“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.”
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“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.
I think the new iTunes is beautiful!
I just can’t figure out what the new volume slider thumb thing is supposed to be!?! a crooked plus (+) sign?
Nobody’s arguing that “change is bad.” The argument is that ARBITRARY change in a user interface is disorienting.
If there’s a benefit to it, let’s figure out what it is. If somebody just decided they liked vertical better than horizontal, it’s a lousy idea.
But as said before, this isn’t unusual for Apple — they have almost always led their interface changes with iTunes. There will be a new HIG within 6 months, and the next OS will follow it and look more or less like iTunes 10.
By that time, however, they may respond to feedback and make changes. So feed back if you really don’t care for it.
Nooooooooooo!!!!
<commits hari kari>
Did anybody else notice a huge new feature? When you stream to multiple devices (e.g., Airport Expresses), you can now adjust the volume individually!
That’s gonna be great when I get back home tonight and can better tune my whole house audio with the different zones…
@ Spudly
It’s supposed to look like a toggle switch on an old 70’s/80’s era stereo. They had sliver brushed buttons and switches on them that looked exactly like that.
Yes, there are bigger problems in the world, but since iTunes came out and this is a site about Apple, let’s take a look at this:
My problem with the vertical buttons is that they did this to save vertical space, and had to also remove the title bar to do so. That’s great for most people, but if you frequently switch between iTunes libraries, this is a problem since you have no easy way (by glance) to see which iTunes library you’re actually in.
The gray icons are annoying because they make everything look inactive and very difficult to find the right item. Although, I suppose I’ll get use to it, and it does do a better job of not clashing with the content panes.
The iTunes name…keep it, whatever.
The iTunes icon…. My dock is really small, so it may just be me, but the icon really doesn’t stand out very well. I can understand the desire to get rid of the disc, but I would’ve liked to have seen a better icon…and perhaps some consistency in Apple icons
@ChrissyOne,
Not a toggle switch; more of a knob, but you’re right about the brushed look…
@ b
I’ve had systems with both. My mom had a really nice set in the early 80’s.. though I can’t remember the brand, it had a big silver knob for tuning, a slider for volume, and rows of toggle switches that looked nearly identical to the new volume slider.
Not sure why they’re going to that look, though, I’d guess it probably has a lot to do with moving to vector rendering and resolution independence…
C1,
I agree on the style and the fact that the old amps had the various switches, it was just my interpretation that it wasn’t a toggle look, but a brushed silver knob look.
But of course it is small and my eyes are getting old…
Something like this perhaps…?
I disagree that this new model for the close/minimise/zoom buttons that are now aligned vertically is a bad thing. This is more of a standard UI for these 3 colors… why? take a look at the standard of these three colors in the traffic lights:
Red is always on top, Yellow always in the middle, and Green in the bottom.
C1, now you’ve got it!
Also, to repeat my earlier post, for those of us that have multiple audio zones in the house via Airport Expresses, it’s pretty cool that you can now adjust volume individually to each one from iTunes. And when you adjust it from the iPhone Remote app, they all slide together (on screen), keeping relative volume intact.
Great feature for how I use it.
Maybe the minimize button’s vertical alignment was to establish that iTunes reduces differently that most programs (not that we didn’t know already).
Upgraded this morning. Hate it!
It is like a Microsoft “upgrade,” needless and bad UI changes.
When mini player was inactive, I could still control volume slider with mouse. Doesn’t work anymore. But I did discover an old iTunes trick that allows you to slide the volume with your scroll button on the mouse.
C1
That looks just like a receiver my uncle used to have.
He was trying to out do my dad’s Sansui
http://www.google.com/m/search?oe=UTF-8&client=safari&q=sansui+qr4500&hl=en&site=images&ei=5-F_TNiCO5mgMprA9bIC&ved=0CCAQsAQwAw
B
That volume control is a nice feature.
Airfoil has had it for awhile. Glad Apple finally added it!
The new iTunes is actually snappy again on my four year-old MacBook. That’s practically all that matters to me.
As long as the zoom button still does something surprising and unwanted every time I dare to click it, all is well in the world.
I have a 552GB iTunes collection with tons of playlists running on my MacBook Pro 13″.
The new iTunes 10 is hella-fast and uses far fewer resources.
Forget everything negative I ever said about it.
I’m in love.
Anyone notice a speedbump when syncing iPhones & ipads?
Backup is .. snappy?? There i said it.
i don’t get the complaints about the vertical vs horizontal buttons..i spend a lot of time doing school type work, writing and playing and slide up to the left upper constantly, usually having to drift right or left to land on the button i want. this really really simplifies it for me…easier to hit on the run.
my pops has problems like one responder did above about having trouble id’ing which library he was in…his reflexes are pretty good, but i think he needs to see more clearly (and also, almost any change makes him nervous) but it’s all good with me
@TT
I have airfoil, but don’t use it all that much because I can’t control it from my iphone when I’m roaming the house (so I mainly use itunes). OTOH, I suppose I could have airfoil stream from itunes, then use the Remote app to control master volume and song play…
Here is what I notice
When citing the Apple Human Interface Guidelines to show how the current iTunes is violating it, it is NOT ENOUGH to simply cite the document as a whole. It is necessary to quote and cite the specific part that clearly shows inconsistency in how Apple implements it’s own recommendation. Otherwise, all we end up getting are people who simply do not like the current iTunes UI and without closely looking at whether or not Apple’s implementation is actually contradictory, simply gesture to the document and say it is contradictory. That gives the critic no credibility.
In other words, simply saying the implementation is in contradiction to guidelines and gesturing to the document by way of hyperkinking does not show me where in the documentation the guidelines are being violated.
I suspect most people who say such and such is in contradiction to Apple guidelines are simply unhappy with the UI and in lazy attempt to gather authority, simply gesture to the Apple guidelines without bothering to actually read and digest the document to see if their argument holds water.
Dmitri,
Set the size and position of the main (large) iTunes window how you like it. Then hit the green button. Set the size and position of the mini iTunes player window to how you like it. Then hit the green button.
Hit the green button. Hit the green button.
What are you seeing? A toggle between two use preferred window sizes and positions.
Not “surprising” at all really.
One more thing…
This is NOT to say that their assessment of the UI as being ineffective is wrong.
It IS SAYING that they have not yet proven that the current UI is I’m contradiction to Apple guidelines.