(I had to make that joke.) I have now installed this new iTunes version 11, and, well, I like the changes it brings so far. Under the hood, it's still iTunes: The same library management system, nearly identical settings, the way it syncs devices, and so on. It's not exactly the same though. I've noticed that when doing device syncing the GUI doesn't freeze from time to time, so at last it seems like they effectively took control of what ought to be background threads.
Most changes are apparent in the GUI. The left sidebar is now completely optional, though iTunes works fine with and without it. The way the tiled album view expands an album's tracks, and the generated colouring scheme, is quite amazing. It also feels like scrolling large lists and vast amounts of album art is faster, which would surely help on slower machines. The GUI panes for device settings is far better and cleaner than before.
The mini player is even more minimalist than before. For example, the track position is completely gone from the mini player. Yet, I noticed that clicking on the album art brings up the standard "QuickTime-style" player that displays the album art and full player controls, all the while the mini player staying there.
Overall, it really feels like the entire GUI, apart maybe from the settings window, has been redone. I really like the simple and elegant colouring scheme, the way element spacing feels less cramped than before, the better selection of fonts and the track "action menus" which work much better than any contextual menus I've seen. Does it work better on Windows? Hopefully. But one thing is for sure: Taking time to clean up things rather than just rushing to add feature integrations is sometimes worth it.
Published on November 30, 2012 at 21:39 EST
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