iTunes 7 Blues

hay, you need to select all the songs in the compilation and then press apple+i at the very bottom you need to change compilation to yes and tick the box. Should group them all.

I totally agree. Especially the tired colors and the missing shine makes me a little depressive when using it. I hope the new color scheme will not make it into the other “Leopard”-apps…

The overall muddiness of the color scheme REALLY bugs me. It’s not even a nice muted effect, it’s just muddy and low-contrast. That teal-like graphite color. Blech. I’m still not used to the fact that I can’t click on The big headings in the sidebar. I’ve done that like 10 times already trying to get back to my music. I used to just hit the top item in the sidebar and barely even glance at it. Argh! Some steps forward and some steps back I guess.

Awwww, it’s not all completely terrible, is it? ;)

Coverflow sorts based on which column is being sorted in the list view below. So if you are sorting by artist, coverflow will be ordered by artist and you will see the same album cover for every artist in a specific compilation. Change the sorting to “by album” and you should only see one album art cover for each album.

Let’s not forget the fact that in addition to the “blue note”, the icon’s overall appearance looks more like that of a hokey Apple ripoff icon. They should’ve called Iconfactory or Jasper Hauser.

Have to say, I love the Coverflow intergration and the new device management interface (no more bungling through the preferences!). I also love how clicking on sort by Album multiple times allows you to sort album by artist or by year. Hooray contextual sorting!!!

To fix the problem with compilations, enter a value into the “Album Artist” field. That should do the trick. At least it worked for my collection.

I have the “Best of Bond” compilation (all the title tracks by original artists) and every track shows Shirley Bassey (the first track on the CD) as the cover art.

It took me a while to figure out why I kept seeing that as I scrolled through my library.

I have mixed feelings as well. I’m with Jason that the new color scheme is muddy. On first use I felt like I was either in a cheap Windows app or a Linux app with the “Smokey Blue” theme. It’s just dull…and boring…not what I expect from Apple. The UI buttons and scrollbar lack consistency with the sidebar and store, which look like a poorly done Vista copy (Cupertino, how are those photocopiers?). Kudos that they’re trying to ease out of the glass Aqua bubble. I like the top buttons (pause, play, and view), but am not quite sure why the lower bar and buttons are not in the same family. I could keep going on this, but won’t - I’m making a PDF side-by-side from 6 to 7. I complain because I care, a lot.

The new organization is wonderful! It’s something I’ve been jonesing for since iTunes inception - I’m a neat freak and it fits my taste just right.

Overall, I feel like three teams worked on it, didn’t communicate the entire time, and threw it together at the last minute.

Functionality-wise I still think it’s a big improvement. And as far as button placement and functionality, I think it’s smarter. But man, could it use a new skin!

Jason: I’m with you on the source groupings. I understand why they got added, and it makes sense with the way things have been added to the source list over the years, but I really liked the simplicity of the old way, and I kind of hope this version doesn’t last long.

I love the new functionality. but yes, tons of little bugs all over the place. the biggest horror are the new scroll bars. what is up with those? big ooops. how many different shades of steely blue do we really need and who decided that steely blue was the perfect neutral color, anyway?

i’m loving coverflow though. i like to see my music. it’s kind like flipping through my records. I really missed all that album art when I went from records to itunes. Now I can have it big and interactive, flipping back n forth. smartest thing they ever did, to buy coverflow.

i think the absolute worst thing is the change of hotkey commands. i don’t think there is any reason that hotkeys should ever change, in any program.

CMD+1 and CMD+2 now adjust the video zoom size instead of opening / closing the iTunes and equalizer windows respectively. there appears to be no way to ALT+TAB your way over to iTunes, and open the window with the keyboard if it is minimized or closed now — unless there is a song playing, you can press CMD+L to hilight the current song.

i want my hotkeys back!!

Anyone even looked at the memory usage if you use cover flow? On my PowerBook (G4 1.5Ghz, 2GB ram) when I turn coverflow on and scroll through my music (approx 3000 tracks) memory usage climbs from around 50mb to 200mb of real mem.

And I don’t like the icon reverting to blue either, there are so many blue things when I command tab now I don’t know where to click any more.

(Safari, Adium, iChat, Mail, Finder, Preview and now iTunes).

Interface is ok if a little inconsistent (e.g. different scroll bars if you click on a podcast description.) I think Apple just you iTunes as their interface playground!

Actually the best way to fix the album grouping option is to change the sorting option. Click and hold on the Album heading. It will change from Album to Album by Artist then Album by Year. Choose Album by Artist and iTunes will sort your list by artists, but albums with more than one artist will be grouped.

People don’t like change.

I’m sad that Apple removed some of my keyboard shortcuts.

But at least I can file my TV shows I rip to the TV folder on my ipod.

Thanks for the green icon… I was looking for one. Unfortunately I had already upgraded :.

Am I the only one who has noticed the “Loading iTunes Library” progress window every time I open iTunes? Granted, I have a 130+GB library, but iT6 never had any problems or required some special notification or loader…

As for the interface issues… give it a month or so and you’ll have all sorts of options to change it, no doubt.

In the windows version with the cover view on itunes uses over a GIG of physical memory. It seems to just load EVERY image into ram, and keep it there until the program is shut down.

Having watched Jobs give his presentation, I was looking forward to all the new features - but seeing the issues iTunes 7 has garnered since its release, I think I shall wait until they release a more updated version…

Thanks for the icon heads up though!

Why on earth, could apple change the scroll bars? I have a PC that i tried in such an effort to look like an OSX and i really loved those scrolling bars, and they changed them to those crappy, unhappy, cheap linux-like bars? Is this gonna happen to the whole OSX leopard? Ok i’m gonna stay with the ugly windows then. And the previous ipod nanos was much more stylish, but ok I can accept them, but no no no, not the aqua style, leave it that way its the best idea i’ve seen in the whole years of computing.