iTunes 7 UI: the Bad and the Ugly

I like the look and feel of ITunes 7 but the bottom line is that it is BROKEN. It does not play my music without pausing for no reason or with "crackly" sounds on the speaker. Also Album Artwork needs some work in that it randomly places the wrong Album Covers with my music. I give ITunes7 a thumbs down overall. The bottom line is I use ITunes to play music and podcasts not video. For good video playback I suggest a DVD Player, they work very well. iTunes worked in the past because it embraced the "KISS" principle. If Apple continues to head down the path of embracing too many "bells and whistles" then I might as well switch to MusicMatch Jukebox.

I, too, miss the EQ. So it's been shunted to the ugly-stepsister role of Menu item. It would be easier to take if it appeared in the menu with its keyboard shortcut next to it...BUT IT DOESN'T. Why, oh, why? What possible reason can there be for hiding built-in functionality from the end user, when it would not in any way encumber the user interface?

I kinda liked the new look of iTunes at first, but the loss of the equalizer button hit me big time. You know... apple could just release different versions or something, maybe make it so that you can change the UI in leopard. Like a skin, only built in and easily accesible. Just my 2 cents.

Let me get this straight. You're complaining that you can't find the Chapters MENU because it's in the MENU BAR, under "Chapters"? What the hell?

They moved it because no one knew that it even existed. Considering that most iTunes users don't even listen to podcasts, and of ones that do only a handful use chapters. The hidden mystery button that was used previously was a bad idea and I'm glad they fixed it.

Regarding Consistency: people who don't understand usability and UI design think that consistency is the quintessential goal of good UI design when it most certainly is not. Consistency almost always comes at the expense of usability; just look at Windows 95, a perfectly consistent interface that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies.

iTunes is a completely unique program. So is iPhoto, Garage Band, etc. How do you make these consistent with, say, Mail.app without sacrificing usability? You can't. You have to choose between usability and consistency, and thankfully Apple chooses the former; people who don't understand UI design choose the latter.

Exceptional UI design is rare because it's a very, very difficult art that goes way beyond simply making things "look" the same.

I'll also add the the skin used to draw basic UI elements (scrollbars and buttons) has no impact on usability; it's only a matter of taste. No one has trouble scrolling in iTunes 7 or Aperture because of their artistically ambitious scroll bars.

I love the new look. OS X grows up at last.

Sorry, windows users obviously can't click on the itunes icon in the dock. My bad. If in fact you are a windows user.

Actually, I can't believe the amount of people that are bemoaning the absence of the visualizer button. Do that many people use visualizer? I've used it maybe once or twice, just to see what it did. But, seriously, what do you do? Sit there and watch it? Maybe if you had a party, I could see some use in it, but otherwise...nah.

To #46,

Just click on the itunes icon in the dock. That will open your itunes window.

My pet peeve regarding the iTunes 7 interface is the way two good things have been squashed together: the stark simplicity of the original iTunes UI, optimized for track browsing, and the nostalgic CoverFlow metaphor, optimized for album browsing. (I'm not concerned with the "grouping with artwork" option since it is a ripoff of the coming WMP, and badly made, at that (the reflection, for instance, should grow wider towards the viewer, not straight))

There should at least have been an OPTION to make the CoverFlow view fullscreen, like it was in the original. As it is, the one metaphor is embedded in the other, creating crowding and confusion. I recognize that the intention is to keep the iTunes as a framework for easy recognition and to include the feature promised for the next version of the stand-alone CoverFlow (the ability to see which tracks are included in the album, and in which order they are), but the result is a total break-up of the metaphor, giving an impression of sloppy - indeed amateurish - design.

I can recommend that you get the stand-alone CoverFlow (on versiontracker or softpedia) and run it as a shell over iTunes 7. You will notice that due to a different viewing angle and better buttons it is much more impressive, believable and useful than the version in iTunes itself. Use a wireless mouse with scrollwheel as a remote and astonish everyone - it's that lifelike!

As for the keyboard shortcuts: Mac OS X offers the ability to add/change shortcuts for individual applications in System Preferences. Personally, I use the equalizer a lot, since I play sound at home, when teaching, on the go and in my head (earplugs) and need different settings for each environment. I have therefore set up Option-4 to open the equalizer (just like I changed Exposé to Cmd-1/2/3 from the original so I could keep my right hand on the mouse for selection).... does anyone know why Option-any number selects the first playlist???

Peter J. Pedersen

PS - the original plan for CoverFlow was for the album to turn round (like the widgets) and display all its tracks on the back. Now THAT would have been cool...

Wow... lots of buildup in this article, but the focus is finally on one changed feature? Come on man, you should have loaded up on as many changes as you can find that tick you off. Seriously, iTunes 7 for me has been the first version of iTunes I feel I have to "work around." I think change is good, but they have made some pretty radical changes for no good reason.

Here are a few of the things that tick me off:
Missing EQ button
Permanent Eject button - down in the bottom right corner??
Arrows in Album View slider go blurry
Missing Visualizer button

And my favorite "Ticks me off" change:
No longer able to keep my iPod Shuffle in the source list when not connected. I like to update my Shuffle's playlist manually, before I connect it. I can't do that anymore. Now I have to have a playlist for my Shuffle that I update manually (I like my netcasts in a specific order) and then drag to my Shuffle when I'm done. It introduced an extra step that I'm not too thrilled about.