iTunes - new version

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I wouldn't use iTunes if it weren't the easiest way to put stuff on an ipod.

But I'm miffed that:

a) iTunes and ipods work inconsistently in the way they treat artist names and genre names - which is completely CRETINOUS! and

b) that iTunes won't list what's on my ipod and let me delete stuff off the ipod if I've made a mistake.

MG

[A Lark Ascending]

b) that iTunes won't list what's on my ipod and let me delete stuff off the ipod if I've made a mistake.

MG

You may just be missing that MG.

If you look on the left hand pane under Devices and click on 'Music' you get a full list of everything on your iPod. You can sort according to the fields at the top or add/delete fields. Or you can search - put in Bax and everything with Bax in it gets brought up (not sure how many Bax's there are in Mali!).

You can also delete what you no longer want on there.

There are also various programmes you can get that allow you to download your iPod contents to your computer or an external drive. I've used this for a couple of years:

www.candysoft.com/index.php?SRC=1

It's pretty basic but does the job. Several times I've downloaded the entire contents so I can reassemble them on another iPod.

This is all on the exist iTunes, not the new one.

************

Agree you about the lunacy of labelling but it's easy enough to rectify.

The thing that niggles me is the 'genres' they attach to music in the iTunes shop. For some reason 'Folk' no longer exists as a genre - you have to hunt in either 'Singer Songwriter' (that's a genre? expect to find Schubert there one day!), 'Country' or 'World'.

Edited December 2, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Noj]

MG, one of the settings you want to be sure to have on your iPod is to click the "manually manage music and videos" box on the iPod's main page, above Music. This means you don't have to sync it with your iTunes library, and you'll be able to delete songs off your iPod/add songs to it without necessarily having those songs in iTunes. This works well for people with large collections, since you don't necessarily want tens of thousands of songs stored on your computer and slowing its performance.

[A Lark Ascending]

Yes, check you've done that. I've only used manual since I first got one.

Edited December 2, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

OK, I'll have a go at this tomorrow. Thanks folks.

MG

[Shawn]

I rip discs to my server. iTunes has always been terrible for anything but ripping directly to the drive that the software is installed on, and of course buying music from iTunes. Two things I rarely do.

I haven't intentional opened iTunes in a long while.

I've never had any problems ripping to external drives, my iTunes media folder has never been located on an internal drive.

[mjzee]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

[Jim R]

Downloaded the new version last night, and that new search function is the main thing that's pissing me off. Not only for the reasons you guys are discussing, but now the searches do not access the iPod. They ONLY search what's in iTunes. I have 22,136 songs on my iPod, I do not keep that much music on my laptop. Now I have to scroll through the whole damn iPod to find songs. A big step back. I think they buried the quality control staff with Jobs like servants with the pharaoh.

I can't believe this. How could they F up such a good thing? I also just realized that you can't search for an artist and a song simultaneously like you could before. The old search allowed you to enter an artist and a song title together, and quickly find exactly what you were looking for. Now it's either/or, and the results come up in a dropdown menu instead of a list that can be sorted and scrolled. I hope to god they receive enough complaints that they re-design this.

[sonnymax]

Have folks taken the time to view the brief tutorial that comes with the new player, or gone to Apple's website to learn about the changes and workings of iTunes 11? I ask these questions because I noticed people on other sites expressing opinions like, "No way am I going to bother" and "I shouldn't have to study just to use a damn media player!" I think the redesigned iTunes 11 offers some major improvments in looks and functionality. The more I learn about it, the more I like it.

[Steve Gray]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

I think you are just doing this incorrectly.

Don't select ALL the tracks, just select ONE. You can't expect to change the song title if you select more than one track.

Then you will have the next/previous buttons available, and you can edit as many tracks as you wish without leaving the 'Get Info' screen.

I don't believe there has been a modification, it has always worked this way.

Edited December 3, 2012 by Steve Gray

[Noj]

Have folks taken the time to view the brief tutorial that comes with the new player, or gone to Apple's website to learn about the changes and workings of iTunes 11? I ask these questions because I noticed people on other sites expressing opinions like, "No way am I going to bother" and "I shouldn't have to study just to use a damn media player!" I think the redesigned iTunes 11 offers some major improvments in looks and functionality. The more I learn about it, the more I like it.

I watched the tutorial, and most of the changes don't bother me at all. However, the inability to search my iPod is pure poop. I didn't see anything in the tutorial that indicated how to switch it from "Search Library" to a plain old "Search." I farted around and went through all the preferences and all the drop down boxes and right clicked all over the place to find some way to change it. It's like some wall has gone up on what is on the iPod and it only searches iTunes.

[Neal Pomea]

Something's different about adding playlists. I used to be able to name a new playlist myself then drag the songs over to it. Now all I can see is a way to add a new playlist, but with whatever naming convention iPod thinks I should have.

I don't know what's going to happen when I try to drag files from my hard drive to iTunes. Don't see if that is even possible anymore.

[Noj]

Another cute new development: any purchased Apple AAC file is now stored on Cloud and its information is not editable. This is the new model the powers-that-be want. No one will control their own music collection. It will be on the Cloud, and the people will have nothing. Thank heavens I've only bought a few songs from Apple.

[mjzee]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

I think you are just doing this incorrectly.

Don't select ALL the tracks, just select ONE. You can't expect to change the song title if you select more than one track.

Then you will have the next/previous buttons available, and you can edit as many tracks as you wish without leaving the 'Get Info' screen.

I don't believe there has been a modification, it has always worked this way.

Thanks for that. I see that when I'm in the Artists tab and then click on an album, the screen "slides down" so I can see the tracks on that album, and then, if I highlight a track and call up its information, I then can see the "Next" button. However, my finding came through this way: do a search for an artist, then choose that artist in the search results. The artist's albums then show. If I highlight a track on an album and then call up its information (Command-I on the Mac), I do NOT see the "Next" button. So the program acts inconsistently.

[RDK]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but so far I really like ITunes 11.

[Steve Gray]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

I think you are just doing this incorrectly.

Don't select ALL the tracks, just select ONE. You can't expect to change the song title if you select more than one track.

Then you will have the next/previous buttons available, and you can edit as many tracks as you wish without leaving the 'Get Info' screen.

I don't believe there has been a modification, it has always worked this way.

Thanks for that. I see that when I'm in the Artists tab and then click on an album, the screen "slides down" so I can see the tracks on that album, and then, if I highlight a track and call up its information, I then can see the "Next" button. However, my finding came through this way: do a search for an artist, then choose that artist in the search results. The artist's albums then show. If I highlight a track on an album and then call up its information (Command-I on the Mac), I do NOT see the "Next" button. So the program acts inconsistently.

I tried what you said and I agree with you. It does seem inconsistent doesn't it.

A workaround seems to be :-- after you have chosen the artist in the search results, select the track as before. Then switch to the Songs view. The same track will be highlighted. Now use Get Info and next/previous are available. It will also work if you switch to Album view. It seems to be a 'feature' of Artist view

[Jim R]

Another cute new development: any purchased Apple AAC file is now stored on Cloud and its information is not editable. This is the new model the powers-that-be want. No one will control their own music collection. It will be on the Cloud, and the people will have nothing. Thank heavens I've only bought a few songs from Apple.

Noj, do you have any idea if it's possible to uninstall and go back to the previous version without too many major headaches and risks? The more responses I read here, the more I regret installing this.

[mjzee]

Yet another annoyance: When ripping CDs, iTunes first asks you to review the rip settings (kbps, etc). In the old version, you chose your settings once and then all you needed to do was press Import CD. iTunes is now asking you to confirm these settings for each disc you rip. There is no "don't ask me this again" option.

[Noj]

Jim R, there's some discussion and links here. It looks like too much of a headache for me. I have two computers and one still has the old iTunes.

mjzee, I noticed that one too. Ugh.

[Jim R]

Thanks, Noj. I read the page you linked to, and I'm in the process of checking the other links. I'm hopeful that I can sort this out, but it's a little scary for a non-computergeek like myself. If not, I may seek professional help... I would pay somebody to get me back to 10.7. This new software is pathetic, and it's going to drive me bananas.

[John L]

This sounds like a nighmare. Thanks for the warnings. I will try to hold out with the old iTunes as long as I can.

Its scary how dependent we are on this software. I would be an extreme hassle to shift to something else at this point. I am always worried about "updates" because sometimes they are really a step backwards. The problem for me in the past is that iTunes does not give much consideration to very large collections when designing updates. Therefore, they can add on functions that analyze all files and cause the program to slowdown or freeze continuously for large collections.

But this "update" sounds like complete shit.

[Steve Gray]

Yet another annoyance: When ripping CDs, iTunes first asks you to review the rip settings (kbps, etc). In the old version, you chose your settings once and then all you needed to do was press Import CD. iTunes is now asking you to confirm these settings for each disc you rip. There is no "don't ask me this again" option.

Once again, I don't see this issue.

Perhaps you have some option set differently to me that neither of us can see the relevance of.

For me, it works as the old version did, just rips the CD and ejects it.

[Shawn]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

I think you are just doing this incorrectly.

Don't select ALL the tracks, just select ONE. You can't expect to change the song title if you select more than one track.

Then you will have the next/previous buttons available, and you can edit as many tracks as you wish without leaving the 'Get Info' screen.

I don't believe there has been a modification, it has always worked this way.

Thanks for that. I see that when I'm in the Artists tab and then click on an album, the screen "slides down" so I can see the tracks on that album, and then, if I highlight a track and call up its information, I then can see the "Next" button. However, my finding came through this way: do a search for an artist, then choose that artist in the search results. The artist's albums then show. If I highlight a track on an album and then call up its information (Command-I on the Mac), I do NOT see the "Next" button. So the program acts inconsistently.

I tried what you said and I agree with you. It does seem inconsistent doesn't it.

A workaround seems to be :-- after you have chosen the artist in the search results, select the track as before. Then switch to the Songs view. The same track will be highlighted. Now use Get Info and next/previous are available. It will also work if you switch to Album view. It seems to be a 'feature' of Artist view

This must be a problem that only exists on the Windows version of the software, I am able to get the "Next" button regardless of which view I'm using on the Mac version.

[Steve Gray]

I've found another annoyance in the new version. It used to be that, when you'd highlight all the tracks on an album, there was a "Next" button to allow you to edit one song after another. That "Next" button is now gone. To edit song titles, you now need to "Get Info" on each one in succession. A major pain, and it's hard to see why this modification was done.

I think you are just doing this incorrectly.

Don't select ALL the tracks, just select ONE. You can't expect to change the song title if you select more than one track.

Then you will have the next/previous buttons available, and you can edit as many tracks as you wish without leaving the 'Get Info' screen.

I don't believe there has been a modification, it has always worked this way.

Thanks for that. I see that when I'm in the Artists tab and then click on an album, the screen "slides down" so I can see the tracks on that album, and then, if I highlight a track and call up its information, I then can see the "Next" button. However, my finding came through this way: do a search for an artist, then choose that artist in the search results. The artist's albums then show. If I highlight a track on an album and then call up its information (Command-I on the Mac), I do NOT see the "Next" button. So the program acts inconsistently.

I tried what you said and I agree with you. It does seem inconsistent doesn't it.

A workaround seems to be :-- after you have chosen the artist in the search results, select the track as before. Then switch to the Songs view. The same track will be highlighted. Now use Get Info and next/previous are available. It will also work if you switch to Album view. It seems to be a 'feature' of Artist view

This must be a problem that only exists on the Windows version of the software, I am able to get the "Next" button regardless of which view I'm using on the Mac version.

I am on a Mac as well so I cannot explain it. There seems to be a lot of unexpected behaviour depending on what options you have set.

Have you done exactly what mjzee did though? You have to do a search first to show the bug.

For example, I couldn't understand why I didn't have a Playlists button at the top. It turned out to be because I had the left hand sidebar displayed. You have to hide the sidebar to get the Playlists button to show.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Steve Gray

[Eric]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but so far I really like ITunes 11.

Not trying to give you a hard time - what new features or changes do you like? I see some things as a little better and some a little worse, but nothing radical either way. The way they had hyped this, I was expecting much more.