The browser button (which also doubled as the Burn button) has been moved from the top right, next to the search box, to the bottom right corner of the window. It is also an intelligent button, for example: if you have set your burning preferences to Data Disc, as I have, the button will change to display "Burn Data Disc." Nice.
iTunes 7 handles video better - a lot better. Starting a video is much snapper, and so is overall responsiveness and performance. I finally feel like I'm using a competent video player - and check out that popup controller! Gone is the piddly little controller bar from iTunes 6 - now is the time of the sexy controller overlay, a la QuickTime 7! Out of sight when you don't need it, but appearing at the snap of a finger (or more accurately: a mouseover) for your beckoning call. Perfect.
The new, dedicated download manager is really, really handy. It appears to allow a non-customizable concurrent download limit of 3 files at a time, but the kicker is that the order in which files download is up to you. Users can drag and drop this list of files to their heart's content, dictating whether that latest podcast episode or the hot new single they just bought is snagged first. I personally haven't purchased anything yet, but we've heard that the 'start playing before finishing the download' feature works like a charm.
Others new features
- The new 'multiple libraries' feature was slightly misleading; it's actually not much more than the fact that Apple drew some lines between the types of files iTunes handles, and separated them out into their own sections at the top of the media list (making the browsing bar introduced in iTunes 6 an obsolete feature). This is also customizable from iTunes' General preferences pane; you can toggle the display of these sections at will, and even add Audiobooks and iPod Games (for all the good they'll do you; they aren't playable in iTunes) to round up the new family
- New metadata criteria includes recording skip count and date/time when items are skipped, specifying videos as TV/music video/episodes/season, etc.
- Missing buttons such as EQ, the mini-store (if you were really missing it), the Visualizer, etc. seem to have been relegated up to menus like View. Best ye be learnin' some keyboard shortcuts, wethinks
- For clarification: the new 'reverse syncing' option that Scott covered only allows for syncing iTS purchased content; not all those other albums you *ahem* ripped yourself. If you're still looking for the feature, it's towards the bottom of the File menu
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
9-12-2006 @ 9:23PM
:: ehmjay. said...
Something else they've removed is the option to sync "checked" podcasts. They've replaced it with the option to sync All, or the 1,3,5, or 10 most recent.
A very LARGE mistake in my opinion.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:27PM
Guillermo said...
An interesting thing about the skip counts, is that it only counts a skip when you listen between 2 and 20 seconds of a song. If you skip quickly through the songs, the skip counts don't increase, so it only counts the songs you skip because you don't like them.
I think this is even more useful than the 1-star rating to filter out the songs I sincerely dislike.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:28PM
Justin said...
I miss the update all button on the podcast screen. Sometimes I just wanna update them all to see if anything new has come up in the last 5 mins. The only way around this I found, is to select all then right click and hit update. But the biggest thing I miss is in the itunes store itself..the just for you beta is gone! I loved that feature and found many new bands and music by using it. Here's hoping it will come back.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:32PM
Doug said...
One thing I have always disliked about the iTunes UI and is STILL present is that ugly grey-green and black status window at the top center. It looks like a really old LCD watch. I wish Apple would colorize it or something, anything.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:35PM
morgan said...
i think overall, video playback has improved ten-fold on my 1.33 powerbook (17'). it used to take 3 seconds for a video to start and 7+ for me to skip ahead. now it is instant.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:37PM
Dhanur said...
And one more thing ...
The preferences pane doesn't have the usual close/minimise/maxmise buttons. Settings have to be saved or undone using the Apply/Cancel buttons.
Another step towards Leopard integration, I think.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:40PM
:: ehmjay. said...
A new feature I just found that I REALLY like is the "Artist" and "Album Artist"
My guess is that if you had a soundtrack you could have
"artist" as the artist for the track and "album artist" as "Various Artists"
Or if an album by lets say John Mayer had a song that featured someone you could change it for the one track but it wouldn't screw up your folders and such.
I haven't really played with it but if it does what I think it does - it's a nicely needed feature.
One thing I'd like to see is the ability to make one track be listed as multiple albums. Say you have a bunch of albums all featuring the song "Don't Panic" by Coldplay - it'd be nice to only have one copy of the song but have it show up under each album it's featured on.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:41PM
bert said...
Justin, I missed the update all podcasts too, but the "refresh" button in the lower right seems to check them all.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:45PM
Query said...
Not sure exactly how this was in iTunes 6 (since I didn't use it very often, aka never), but it appears that the album cover printing may be a bit improved. Anyone wanna counter this?
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:54PM
James Whited said...
Not sure if its just me, but it seems as though they removed a few albums from the iTS now. I went to add artwork to songs that I know were there before, and aren't after today.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 9:59PM
Gary said...
my favorite feature of iTunes 7:
it crashes!
had it for a few hours - crashed 5 or 6 times already
no problems with iTunes 6
just using iTunes to play music, nothing fancy.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:02PM
gui said...
coverflow took art from amazon which was a lot better than apples database. cover flow, by itself, for all its faulst, got about 80% of the covers with valid names, itunes got about 15%
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:02PM
Martin Voshell said...
enhanced podcasts no longer open up a chapter menu?!
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:03PM
:: ehmjay. said...
another few things I noticed gone...
ability you select chapter from enhanced AAC (at least the button is gone...I couldn't figgure out what to do)
I dont know about the US store - but in the CAN store the "Just for you" is gone...I actually liked that feature. found a few good things through it.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:05PM
auhlixer said...
Album art shows in left hand corner on some but not up top in cover browser for same file :(
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:18PM
Bryan Goertz said...
I've been working a bit at getting my album art together in iTunes and have been wondering if it's possible to bring in my art from my older coverflow program. So far I've not found anything that'll make it possible. I've got a ton of more obscure stuff in my library and I know that the Canadian iTunes store may never have the stuff. A nice feature, but I would like to see some cover art program that will search multiple sites (not just iTunes or Amazon) for artwork.
Also, I tried to drag and drop art from webpages into coverflow and into the other art browser option to no avail. The cursor shows an 'add' sign when i hold the dragged image over the bland album cover slot but when i release the mouse nothing happens and so I end up going into the detail information window to add the art. Not ideal as the stand alone cover flow alows to drag and drop.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:22PM
bphollin said...
(-)Homemade audiobooks (made with JoinTogether and Doug's applescript) don't show up under the audiobooks source. Lame.
(-)Toggling between views is WAY too slow on my 1.5ghz G4
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:24PM
John Russell said...
One cool thing that many people will not notice with only normal cover art is that Cover Flow actually renders transparency.
It is rather cool to see in action.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:28PM
gustavo_brasil said...
Every button they removed from the interface has a keyboard shortcut, but EQ does not. I don't know if I am the only one in earth to use it quiet often, but now it's a pain in the a** to go "View->Show Equalizer". After all, nice cover art effect.
Reply
9-12-2006 @ 10:36PM
Jay Riether said...
Suffles don't stay in the playlist column. So you can only update them "live" when they're plugged in. Bummer.
Reply