iTunes 11: tips and tricks

[decafjava]

Ok after midnight in euroland- have a backup of iTunes 10.7, just backed up my iPhone 4 through iTunes AND the cloud. Will back up my library tomorrow and ONLY THEN install iTunes 11.

Thought to start a thread to deal with bugs and issues, new features, figuring out if old features are hidden or gone for good (like iTunes dj and coverflow not a biggie for me but...).

Have read on other forums some old features are turned off by default and you have to dig a bit to get them back (status bar, list view). Most worrying, one fellow claimed smartplaylists depending on playcount and last played are broken unless you turn off crossfade??? WTF??? I asked others there to confirm-and will check myself tomorrow and this weekend.

So hopefully some of you vets can contribute and we can get a bunch of good info together for the noobs.

 

[Cold Irons]

Just installed on my netbook that has a "disposable" small subset of my main library. Figure I'll let others beta test it for a week or so before doing my main PC with the full library. Mainly want to wait out the inevitable bugs on a major version change, but also wanted to look at the user interface first.

I normally use a list view sorted by "Album by Artist Year", with cover art visible in the lower left corner. I have the browser at the top with genre/Artist/Album.

You can change the defaults to get this view except for the cover art display in the lower left.
- Select "Songs" in the buttons across the top
- under the new menu pull-down upper left corner, select "Show Menu Bar" to make things easier
- Under the View menu, select "Show Sidebar" to get the source/playlist column on the left

I find it a pain to not have any way to make the artwork visible in this view, but otherwise can live with the new user interface. The Album & Artist view a the top is kinda/sort of interesting (like Coverflow), but I'll never really use them (like Coverflow).

 

[kornchild2002]

I downloaded iTunes 11 today. I actually like the new look despite being used to the old style of having the lists and sidebar. I restored the sidebar but, after using it for a while, I prefer the grid view without it especially now that albums are sorted by artist and then albums within each artist. Plus Apple did a really good job with the visuals when an album is expanded. I leave the sidebar there when I'm viewing playlists, that's normally how I view my iTunes library anyway.

My smart playlists have not been broken and some are based on play counts. Then again, I don't use crossfade playback. So far the only thing feature that seems to be missing, for me at least, is the ability to view album art in the lower left corner. Other than that, the update went really smooth and iTunes seems to be running a little faster now than 10.7 on my MacBook Air with OS X 10.8.

 

[Sparkee]

Most worrying, one fellow claimed smartplaylists depending on playcount and last played are broken unless you turn off crossfade???

I noticed that when I first installed iTunes 11 that playcounts were not updating but didn't have time to look at it. Since reading this I tested it and can confirm on a Mac that playcounts are broken with Crossfade on. I turned it off then had to pause and restart the music before playcounts started working again.

I installed it as soon as it came out yet I haven't played around much with iTunes 11 yet. I don't mind trying new releases of software to see what's new. Even if it is broken I'll take my chances and give it a try. But as with any major update I'll image my drive just in case.

I been playing around with the views, I don't mind them, but I seem to keep going back to my regular column browser view in the Songs section.

The main reason I was looking forward to this update was for iCloud syncing of the bookmarks on my Audible audiobooks between my iPhone and iPad. With a few quick tests this feature seems to be working pretty good. But as with any other iCloud syncing its hard to tell when or if it has synced up.

 

[Code Monkey]

I been playing around with the views, I don't mind them, but I seem to keep going back to my regular column browser view in the Songs section.

The problem I'm having with this is the lack of album grouping with thumbnails. It's literally just a big honking list, and it all just blends into a big wall of text now.

I'm too visual of a person to work with *just* a perfectly flat list, I loved the efficiency of the hybrid from recent versions of iTunes.

I do not like the new iTunes at all.

 

[Code Monkey]

Anyone figured these out:

1. Is there any way to show duplicates or did that feature get removed?
2. Anyone else have "Explicit" and "Clean" all through their library in grid view for iTunes purchased music even though they've turned off the preference to show that useless tag (and it's not shown in list mode)

 

[Savannah]

I really REALLY love the new colourful album view for just browsing but I hate the lack of control over view modes for everything else. I miss album list hybid, sorted with the column I want. Grid view and the new artist view simply doesn't work if you have a playlist you want sorted in a particular way, and list view is boring and drab without any artwork. The Unwatched TV show page is simply a disaster.

Playlist folders and all the playlists in them are now missing from my 3rd gen iPod touch music app, but all the content is still synced. That's something that I'd really like fixed, (but then if playlists still aren't updating properly what's the point).

 

[yinyang]

I miss Coverflow, or at least the option to have it on or off.

Cmd L isn't dynamic any more either - I usually have my music on shuffle so when a track changed the 'main' view would also change.

Also you can't sort a shuffle in list view by play order, though you do have Up Next which is vaguely similar.

I suppose this is progress....!?

 

[urbanlegend]

Code Monkey,

Can you confirm whether there are any issues with Smart Playlists? I use a customized version of your approach, and would be upset if my smart playlists didn't update properly.

Thanks,

J

 

[urbanlegend]

For those who have updated, how is Up Next as compared to iTunes DJ?

I used to play all my music at home with iTunes DJ by choosing a smart playlist through iTunes DJ and letting it play. I could then rearrange tracks or add songs to the list through right click options (which I understand are still in iTunes through clicking an arrow beside the songs).

I would hate to have a huge downgrade in functionality....

Thanks!

J

 

[jasn]

I think I've found a nice new feature in that you don't have to create a new Playlist window that allows it to play while you work on other items in your library. I used to double-click on a playlist, opening it up in a new window so my editing other tracks in my general Music library would not interrupt the flow. iT 11 won't let me create a new window anymore so am playing around with editing on the fly. So far so good...

What is Create New Version?

 

[Savannah]

In the movies section if I press a letter on my keyboard it should jump to that title.

Instead it uses the info in the ALBUM tag.

Seems to be similar to the error in sorting movie playlists by title in grid view that has been present in previous versions of itunes.

So I'm now off to retag 700 movies. grr

 

[Code Monkey]

Can you confirm whether there are any issues with Smart Playlists? I use a customized version of your approach, and would be upset if my smart playlists didn't update properly.

So far I've not run into anything. Interface is completely identical, playcounts are updating (I've never nor ever will use crossfade, which seems to have caused problems for some with playcounts with the new version), and everything I've done so far updated as expected when I synced my touch.

And, just in case, I tested live updating on device and...

... yeah, still just a broken as it's been for years.

So, while the new iTunes is a step back in every single way *except* the grid view (and even that has downgrades for some purposes), Apple did at least not further downgrade smartlists as best I can tell.

 

[Code Monkey]

I miss Coverflow, or at least the option to have it on or off.

I used it for a couple of special smartlists in iTunes and, yeah, I miss that because with NO artwork in playlists any more (unless you want to view them as a grid, which kind of misses the point of the LIST part of the name), their utility is greatly damaged.

On the bright side, I'm hoping this means Cook decided to stop paying the licensing fees for the technology and it will go away from my iPod touch soon.

 

[rockmyplimsoul]

Anyone figured these out:

1. Is there any way to show duplicates or did that feature get removed?
2. Anyone else have "Explicit" and "Clean" all through their library in grid view for iTunes purchased music even though they've turned off the preference to show that useless tag (and it's not shown in list mode)

1- Looked all over and can't find it either. That was useful once in awhile, so hopefully its just hidden somewhere.

2- No not seeing that, but I'm only running 11 on a limited library on my test PC so I may not have any albums tagged either way.

 

[rockmyplimsoul]

... I've never nor ever will use crossfade, which seems to have caused problems for some with playcounts with the new version.

I played around with crossfade (though I don't use it either) and see no adverse affect on playcount or last played date. In another thread, "Next Up" was blamed similarly and Clearing that seemed to help, but I don't see any problem with Next Up with regards to playcount or last played.

 

[Code Monkey]

I played around with crossfade (though I don't use it either) and see no adverse affect on playcount or last played date. In another thread, "Next Up" was blamed similarly and Clearing that seemed to help, but I don't see any problem with Next Up with regards to playcount or last played.

Unfortunately, it's never clear until you reach critical mass of reports or find a trustworthy source how many "problems" are related to the new iTunes, incredibly bad luck, or just plain PEBCAK. I'd seen enough early reports about cross fade I figured it was worth mentioning as a possible source for any reports about smartlists not working.

Everything I've tried has worked other than the usual no live updating on device. Doesn't mean they didn't break something, just means I haven't found it yet.

I'm kind of surprised there was no overhaul to smartlists given the mediocre half support they get from Apple's cloud iTunes, that's what I was expecting with their talk of improving the playlist management. Turns out their idea of improving it was to move it to a new tab and then create the new side bar for adding to a playlist. Not very significant at all.

 

[Code Monkey]

And, in case you were wondering, iTunes 11 is still every bit as bad at handling Genius information for songs it can't distinguish because it holds them different yet the same simultaneously (e.g. Anthology and regular album versions of Beatles songs) and so will keep syncing the exact same Genius data over to your device every single time you sync taking as much time to do this unnecessary task as the rest of the sync involves.

It's time they just removed this failed experiment Jobs came up with and never followed through on, or at least gave us the option to flat out hide it on our devices because I simply cannot use it even if I wanted to (which, fortunately, I don't really because the feature is still terrible, I just keep wishing it would actually work since Apple insists I have a giant atom symbol above my cover art even though Genius is turned off because they can't figure out how to do something as simple as figure out how to create a Genius index of your library using unique IDs for each track, you know, like the entire rest of iTunes does )

 

[sontaron]

I can't seem to find a way to list albums by artist / by year any more. Which really irritates me!

 

[rockmyplimsoul]

Select "Songs" then tap on the Album header until it sorts how you want it.