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I don’t mind that iTunes 7 is inconsistent with other applications, because I assume that everything will look like this in Leopard. What I do mind is that it’s so internally inconsistent and ugly. I don’t like the reflections (especially on the capacity gauge). The iPod configurator is a bunch of controls on a scrolling white background (with awful tabs); it feels like a Web page. Elsewhere, the swaths of gradient in the background remind me of Windows. More on the new interface style from Daniel Sandler and Andy Matuschak.
- The new views are nice, but I was hoping for a way to show cover art in the mini-player, Clutter-style. And why isn’t it possible to change views from the menu bar?
- Good job on the cover art fetching, though I haven’t tried it yet since I’d already added all the covers manually.
- The right-pointing music store arrows are now shown only for the selected tracks. This makes it look a bit cleaner, but it’s an odd UI precedent.
- My iPod shuffle no longer appears in the source list when it’s not plugged in, which means that it’s no longer possible to add and re-arrange tracks with it disconnected.
- iTunes forgot that I like my Shuffle’s music converted to 128 kbps, and the second time I launched it, it forgot where my library was the standard location.
- “Build your collection over multiple libraries, and keep them on different hard drives to save space.” This seems the same as before. How does iTunes 7 make it easier?
Update: Sven-S. Porst comments.
Update 2: More from Rory Prior, Omar Shahine, and Kirk McElhearn.
Update 3: More from Lee Bennett and Dan Crevier. According to Mac OS X Hints, the multiple libraries feature is simply that you can hold down Option at launch to choose a library. Perhaps I had accidentally done that when I reported, above, that iTunes 7 had forgotten where my library was.
Update 4: Chris Clark and Scot Hacker say that album art downloaded by iTunes isn’t stored in the MP3 files. Also, when I select a single track and choose Get Album Art, iTunes starts getting art for my entire library. I don’t want that, because of the reports that it will mess up existing art that I’ve hand-chosen. Kirk McElhearn writes about gapless playback. John Gruber covers the big picture.
Update 5: Mac OS X Hints shows how to change the capital letters in the source list. Michael Alderete has some interesting comments on the new Nanos. Rainer Brockerhoff and Adam Knight discuss the cross-platform iTunes 7 interface. Jason Fried says that reflections are the new drop shadows.
Update 6: John Gruber examines the new iPods and provides a link to pre-release screenshot of iTunes 7 with an even more Windowsy interface. Daniel Wilson has more iTunes 7 analysis.
Update 7: I just imported a CD, and iTunes 7 wouldn’t let me paste or drag cover art onto a selection of multiple tracks. It only worked if I set the cover art one track at a time. Also, Mac User reports that iTunes 7 hides and shows the Chapters menu based on what kind of track is playing (via John Gruber).
6 Comments RSS · Twitter
My shuffle appeared there while it was unconnected on first launch, but it too disappeared after I disconnected it for the first time in iTunes 7.
Yes, for me it appeared on the first launch, but the contents were inaccessible.
Doing Get Album Art by right-clicking on a selected song gets the art for just that album, though it does it for all songs in the album.
I have a longer comment on that on my blog; basically, I now consider iTunes an emulator for the iTunes/Store platform, not a standard desktop app.
For everyone who wants to provide feedback to Apple and ask for the "keep this ipod in the source list", I've just done it. Hopefully if a good number of us request this function, the powers that be might consider reinstating it.
Whoa!
Removing the iPod Shuffle from the source list when it's not plugged in is a major inconvenience!
Why would Apple remove that functionality? Hopefully, it will be back in iTunes 7.1.