iTunes 10… why?

Lest anyone think that I’m completely anti-Apple, really I’m not. I like well designed programs and products and for the most part, I do believe that Apple delivers on that. There are a number of things I don’t like about Apple’s business practices, mostly in how limiting they are to app developers and that essentially Apple’s mindset is that they know how you’re supposed to use their products (examples- they make it so that end users can’t upgrade their products or make simple repairs. Heck, you can’t even change a battery on your iPhone) But honestly, they know design. I have owned a few iPods and loved all of them. And I admit, I love my MacBook, even if I do miss the ability to close the laptop without it hibernating (Seriously, Steve Jobs- mothers of the world would love it if you could do that)

I use iTunes for my music, and up until this new version, have loved every minute of it. For whatever reason, iTunes 10 has decided to break some of my compilations by the artist. Yes, I know part of it is that it defaults its search by artist, not by album. Once I fixed that, it still tried to break it up by artist within the album and several of the tracks on a few albums were out of order. (The real fix- From View, select Column Browser, and uncheck artist and check album. Then, select the album you’re looking from from the menu and your tracks will be in order. Which is good. I’m not sure I wanted to listen to Hair in order of who performed all the tracks.)

The aggravating thing about this is that I spent the better part of two days trying to rename files to get it to sort properly- and the two albums in question were albums I had purchased from the iTunes store and had for over a year.

Mostly, I just needed to vent. iTunes 10 worked quite well, and I’m not entirely sure I like the way they defaulted their displays- or the way that various items are now buried in sub menus. It used to be that the option to group compilations together was under preferences, it’s now buried under the Column Browser (which is under the View menu). Oh well, just one of the various bumps.

However, one thing that I do like, that I think I’m in the minority of… are the vertical stoplight buttons. Hear me out- yes, it’s confusing. But when you have iTunes playing in the background, it’s wonderful to shove the window into the upper right and be able to see those buttons all the time. That way, when I’m working in Super Notecard or futzing around in Chrome, I can just click on my mini-player and have it expand to the full window. I also like the new icon- again, in the minority there.

(But really, I do miss the colors! Monochrome makes me sad)