Filed under: Tips and tricks, iTunes, Music
Dear Auntie TUAW: What happened to the mini player in iTunes 9?
Dear Auntie TUAW, With all the shiny goodness of iTunes 9 and a way to finally organise iPhone/iPod Touch apps without getting a friction burn on my thumb, I settled in for some music lovin'.
Now I don't know how everyone else in the world likes their iTunes experience, but personally I'm quite fond of using the miniplayer. I love having it floating atop everything else for quick track skipping without having to resort to any kind of ghastly menu bar or dashboard trickery (I'm a purist maybe?).
To my dismay the zoom button now... actually... zooms the iTunes window rather than presenting me with my favoured miniplayer. It's no great loss (considering the hot key is only shift+cmd+M) but I liked the simplicity of "The green one gives me small happy player."
Love and kisses,
Your Nephew James
Dearest James,
Auntie TUAW wanted me to answer for her; she's in the process of baking some cakes for the annual church social at Our Lady of Perpetual Motion, so she's a bit tied up right now.
I'm sorry to hear that you're having trouble with the new functions of iTunes 9. I have hope! Apple didn't change the functionality too much. In fact, they made it more consistent with the rest of the operating system. The green "+" button now acts as a proper zoom button like every other app out there -- BUT -- if you hold the option key while pressing it you still get the mini player like the previous versions of iTunes. Sure, you can use the shift+command+M hot key if you'd like, but there's a still a mouse click solution that will hopefully help you and the rest of our readers out.
With best regards,
Cousin Josh
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
g3performa said 7:14PM on 9-10-2009
Very disappointed by this! The option-click method isn't that great, as it requires two input methods. I'd love to have a truly "single-click" solution, that didn't involve the keyboard.
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Cairnehoof said 7:14PM on 9-10-2009
oh thank god, this was driving me nuts as well
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Fernando said 7:16PM on 9-10-2009
I second the disappointment. They have one click buttons for changing the main view (which nobody does often) yet you have to press option in order to get the mini player. Here's hoping they add a button for the mini player later. (knowing apple, they won't)
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Josh said 7:18PM on 9-10-2009
I like the new function, personally.
Also, wouldn't it have been easier and far less cheesy if you said "TUAW Tip: Hold Option while clicking the + button and you get the mini player"?
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Tape said 7:27PM on 9-10-2009
the old keyboard shortcut was ctrl-cmd-Z, which you could do easily with one hand. shift-cmd-M is much more difficult and more or less requires two hands. BOO
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Kyle Mark said 7:40PM on 9-10-2009
I'm not sure what you mean, I am doing it all with my right hand. It's pretty easy...
TR said 8:58PM on 9-10-2009
I agree that it's doable with my right hand, but that hand is usually using the mouse (or Wacom pen, more often). My left hand has always been free for the keyboard and now it can't even minimize iTunes.
Simon Arch said 3:11PM on 9-12-2009
Hear, hear. I have exactly the same complaint. I went into the System Preferences and changed it. Sadly it doesn't work EXACTLY like before. Minimise is now CTRL-CMD-Z but Zoom has to be Shift-CMD-Z for some reason.
Stupid, Apple, really, really stupid.
blacka said 7:28PM on 9-10-2009
That's solves the mini player conundrum but it seems they've completely eliminated the mini EQ.
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Jon Tollerton said 7:34PM on 9-10-2009
I, for one, am grateful for the change. I never liked the mini-player and often tried to use the zoom button to, well zoom like any other windows. Hooray for Apple being consistent with their own interface!
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Shane Hendricks said 7:35PM on 9-10-2009
I'm totally devastated by this news. No not really...I can't back that up.
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Ed said 7:35PM on 9-10-2009
Many times have I clicked the green blob and been pissed off by the mini-player appearing.
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Dan Lewis said 7:54PM on 9-10-2009
I'd really like the mini-player to show album artwork and allow rating of current song. In fact, make it more like playing a track on an iPhone/iPod Touch and you'd have a winner...
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macxprt said 8:15PM on 9-10-2009
I figured this out yesterday. Took me a while and a bit of head scratching.
I tweeted it at http://www.twitter.com/macxprt
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John.B said 8:54PM on 9-10-2009
If you've ever opened an application using an external monitor, closed it, then opened it again using the (smaller) laptop screen only to find the resizing (lower right) corner is unreachable because the application window is too large: that's what "option green (+)" is for; resizing a window given the current screen size. Not for the iTunes mini player. This is a giant step backwards... :-(
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mikep said 9:28PM on 9-10-2009
This change really annoys me too. I googled it and your blog popped up. I didn't realize people would be happy about it, but I see the argument that it is more consistent. Perhaps they could add a check box in the preferences that would allow those of us that like it to 'zoom to mini player'.
I didn't now about the option/zoom thing...thanks for the tip!
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Shawn W said 10:27PM on 9-10-2009
I use the iTunes widget. Can't rate a song or see an EQ, but it's easy to pause, change the volume or skip the song.
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macthegoalie31 said 10:34PM on 9-10-2009
It bothers me to no end. That and the soft keyboard clicks on my iPhone also really bothers me. If people hate the clicks that much, they could have just turned them off. Now we're all forced to use SOFT clicks?? Lame.
I used the iTunes mini player ALL the time. I also had it set to default to "all spaces" so no matter which space I was working in, I'd have my little floating iTunes mini player for easy access. Also lame.
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Geoff said 10:44PM on 9-10-2009
I agree with the reasoning for the GUI change, but changing the keyboard shortcut from Cmd+Ctrl+Z just seems capricious. Now my muscle memory is useless ... and I can't even remember the new shortcut at the moment.
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hoop said 12:00AM on 9-11-2009
Wow .. am i the only one that WELCOMES this addition .. ive NEVER used the mini player (on occasion ive used the dashboard widget) and the not being ABLE to zoom in itunes has driven me nuts (multiple monitors+laptop+i cant reach the Resize handle after unplugging)
I for one welcome our (now) properly operating green button (overlord).
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