“Yup. Apple’s decided it’s been at least a few months since it screwed with the iTunes UI, and so it’s made some changes. Some of them actually work. There’s a decent ‘hybrid’ list view, and the main interface pane offers more clarity,” Craig Grannell writes for Revert to Saved. “However, two changes are mind-boggling.”
Advertisement: The all-new Apple TV is just $99. You know you want one. Free shipping.
“iTunes previously coloured its sidebar items… [and] the close/minimise/zoom buttons are now aligned vertically in the full window mode. In the mini-player window, this was always the case, but in the full window mode, it’s a baffling decision,” Grannell writes. “Even though Mac OS X’s hardly a bastion of total consistency these days, these three important buttons usually stay put, and people’s muscle memory enables quick access to them. Now, iTunes 10 chucks Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines (the ones Apple seemingly expects every developer but itself to follow) out the window, in order to save a little horizontal space.”
Grannell writes, “In the past, iTunes has foreshadowed subsequent updates to the look and feel of Mac OS X. I seriously hope that isn’t the case this time, because the iTunes 10 UI is a botch job.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Perhaps Apple’s reassigned the people responsible for the UI disaster that was Safari 4 Public Beta to iTunes? Thank Jobs for the Terminal.
Fully agree, terrible UI in iT10. What a shame.
Important buttons? Really?
I rarely use them, in any program. In iTunes, I use them as good as never. The most I use is the resize window (from the lower right corner), but even this is rare — once I have found a good window size for some application windows (such as iTunes), it stays there.
In the rare cases I actually use the windows control buttons, it’s a major break in navigating and working the UI anyway — it’s not a big to pay attention and find it.
In short: Someone wanted to write something negative, and picked the most minor complaint one could think of.
Maybe Steve is testing the waters for a little feed back or throwing a curb ball to the copiers of the world.
Hey Google,HTC,Nokia,Motorola,and our loved,self proclaimed innovator, or probably the least capable copier Microsoft.
I don’t mind the colorless icons so much, but the stacked close/minimize/zoom buttons is strange, very strange.
No big deal to me. My iTunes app is ALWAYS open (so Apple TV can access it), so I seriously NEVER use those buttons. They could have got rid of them completely and I probably wouldn’t notice. Meh.
Really? It’s that bad, you say?
And if you attempt to set up a Ping account profile you may as I did get this response when you try to upload a photo to your profile:
“There was a problem with your photo. Try again”
This error message combined with no list of requirements for the photo file and nothing in iTunes 10 Help on the subject of Ping is too reminiscent of Windows.
Gawd, but I wish some of these analysts/coders/web designers would buy up enough AAPL shares to take over the company, throw Steve’s ass out on the street once again, and revert the company we all love to hate to the perfection it once was under Amelio and Sculley!
And the New Apple, Inc. motto? LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER CHANGE ANYTHING! DON’T SCREW WITH OUR MUSCLE MEMORY!
Mine is missing all the colors which were very helpful in knowing what was what. I find the switch to a monochrome interface disturbing. I am also upset this has been done. I’m hoping it’s an oversight that will be fixed in an update to restore all the color from all the previous versions.
Looks like this is the page to come to if you want to have a whine…
It is the best – despite the minor gripes.
I was excited about Ping until I found out that I would lose my nickname “FutureMedia” for all future reviews if I joined. So I won’t be joining Ping for that reason. Had profile all filled out til I found that caveat and then pressed CANCEL. Bummer those of us who have written hundreds of reviews under a known nickname would have to give it up to be part of Ping. That rule blows.
I STILL wish I could get my Safari tabs back on top.
Not a fan of the vertical buttons.
At least give users the option.
@ NCG598
Maybe Apple is testing the waters for future UI changes in Mac OS X 10.7.
Historically, iTunes has been one the apps that goes in front, setting the trend. It may not be consistent with UI guidelines because guidelines are about to A-change. My 3¢.
Apple changed the logo to ditch the cd icon, but didn’t address the fact that the app’s name and new icon still make it about music and ignore all that it’s (good or bad) become.
How about iMedia and a logo that represents music, movies, apps and more. Nice challenge for a designer to come up with a logo for that.
I really like the new all-grey icons. It makes iTunes look much cleaner & sleeker.
However, I am a bit confused by the vertical buttons at the top.
Yep. It’s a train wreck. Remember the good old days (two days ago) when iTunes made sense? At a quick glance the left pane looks as though everything is inactive. What’s the deal with that? Has M$ infiltrated Apples UI design team?
Reverting the buttons to a horizontal layout can easily be done. With iTunes not running, open Terminal and enter the following code:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1
To restore the vertical layout, simply use this command:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -0
@ Craig,
Get a life!
Or at least something to write about.
Am I the only one that does not like the new menu bar icon? It looks very Microsoft Vista-ish. Too generic and ugly in my opinion… but then that is just my opinion..
RASKIN LIVES!
Steve: Nice find on the ‘defaults write…’
Has anyone noticed that their Macs shut down about 100% faster than they did before iT10? My MacBook was taking about 30-45 seconds of spinning picket fence time yesterday. After (all I did) installing iT10 it now shust down in just a few seconds. iTunes was the last thing I thought was causing the delay. I thought it was VMWare.
Please STFU about the buttons. If the vertical arraingement is anyone’s idea of a radical UI change, you need to get out more. It couldn’t be more irrelevant.
Blimey, I’d never even noticed the vertical-to-horizontal button shift, when I go from ‘tiny’ iT to ‘full’ iT.
Tiny iT is open top left all the time, but just goes to show how aware of the GUI rules this user is! Shame on me!
I like the new iTunes interface….