i assume?), you avoid this muddle.

Yeah, thankfully it doesn’t seem to do that (download unwanted podcasts automatically). It just makes the list view less intuitive.

And you can CTRL-click (in Windows) to select multiple episodes at once, so it isn’t quite as bad as having to do them one at a time. I do have to do it separately for each subscribed podcast, though.

[Cazzle]

Has the US Apple store done away with DRM entirely? The Australian store still has both DRM and DRM-free tracks but the latter are more expensive and not every track is available as DRM-free. It’s frustrating that we pay so much more for less, because I know the US store has a better range. When the Aussie store was set up, the price per track was set at $AU1.69, which was close enough to $US0.99 at the time, but since then our dollar has reached parity with the US dollar and the price we pay hasn’t dropped. We’re paying $US1.74 for DRM tracks and $US2.17 for DRM-free. Scoundrels.

[Pitchmeister]

@Eliahna

Has the US Apple store done away with DRM entirely? The Australian store still has both DRM and DRM-free tracks but the latter are more expensive and not every track is available as DRM-free. It’s frustrating that we pay so much more for less, because I know the US store has a better range. When the Aussie store was set up, the price per track was set at $AU1.69, which was close enough to $US0.99 at the time, but since then our dollar has reached parity with the US dollar and the price we pay hasn’t dropped. We’re paying $US1.74 for DRM tracks and $US2.17 for DRM-free. Scoundrels.

Can’t speak for the US store, but in Germany, iTunes “Plus” hasn’t been around for a long time, can’t remember when it was all no DRM. Our app prices have recently been raised from 0,79€ to 0,89€, songs are either 0,99€ or 1,29€. I feel your pain.