iTunes 7.1 first impressions

So I just finished rebooting the computer after loading the new iTunes and QuickTime updates and here's what I found. After launching iTunes and going through the mandatory "click accept" thing (I mean, honestly, does anyone ever read those things? I don't.), I waited for a couple of minutes while iTunes "updated" my library. I've got a very small library compared to most people, so I'm a little wary about how long this might take for other people.
The new full-screen Cover Flow (shown here) is nice and easy to use. Click the button at the bottom right of the screen to zoom in and out from full-screen mode.
When you control-click (or right-click) items in your library, there's a new "Apply Sort Field" option, where you can pick Same Album, Same Artist, Same Album Artist, Same Composer or Same Show. Select any of these and iTunes will prompt you whether to change the Sort field for all matching tracks. (e.g. If you select Same Album, you affect the Sort Album column, and so forth.) I'm still unclear as to the utility of this new option. Let me know in the comments why this is important.
Finally, there's a new AppleTV help option in the Help menu, but the links are still pretty much all bogus. This will probably change as AppleTV actually ships.
Check out all the screenshots in our gallery.
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So I just finished rebooting the computer after loading the new iTunes and QuickTime updates and here's what I found. After launching...
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Whoa... I dowloaded 7.1 and now I can't even open iTunes. I get a menu that pops up that says "iTunes cannot run because it has detected a problem with your audio configuration." Tried all the first things that came to mind and couldn't get a bead on the problem. Anybody out there know what's up? Gotta have my tunes. Help/SOS/please!
March 11 2007 at 11:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyLibrary update took under 60 seconds on a PowerBook G4 (800 MHz) with 12,762 song library on an external FireWire 400 drive.
March 08 2007 at 5:41 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyiTunes is really going down the pan, and it's so sad as it is (or was) one of Apple's better assets. Since v5 the design has been increasingly ugly and it looks like a piece of kludged shareware now.
The new iPod pane is an unnecessary complication, when the old iPod options thing just worked. The all-caps labels floating in the source panel don't appear to follow any Apple design conventions or precedents. The buttons are greyish, vague and offensive to the eye.
And finally with v7.1, Apple has changed the "Mark as (Un)played" context menus for podcasts. What is this "Mark As Not New" shit? Is this awkward monosyllabic mess a real improvement? For who?
Apple regained a lot of ground in the first half of this decade with a cutting edge design vision and a suite of stable, usable software. They're trampling that work and dumbing it down in the rush to appeal to dumbasses everywhere.
I love the idea behind the new sort tags, but I wish using them had some impact on Front Row. After filling in the sort-artist and sort-album-artist fields as "Dylan, Bob," I changed the original artist and album-artist fields to "Bob Dylan." Guess which one Front Row uses to sort artists alphabetically?
March 07 2007 at 5:16 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyive noticed that when i plug in my ipod orange shuffle it now shows the colour of the ipod. before it was just silver.
[IMG]http://i72.photobucket.com/albums/i181/no1cromo/Snapshot2007-03-0720-36-38.jpg[/IMG]
The URL was removed from the comment: http://cinnamonthoughts.org/2007/03/07/get-album-artwork-that-doesnt-load-in-itunes/
March 07 2007 at 10:50 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyI don't know if this bug existed in earlier versions, but I've found a workaround for album covers that don't download from the store, even though the artist and album names are correct: âGet Album Artworkâ That Doesnât Load in iTunes
March 07 2007 at 10:47 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHey guys,
So I finally with fullscreen CoverFlow we can have a FrontRow-esque experiance with my album art. Try out Remote Buddy (http://www.iospirit.com/index.php?mode=view&obj_type=infogroup&obj_id=24&o_infogroup_objcode=infogroup-23&sid=3422945Gc45b2c1f6e87ec90)
With just a few changes into the Itunes Mapping menu you can set buttons to make Itunes go into FullScreen CoverFlow, then a few more custom input changes and you can scroll, select albums. A little tricky on how to get things right. For instance, I found best to make a custom input for both the Right (tap) and Right (hold) functions to get a smooth scolling experiance.
Nevertheless, I now have remote control fullscreen coverflow with Itunes 7.1, remote buddy and a little fiddling.
-JB
The new itunes, if you have a colored shuffle, shows the correct color now:)
March 07 2007 at 7:51 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf nobody noticed â when in full screen cover flow mode, typing the first letters of an artist name gets you to it. It's not listening for just the first letter!
March 07 2007 at 4:13 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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