Filed under: iTS, Software, iTunes
New MiniStore in iTunes 6.0.2
Among the maintenance updates in iTunes 6.0.2 is an actual new feature: the MiniStore. While browsing your own library, the Edit menu now contains a "Show MiniStore" option that will bring up a small window containing exactly what you may think: a mini version of the iTMS. There doesn't appear to be any way to search the MiniStore, but it contains lists of the top songs, albums and new releases, as well as links to sections such as audiobooks, TV shows, iTunes Essentials and more. This seems like a handy new feature of iTunes, especially since it's so easy to toggle on and off.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Aychamo said 7:58PM on 1-10-2006
This new version of iTunes 6.0.2 allows you to change a video's type to "TV Show", in addition to "Music Video" and "Movie." However, when you change the type to TV Show, you can not modify the appropriate metadata, and when you sync to the iPod the videos do not show up.
Please test this on your new copy of iTunes.. Change an existing video to "TV Show" and resync your iPod and see if it shows up..
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F_D said 8:13PM on 1-10-2006
"...easy to toggle on and off" is relative here. Yes, the button is "right there" along that bottom toolbar but it uses the same icon for the mini-Store as it does for the album art on the other side. On first glance its function isn't obvious. Poor UI decision.
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SkylarP said 8:15PM on 1-10-2006
Even better, the MiniStore displays information from the iTMS about the album you're listening to (other albums from the same artist and "Listeners also bought...").
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emily. said 8:18PM on 1-10-2006
Play something and watch the mini-store change! I was playing Lou Rawls songs and the mini-store showed other songs by Lou Rawls that I could buy.
There seems to be some bugginess in changing smart playlists, however. The only value I can use now for "My Ratings" is 5 stars. If I change it, it just changes back to 5 stars immediately. Very annoying.
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emutree said 8:19PM on 1-10-2006
Plus if you select a song it gives you the artist page, the otpion to write a review or gift it and links to what people who bought that artist also bought. And don't bother with the edit menu - there's a handy button to show and hide it beside the equalizer. It's a cool new feature, but I would've preferred a sidebar I think (although I suppose it would've gotten awkward with the source list).
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Pete said 8:22PM on 1-10-2006
I had a quick look but it wasn't really targetting the sort of music in my library to what I would want to buy so wasn't really much use. Just got in the way so turned it off.
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David said 9:01PM on 1-10-2006
This is HUGE...Did anyone notice that iTunes can now stream to multiple speaker connected by AirTunes SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!!!
I now have multi-room music!!!!!! WWWWWHHHHHHEEEEEEEEE
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meatmcguffin said 9:15PM on 1-10-2006
any uk users notice a weird red cross in the top left of the mini iTms pane? it's roughly where the foo fighter graphic is in the picture above. (im assuming its a uk thing)
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Daniel said 11:07PM on 1-10-2006
Wow .... I didn't see that it supported multiple speakers before. That's really cool, and I'm sure I'll use it a lot, though one thing puzzles me: if you have the computer and an Airport Express both enabled, how do you change the volume of the remote speakers, since the volume control in the window controls the computer speakers?
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n8_dawg87 said 1:18AM on 1-11-2006
i'm running OSX on a new G5 dual 2.3 and itunes makes my comp fully lock up when i try to transfer full length movies ripped with handbrake...anyone else in my boat?
p.s. anyone know where to get 6.0.1 instead of .2??
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Lewis said 7:43AM on 1-11-2006
Not to rain on the parade, but did anyone think that this ministore must be sending your song data back to Apple? How else would they know what ministore to show you?
I'm not too concerned, but I'm sure some people will be.
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JJA said 8:02AM on 1-11-2006
well there goes the reason for buying airfoil from Rouge Ameoba... they just updated airfoil to do what iTunes now does allowing streaming to multiple speakers... silly airfoil
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Chris said 8:20AM on 1-11-2006
Lewis: That's exactly what they're doing, there's simply no way to show you items related to what you're listening to without telling them what you're listening to.
If you don't want Apple knowing what you're listening to then hide the MiniStore in the view preferences. I've confirmed with Little Snitch that no data is sent when it's closed.
Then again, if you didn't want Apple knowing what you're listening to, you wouldn't be using the iTMS at all, would you?
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robert3 said 9:02AM on 1-11-2006
I'm concerned that iTunes is getting "bloated." Seems that there are also no improvements on the podcasting feature.
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Necrophiliac said 10:10AM on 1-11-2006
I tried closing the ministore by clicking the icon below and it only created multiple images of the ministore while it closed. I closed itunes, reopened it and used the shortcut to close it listed in the menu (I forget what it was Im using that OTHER OS at work right now. Anyway that time my song lists were gone, all that was there was an empty box, not even the horizontal rows where track names were listed and not even while playing any album I selected. I quit out of itunes re-opened it and now it works fine. Anyone else have any issues?
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Art said 12:14PM on 1-11-2006
#2: Thanks!
I could not figure out how to get rid of that useless Music Store pane at the bottom.
Bad UI decision, indeed.
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Logical Extremes said 6:50PM on 1-11-2006
iChat seems to do a potentially similarly evil thing (see http://logicalextremes.blogspot.com/2006/01/apple-itunesichat-spyware.html).
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Squozen said 8:06PM on 1-11-2006
I just checked the menus and selected 'Hide Ministore' - fairly straightforward really.
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Apteryx said 12:06PM on 1-12-2006
Took me a couple of minutes to realise how to hide it. It's not a feature I'm remotely interested in, and I had time to get seriously annoyed with it - once I found out how to do it, though, there was no problem removing it. As long as it doesn't appear again every time I restart it, it's ok.
But it makes me wonder how less experienced users are going to realise they can hide it, especially since there was nothing in iTunes Help about the feature (not in the localized version to Swedish, anyway).
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Aaron said 2:02PM on 1-12-2006
I completely agree with Apteryx, I spent a couple minutes going through the preferences trying to figure out how to turn it off and I *work* in Mac IT support. Inexperienced users will just leave it there. No thanks Apple! It took up screen real-estate for nothing more than advertising. Thanks to tuaw.com for telling me how to turn it off!
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