iTunes 5

I've installed iTunes 5 now. My initial thoughts and impressions:

It seems like they've greatly improved Party Shuffle's selection routine. I haven't seen ANY duplicates in the list after many refreshes, even when I used a relatively small playlist as a source. I used to get the same song half a dozen times quite often with smaller playlists, making Party Shuffle pretty much worthless for those lists. (However, when the "Play higher rated songs more often" box is checked, I still see dups. But not as many as before, anyway.)

I haven't played around with their new randomization options. For those who haven't seen it and want a better description than Apple offers, it lets you choose how often you'll see songs by the same artist in succession. By default it's completely random, just like before.

I like the new track display. The main functional difference I see is that it displays both the elapsed time AND remaining time, whereas in the old version you could only display one at a time. I'm not crazy about the new appearance, but...eh. The shading has changed to match Tiger's new style (shown in the menu bar and the new button types seen in....er, I can't think of any examples at the moment), and I appreciate that.

I actually find the new interface to be slower, in contrast to what others have said. The scrolling text in the track display is often choppy, and scrolling is....odd. It seems to get slower and choppier the more you scroll, and the only way to get it back to normal speed is to quit+reload. It gets incredibly slow after a while. Clearly there are some bugs at work here. This is a big problem.

Maybe I'm crazy, but....didn't iTunes used to use the system-wide Scripts menu? It used to be that it would only create its own Scripts menu (to the left of the Help menu) if the user didn't have the system-wide menu enabled. If it was enabled, iTunes would just use that.....Right? Or am I crazy? :confused:

The new interface still seems like a hack to me. I actually like the new window style more than metal or unified (it's not exactly like a darker unified, it's just very similar). But the main window as a whole still feels like a hack. The way the two lists jut up against each other just doesn't sit right with me. I know I'm nitpicking (see my rank; it's what I do), but I expect something more refined from Apple. I think the entire idea of using gradients is a little ill-conceived, and I always have. It just seems so silly and Windows-esque to me. But I'll get used to it.

All in all, I....don't know if I can recommend the update. That scrolling issue is a biggie, although it seems like it's not affecting most people.
 
the problem with update is you have to update eventually. personally think the new UI is shoddy - it no longer looks designed. it looks thrown together. that volume control is hideous, and the fact that nothing has a border is terrible. this makes brushed steel look like the Venus de Milo.
 
iTunes 5 uses Gracenote CDDB when importing CD's. I was getting tired of entering all of the track names, artists, albums in when importing, so this is a great addition.
 
It's always used the CDDB... I've never had to manually enter track information when importing CDs. It's been an option in the preferences since as far back as I can remember.
 
ElDiabloConCaca said:
It's always used the CDDB... I've never had to manually enter track information when importing CDs. It's been an option in the preferences since as far back as I can remember.
Click to expand...

You're correct iTunes4 had in general pref the "Connect to internet when needed" options, but can't find it in 5.0 so sounds like it's been integrated due to use of web related functions, ITMS,Podcast and so on, thus access to CDDB is now an automatic feature.
 
I've just noticed something...

The 'curved' corners on iTunes... are the exact match for the curves on the windows in... *drumroll* ... windows vista!

obviously it's a basic 3 pixel 'cut away' to give the illusion of a curve, but i wonder whether it was a conscience decision? regardless - the curves of 'metal' are less than subtle - metal isn't the most efficient design / solution. as we see more features being packed into the OS space will become a premium.

microsoft (in their race to 'catch up') have fallen victim to the same thing - vista windows sport thick outlines - title bars / nav bars are not put to best use and take up a good deal of room at the sacrife of the presented information. information panels (i wonder if these can be turned off...) then go on to take up even more room!... vista is basically the baby steps that aqua took in its infancy - and is trying to crow-bar in the 'clean lines' of metal... needless to say - apples eye candy served to be useful as well as entertain...

at least as mac users we have gone through the eye candy experimentations and are now getting streamlined, back to a purer, cleaner design...
 
Mikuro said:
Maybe I'm crazy, but....didn't iTunes used to use the system-wide Scripts menu? It used to be that it would only create its own Scripts menu (to the left of the Help menu) if the user didn't have the system-wide menu enabled. If it was enabled, iTunes would just use that.....Right? Or am I crazy? :confused:
Click to expand...

I think you are crazy. I have always had System wide scripts (along with the obscure Folder Actions scripts). iTunes has always had it's own Scripts menu, hence the folder ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts.
 
parb.johal@ante said:
I've just noticed something...

The 'curved' corners on iTunes... are the exact match for the curves on the windows in... *drumroll* ... windows vista!

obviously it's a basic 3 pixel 'cut away' to give the illusion of a curve, but i wonder whether it was a conscience decision? regardless - the curves of 'metal' are less than subtle - metal isn't the most efficient design / solution. as we see more features being packed into the OS space will become a premium.

microsoft (in their race to 'catch up') have fallen victim to the same thing - vista windows sport thick outlines - title bars / nav bars are not put to best use and take up a good deal of room at the sacrife of the presented information. information panels (i wonder if these can be turned off...) then go on to take up even more room!... vista is basically the baby steps that aqua took in its infancy - and is trying to crow-bar in the 'clean lines' of metal... needless to say - apples eye candy served to be useful as well as entertain...

at least as mac users we have gone through the eye candy experimentations and are now getting streamlined, back to a purer, cleaner design...
Click to expand...

yes, it's streamlined, but it's lost a level of intuitivity - there used to be defined lines between all the boxes - itunes was never the most simple of interfaces (it's a complex beast, ID3 tags), but now it's just messy. i have only updated to 5 on the dell, and now i'm seriously thinking of not downloading for my mac. - i just really hate the interface. metal was at least a consistent UI.

aqua was a bit slap dash IMO, but this new one is ridiculously so - there's a title bar, with five different interface styles in it. (buttons, volume, the new square display, rounded search box, and burn/browse), all of which isn't really "attached" to the rest of iTunes.

in 4, the title bar was the top of itunes, not a seperate entity, and the interface was smooth (round buttons+volume, rounded display, rounded search, and the browse button which looked like the play button (symmetry)), and overall, pretty symetrical. now, it's just a mess.

when you have the search bar up, why is it 3 pixels bigger than the title for the source list?

why when you are browsing, is there a grab bar for resizing, when nothing else has this?

why are 3 of the buttons panther style, and the display tiger style? and then the rest of the buttons (the bottom ones) different again? (these always were, but it did look like a stereo, now it doesn't)

alos, why do we still have a 5 year old visualization?
 
ok. a few deatails should be looked into, and a few pixels should be redesigned, but all in all i like it a lot.
I would REALLY like finder to take this form; would be nice to get rid of the borders. And the bottom-bar could be optional just like in Safari.

back to iTunes:
It took a long tome to get from version 4.0 to version 5.0. and a drastically new look like this should be a .0-update. before version 6.0 is out leopard will probably be out and, probably, all metal applications will have this theme.

why: because of the coming rsolution independant OSX. a gradient theme would be much less hard/heavy to adapt to that type of technology/format.
 
i see it as a first iteration of a new streamlined design.

if you look at itunes 5 in its minimised state - it all works - and its also great to see the volume control back below the action buttons!

the search bar is the exact same height as the bookmarks bar in safari - the two function in almost the same way (btw - a while ago i sent feedback to apple asking for a bookmarks bar in itunes music store, as well as a normal bookmarks list - still hoping!) - so i can imagine thats why its as high as it is. if anything - the search bars that appear in mail / finder windows once a search is started should be bought into line with the bar in itunes as currently, its a better use of space.

the type size in the search bar could certainly be made smaller (the same size as the title 'Source' which would make the bar narrower without losing any legibility. so there really is no reason why it shouldnt be as high as the title bar for the source list.

the grab for the source list is now that same as the grab in mail.app's mailboxes list, granted - this won't help windows users to find it very easily. if the grab bar for 'browse' was handled the same way it would have been a bad use of space. once the 'browse' button is selected - it should remain highlighted...

i think its unfair to compare the buttons to the display - the display by its nature will always look...well... different...

the only issues i have with itunes 5 are the volume controller - its like they forgot to put it in and then hoofed it on on the 6th... also - i agree with you - those buttons along the bottom are odd - although i think now they do resemble the buttons on my home hi-fi more!

visualisations really could do with a refresh... but i can imagine that they are not as high a priority with apple - as there are so many being developed independently.

the modular design of it works - and i really like the new look.

i'm looking forward to iPhoto taking on this new look...
 
oh, and video-playback in itunes seem much more consistent now. i have a lot of music videos that i have added to iTunes, and before i never really could tell what was going to happen when i clicked them, but now, it they would just add quicktimes full screen playback controls to itunes, i would add all my mpg-files to itunes.
 
I've just downloaded it via my software update, and my whole library has disappeared!:eek: Well it's in my music folder, but not in itunes itself! Is it just me or has this happened to some one else?

eta: If I click on a track in the music folder it comes up and plays on itunes. Am I gonna have to import all my music this way?
 
This is from MacFixIt;

Entire library lost MacFixIt reader Vinko Tsui is one of the few readers who experienced a loss of his entire music library after updating to iTunes 5.0. This problem is unfrequent, though it has occurred with previous iTunes updates, and underscores the importance of backing up your iTunes music library.

Vinko writes:

"I just updated iTunes and after restarting and starting iTunes, all my songs and playlist are gone. It looks like iTunes 5 had created a brand new library for itself.

In other cases, the old Library is simply moved to a different folder, which must be re-added to the iTunes 5.0 library. One reader writes:

"It appears that iTunes 5 have backed up my iTunes 4 Library into a folder called 'Previous iTunes Libraries.' In this folder I found a file 'iTunes Library 2005-9-8.'

"I then navigate to the 'iTunes Music' folder within the ~/Music/iTunes folder. To my surprise, I found many, if not all, my previous music.

"The only way I can find to get my music back into iTunes was to select the "Add to Library..." menu item and choose the "iTunes" folder within my Music folder.

"It appears that I have lost all my previous Playlist and ratings for my songs. This is very disappointing, especially when there did not seem to be a warning about this behavior prior to my upgrade."
 
... I think I'm having a panic attack!


Can I sync my I pod into the new itunes? (please say yes and I'll loveyou forever!)

eta I don't seem to be able to 'add' my itunes folder to the library
 
From MacFixIt;

iPod not recognized MacFixIt reader Richard reports that his iPod is no longer recognized by iTunes after the update:

"As soon as I upgraded iTunes to version 5 I was unable to upload or communicate with my iPod Mini. I have iPod OS 1.4 on the iPod. Every time I plug it in the do not disconnect symbol comes up. In iTunes the iPod does seem to exist."

In some cases this issue can be solved by re-applying the most recent iPod updater, or resetting your iPod.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61937
 
Thanks for your help Bob. I'm worried about plugging my ipod in now though, because it may sync with itunes 5 which has nothing!

Do you think I could trash I tunes 5 and get the old one back?

Oh crap! I'm gonna have to call Dr mac! :?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top