iTunes 5

I'm sure VigilantX is right that Apple is moving towards replacing brushed metal altogether with this new look. And I'm all in favor of that. But this is not the way to do it.

Fryke hit the nail on the head.

All I ask for is a little consistency. Interface design isn't about fashion. Pick a standard and stick with it. Revising it is fine; they changed the Aqua look significantly from Jaguar to Panther, and that was great, because the change was all across the board, so it didn't sacrifice consistency. They've also changed brushed metal over the years, but again, these were changes, not arbitrary additions, so it was still consistent. But it's starting to feel like Apple's just adding new styles to match each new pair of shoes their interface designers buy.

The big problem is that Apple keeps doing these baby steps. It seems like they want to make a big transition, ditching aqua for unified and metal for...dark-unified. That'd be great, actually; it would create greater consistency, since the two unified types are functionally identical and have more or less the same visual style. (And after five years, I think aqua is due for replacement anyway.) But if they're going to do that, then they should just DO IT. Replace aqua, and replace metal. Don't add the new looks and then slooooowly phase out the old ones. That just creates a giant inconsistent mess, especially when you consider third-party apps. The way they're transitioning, we'll be seeing these four window types for many, many years, because they're not going to just rip them out of the system, and third-party developers will keep using them as long as they're there.

If Apple wants to change things, that's great. But they shouldn't be adding more and more and more on every whim. We don't need a dozen button types, we don't need four (or even three) window types, and we don't need umpteen kinds of lists than all behave sliiiiightly differently. It's a UI nightmare. Can you imagine if, when they introduced OS 8, they ADDED the platinum look instead of replacing the old one?

As I've said before, I don't like the unified look. Don't like it in Mail, don't like the new form in iTunes. I think they're breathtakingly ugly. But that's really beside the point. If Apple wants to transition from aqua/metal to these two new types, then I say GREAT. But JUST DO IT; don't throw consistency out the window for no good reason.
 
ok... sheesh... consisitance is all that important ok.. *sigh*.. now here;s the bigger issue... the new iTunes is much slower than the older one... specially when navigating songs etc... how horrible.
 
kainjow said:
Ugh.. so iTunes 5 supports folders for playlists, but my iPod photo doesn't. And since it's running the latest iPod 1.2 software, there appears to be no update coming. When you update your iPod and you have folders in your playlists in iTunes, it just makes one big list on your iPod - ugly.
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Yeah... That was the main reason I switched from iPhoto to iVeiw Media Pro.

Not sure if I could ever go back.
 
VigilantX, without wanting to violate any rules here, and with homage to Battlestar Galactica... frak off.

I'm a bit vexed about the growing inconsistancy on my desktop, I keep telling myself...

..TRANSITIONS..

perhaps we are seeing that here with iTunes 5, I love brushed metal, always have, would like to have the whole GUI like it, but IF this a taste of things to come, the interface of iTunes 5 is - I think - spot on. If the whole shibang looked that way, I'd be very, very, very happy indeed. I just don't like the inconsistancies as they stand NOW.
 
hmm you guys say it's fast... hmm.. shoot.. then i think it's just slow in 10.2.8.... darn it!

and please.. inconsistancies... in desktop look... has made my mac experience all the less boring.. haha.. c'mon stop complaining...
 
VigilantX - I've always pictured Mac users, including myself, as being like Garth from Wayne's World, in the scene where the TV exec asks him "How do you feel about some changes to the show?" and he replies "We fear change". Apple's fans are always determined to prove that the way Apple does it is the best way, and when Apple changes things, we tend to go a little crazy. Its OK, after the first few hours of picking faults we usually notice all the good things and feel allright again.

Now that I've had a chance to really sit down with the new iTunes, I'd have to say that my angst has softened. The overall look is clean, though I still think the volume control is a bit of like the gorilla in the room. Its awkward, and looks out of place.

The UI is much snappier, letting me jump from song to song and scroll and search faster than before. I think iTunes 5 has "Teh Snappy", the holy grail of Mac development. :)

I like the redesign of the LCD-like display, so that you can now see title and artist, elapsed time and remaining time all at once, rather than clicking through these as on iTunes 4.

The parental controls are a good idea, too, though I really only use this panel to turn off podcasts and the music store.

I'm not sure I like the new sound-scrubbing thing, which gives the effect of a CD-player's search function. It might help to find those hidden tracks where there's five minutes of silence, or jump to that one guitar solo you want to practice, so I think I'll come to like it in time. Oddly, this seems to be a feature of QuickTime, as it does the same in QuickTime Player now as well, and I don't remember it ever doing that before.
 
VigilantX said:
Anyway, you group of whiners have got me to the point where I will probably leave for another like 6 months. No matter what Apple does, you guys will sit around and complain.
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And later...
VigilantX said:
On that note, I'm leaving you guys. I've visited your world once again in a search for intelligent life, and found that there isn't any. Just a constant need for diapers and bottles for each and every one of you babies.
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I can't help it, the wording is so close: :)

From the board rules:

Board Rules said:
Types of Posters We'd Like To Discourage

Drama Queen: Like all message boards, there is always a constant turnover in the number of people that frequent the macosx.com board. Most people, after having decided they no longer wish to visit the board, make no announcement about their departure. Some individuals have a penchant for making long boisterous departures from the message board that is clearly worthy of an Emmy award - "Goodbye cruel message board" is the classic remark. Because most of them seek to harm the morale of the board, Drama Queens are regarded as a nuisance. What also makes them an even greater pain is their tendency to repeatedly coming back for a series encore performances. "I came back to see if you people changed your ways, but I see things are the same as always - so once again, farewell cruel message board."
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as much as everything has more of a 'spring'

i have trouble connecting to the store - it take a lot longer than it did before...
 
I apologize for being the official "Drama Queen" ;-)

I came to the board hoping for some good discussions on the direcction it is taking, and when all I saw stuff was "UGLY" over and over again and comments about it being a FOURTH new interface style, when it is clearly just gray Unified, it really gets under my skin.

I have a lot more experience with dealing with customers, and usability then most, because I actually work in customer service, and I go on site, and help people learn how to use their macs on site. I can tell you with certainty that if Apple would have switched everything very very quickly, it would have confused a lot of customers. The average consumer doesn't sit around noticing whats Brushed Metal and whats Aqua, or why one should be used instead of another. If something very very quickly changes everything though, in a drastic way, it confuses them, and they would probably call tech support asking why their machine is CLEARLY not working right, and when you tell them that it is the way it is suppose to be, they will continue to tell you symptoms to make VERY VERY sure that their machine isn't about to die.

Another thing to keep in mind, iTunes is probably not written in either Carbon or Cocoa. It is probably written in a very well optimized third party framework to make coding for both windows and mac much easier, so the code may just simply not be there, and may take time for the new look and stuff to be adjusted to every single application and make sure that it has no bugs, and everything else, that it would quite literally slow down the launch for many products for quite some time, till EVERYTHING was ready for it.

It is one thing to change the way the application bar thing where you minimize, close, and maximize, because all of those conform to a single guideline, but in a matter liek this, it is a totally different matter. To make a change with this many variables, it can end up being a pain if not transitioned right.

Once again, sorry about before. Lets all just get along.
 
The big one is the new options on the Get Info, like Lyrics. I sure hope a good Apple Script comes out to download said lyric to your intended designation.
 
I like the new look, and the lyrics option -- but it's just another tag I gotta fill in to perfection... ugh. Still, if my iPod ever supports it, it'll sure help when I'm belting it out horribly in my car... at least I can sing the right words.

I like this new look -- it's pretty damn slick... just imagine Safari with this new look!
 
i'll admit that i didn't like the look at first, i think it's cause i was so used to the brushed metal, which everyone had a problem with when Panther came out, cause everyone was used to Aqua which was in 10, 10.1 and Jaguar.

It's a sleek smoothed out UI that got rid of the fat, no excess space and like
ElDiabloConCaca
it's pretty damn slick... just imagine Safari with this new look!
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just imagine safari like that, no fat nice and trim, just like a Tiger :D
 
I never hated brushed metal the way some people did, nor did I think it was great. The only application I ever thought it was well done in was Safari, mainly because there was a metal piece at the top and one at the bottom without any down the sides and without curved corners at the bottom. I like the design found in the newest version of Mail because it looks like an updated, smoothed, more elegant Aqua with some elements of the Safari design to it. I like a lot of the new iTunes interface because it reminds me of Mail and Safari. I do wish that the top corners were a bit more rounded and the bottom ones not at all, though.

What I would like to see from Apple is two window styles from Apple, both of them looking like Mail/iTunes. I'd like to see one with the lighter colour scheme found in Mail and one with the darker scheme of iTunes. Then I'd like to see you be able to choose one or the other from System Preferences to take effect across the whole system, kind of like you can choose either the red/yellow/green pips or the graphite ones.
 
Oh, and I'd love it if they eliminated drawers entirely in favor of the kind of pane you see at the side of Mail and iTunes.
 
^^ Agreed. I've never really liked drawers. They're okay, but they're not very elegant.

Another thing to keep in mind, iTunes is probably not written in either Carbon or Cocoa.
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Just FYI, its written in Cocoa & Objective-C. The proof of this can be found by checking out the resource files for iTunes.
 
I take back what I originally said. I thought I remembered trying to open iTunes up like a package and mess around with things, and seeing that it wasn't a package at all, and assuming that it was probably some sort of cross platform thing.

I stand corrected. They are probably just keeping the cocoa for windows thing up to date, and using this as a way to get everything up to date. I stand corrected.
 
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