- Slimmer.
- The column headers bear a startling resemblance to those really old bevel buttons from the early days of Mac OS X, or for current applications where the developer has something against push buttons.
- I’m not sure I like the “all greyscale, all the time” icons. Sure, the icons are simpler, but some of them are still small, and the color was a better cue.
- The Now Playing window does the QuickTime X thing. Borderless, floating controls.
- It looks like the balance of power continues tipping. Info.plist now enlists an NSPrincipalClass,
ITNSApplication, meaning that it uses the Cocoa startup path. (Very curiously, I can’t find that class by dumping iTunes.) Still chock full of Carbon, but it seems they’re going to do this over several versions. - Every time someone uses the phrase “Join the conversation” to coax someone else into joining a “social network”, a marketing executing gets a boner, poking out the eye of the nearest adorable animal. I suppose when they introduced Ping by showcasing Lady Gaga, I shouldn’t have kept thinking they could actually do it better or differently than everyone else.
- The buttons in the bottom bar should look a bit more like buttons. It’s okay for the ones that are binary indicators to look like that, and that makes one of them (shuffle has three states); three if you’d also so enhance the buttons to slide out the artwork square and the Genius sidebar.
- Flattening artwork view (show stuff as you have the space, not just “always”) is something they should have done from the beginning.
- I know what the handle on the volume slider is trying to pull off (a brushed metal button) but it uses just the wrong grey tones so it looks like some sort of dusty baseball instead.
- The source list feels choppier to scroll than the track table itself.
- The display up top now fits both the artist and album onto the second row
if there’s roomalways instead of having them alternate:
- Things like iOS updates are now asynchronous, which is to say non-modal. The progress shows up in the display up top instead of in these infernal modal dialog boxes. (Peter Hosey, friend of the waffle, shows that sanity spreads slowly by confirming that the “rebuffering stream” box is still modal.)
- You can no longer change the zoom level while playing video inside the iTunes window. It’s “scale to fill the window proportionally” or bust. I suppose the separate/”now playing” window’s new look is supposed to be enticing enough.
Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
“Every time someone uses the phrase “Join the conversation” to coax someone else into joining a “social network”, a marketing executing gets a boner, poking out the eye of the nearest adorable animal.”
Am I the only one utterly amped to see Fincher’s The Social Network on opening night? Fincher is a golden god, and the use of that particular Radiohead song on the trailer makes me think he’s going to get it perfectly right.
•••••
The thing that pisses me off about iTunes is that I have to wait weeks after the release to try any new version. I run my Mac Mini HTPC using iTunes for navigation, held together with custom-built Applescripts that use both “normal” Applescripting and GUI scripting, so any minor changes they make can screw me up.
Of course, I can just install new versions on a laptop to test them out, but Apple’s semi-recent decision to have iTunes install lots of stuff outside the app package means that, in order to be able to roll-back to the previous version if I need to, I essentially need to wait for someone on teh Google to document the precise procedure of what needs to be uninstalled in order to be able to nimbly roll-back and reinstall the previous version. It’s reminiscent of dealing with registry issues on Windows to do a proper uninstall.
I can (barely) understand why they install outside the app package on Safari, since other apps need webkit rendering. though they could certainly update system-wide webkit rendering separate from the Safari.app UI updates. But iTunes? Why?
If they’re going to build trucks, they ought to build best-of-breed trucks. And the simple inside the app package install/uninstall they pioneered should never have been abandoned.
By Chucky · 2010.09.02 15:05
Matt Gemmell offers the succinct version of iTunes 10 notes. (via rentzsch).
By Chucky · 2010.09.02 15:57
The succinct version has the words Fucked and Fucking which makes it funny and cool and also subversive and true
By zem · 2010.09.02 17:10
From one of the Republic of Cupertino ‘official government blogs’:
A cute little bunny was just blinded.
By Chucky · 2010.09.02 17:31
“The succinct version has the words Fucked and Fucking which makes it funny and cool and also subversive and true”
It’s actually the creation method of the screenshot that makes it cool and subversive.
But the fucking content makes it funny and true.
By Chucky · 2010.09.02 17:57
The red/yellow/green buttons are rotated 90°. I see how it saves space, but that’s weird.
By mick · 2010.09.02 18:44
So they made the video window look like quicktime-x, but left out the multi-touch gestures (rewind/fastforward/half speed/full screen etc). The video quality looks horribly aliased on my latesest-gen macbook pro – and improves somewhat when the onscreen HUD is showing – not sure what’s going on there.
The preferences are still completely modal, meaning to see what “Large Text” looks like, you have to change the setting, click OK, decide it’s too big, go back into preferences, change it back, and click OK. The app still feels single threaded in places, and stalls playing videos/music when iDevices are plugged in; and after a large download is being copied to the appropriate folder.
I also think itunes should make use of more os-x features such as badging the dock icon when an iDevice is syncing.
By Ryan · 2010.09.02 23:51
Ryan: Just going to play a video sometimes takes around three seconds, maybe for the video to pick up. I have an SSD; there’s no way that should take three seconds. I do see the aliasing; it’s only apparent when there’s text on-screen.
You’re right that largely it feels “single-threaded”. Apple has good engineers, and you can write horrible Cocoa code and great Carbon code, but I can’t help but wonder whether these things would be an issue had they started writing iTunes in Cocoa to begin with.
By Jesper · 2010.09.03 00:09
“I can’t help but wonder whether these things would be an issue had they started writing iTunes in Cocoa to begin with.”
The problem, of course, is that iTunes is a cross-platform app with lots of non-droppable legacy functions. It’s going to suck for the user for the exact same reasons that the Adobe Creative Suite sucks for the user.
•••••
(FWIW, on my homebrew Mac Mini HTPC, I use iTunes for navigation and audio playback, but I’ve long had iTunes hand off video to dedicated video player apps for playback, since iTunes is a big bag of hurt for video playback in so many ways.)
By Chucky · 2010.09.03 13:37
“Peter Hosey, friend of the waffle, shows that sanity spreads slowly by confirming that the “rebuffering stream” box is still modal.”
That’ll never be fixed, unless Apple brings streaming rentals to iTunes, (or unless they rewrite the app from the ground-up). No money changes hands when you listen to internet radio. Internet radio doesn’t help advance the iOS ecosystem. Apple can’t get rid of internet radio, but they’re sure as hell not going to lift a finger to make it work better.
It’s the same reason Apple will never provide a straightforward way to add cover art to streams in iTunes.
By Chucky · 2010.09.03 16:04
Plex actually got vaguely interesting in the last week.
I’ve always run my Mac Mini HTPC based on iTunes, since Plex and Boxee have always been so goddamn useless. But in the last week, Plex rolled out an OS X native Media Manage, (still very alpha), an iOS stream client, and got an agreement to have LG build a Plex client into their new TV’s.
Which bring me to my want-list task desk for Jesper: Go build Rouse. The world needs it, and will credit you for its creation. But if you’re not going to do that, go team up with the Plex folks and help build a decent OS X Media Manager. It shouldn’t be too difficult to out-compete iTunes as a HTPC for “truck” drivers, since Cupertino has no interest in that market.
By Chucky · 2010.09.03 16:20
Chucky: It also appears during song or movie previews on the store. If making money is the only criteria, I think it has a good of a chance as any of being fixed.
I’m working on Rouse, but I appreciate the effort of trying to out-write me on waffle, presumably to nudge that rock off my back.
By Jesper · 2010.09.03 16:49
“It also appears during song or movie previews on the store. If making money is the only criteria, I think it has a good of a chance as any of being fixed.”
Correct, you are.
“I appreciate the effort of trying to out-write me on waffle”
Hey, it’s easier than starting my own blog, and you blog (well) about stuff I’m interested in. Hopefully I stay on topic, am both correct and witty, and add value. If you ever don’t feel that way, please give me a more explicit nudge to not be so verbose here, and I’ll take it with no ill feelings…
By Chucky · 2010.09.03 17:06
I wouldn’t mind seeing you start up your own log because there’s obviously a lot of opinions waiting for phrasing and publishing. I’m also not going to ask you to cut down. You’re on-topic and you contribute, and I don’t see any kind of “chilling effects” that’d drive me to some sort of rate limiting.
By Jesper · 2010.09.03 18:17
“I wouldn’t mind seeing you start up your own log because there’s obviously a lot of opinions waiting for phrasing and publishing.”
For one thing, I’m not sure what I would call it. Cupertino Dissident? BringBackJohnSculley.com? Truck Drivers of the World Unite? The Not John Gruber Blog?
The other thing goes to why I’m a scripter instead of a coder. I tend to prefer intermittently building upon others’ good work to creating my own from scratch. I’m just a smart amateur, not a pro.
By Chucky · 2010.09.03 22:44
Sweet lord, I’m not a pro. I wield a series of uninformed opinions in a semi-consistent way. I really hope you didn’t apply the metaphor all the way back there.
And don’t complain about lacking fantasy to someone who named his log “waffle”. Pick a name, almost any name, and stick with it. It doesn’t really matter.
By Jesper · 2010.09.03 22:58
How do you get the “Now Playing” window? I can’t figure this out. It’s frustrating me..
By idrinkdeodorant · 2010.12.03 21:33
Click the album artwork in the Now Playing/Selected Item section in the bottom left corner. (And if that’s not visible, click the Show now playing button, an arrow inside a box, also in the bottom left corner of the window.)
By Jesper · 2010.12.03 22:21