

ITunes 10 hands-on: snappier performance, questionable UI choices - elblanco
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/09/itunes-10-hands-on-snappier-performance-questionable-ui-choices.ars

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Jkeg
My favorite iTunes feature insanity: When you listen to a song in the "Music"
section of iTunes, you have a "pause" button; when you are listening and
browsing iTunes store, the "pause" button inexplicably and detrimentally
becomes "stop", so you have to re-navigate to "music" just to pause a song.
Never mind that "stop" functionality is essentially pointless in digital music
players anyway, if you are unfortunate enough to accidentally stop the
song/podcast, you have to re-navigate to the Music section and manually
restart the file _and_ navigate to the right portion, only if you happen to
know where that is.

* Yes I know you can right click on the song area and pause there. This is about UI design, not whether or not I can figure out how to pause a song.

~~~
thought_alarm
It changes to a Stop button because when you press Play again it will start
playing the currently visible playlist/screen rather than the previous
playlist.

So let's say the Play button works the way you want it to:

\- You start playing a playlist. The Play button turns into a pause button

\- You navigate to a different playlist. The pause button does _not_ change to
a Stop button.

\- Push this pause button. The music "pauses" and the button changes to a Play
button.

\- Now push the Play button. What happens? Does it resume the previous
playlist? Or does it start playing the currently visible playlist?

Anyway, I use the Play/Pause button on my keyboard.

~~~
Jkeg
1\. You can't press play again, it's just faded out.

2\. What other playlist? I'm in the iTunes store. I haven't given any
indication that I want to or even could specify another playlist to play.

2\. That's exactly how it should work anyway. If I want to change the
playlist, that's a different kind of event altogether from just pausing.
Having one UI element try and control both is confusing. In this case, a
dedicated stop button would actually be useful, as that could distinguish
between pausing the current playlist and stopping it altogether. But removing
relevant pause functionality just because you're in a different program
section? Pointless.

~~~
Jkeg
> Right, because there's nothing to play.

There's nothing there to play because "pause" irrationally became "stop" for
no apparent reason (remember there's no playlist in sight), and the user
accidentally pressed it. There's no reason for it to be this way.

Why shouldn't the play button apply to songs, especially when it was played
individually and not as a playlist? Seems like the type of thing a music
player should do.

~~~
thought_alarm
The Previous, Play, and Next buttons apply to the screen you are currently
viewing. They work just the same in the store as they do on any other iTunes
screen.

~~~
Jkeg
The way they work is exactly the problem. Considering there's a lot you can do
in iTunes, it makes more sense to have the control buttons apply to items
independent of where you're browsing, as for example, Windows Media Player.
The current behavior is confusing and pointless.

~~~
Jkeg
>You are forgetting these iTunes use cases:

None of those are contradictory to the idea of control consistency throughout
iTunes, why would they be? In fact, deliberately selecting something and
choosing specifically what to do with it fits perfectly with the "Have the
control buttons control items you select or can only be one other possible
item" method.

If the behavior isn't confusing, then why does it stop the track, but not let
you restart it, even though there's nothing else to control? That is perfectly
described as pointless and confusing.

~~~
thought_alarm
> None of those are contradictory to the idea of control consistency
> throughout iTunes

Of course not. That's how iTunes already works, and iTunes is already
consistent.

However, those things are contrary to your suggestion: "it makes more sense to
have the control buttons apply to items independent of where you're browsing".

Look, it's clear you haven't really thought things through. You just need to
learn how iTunes works. (You also need to learn how to reply to the correct
comment)

It's very easy: The playback controls "always" apply to the playlist you are
viewing. If you want to get back to the currently-playing playlist, click the
little back-arrow in the right-hand side of the main display. You can't get
more consistent than that.

You can also click the "Now Playing" window and that will also give you
controls for the current playlist.

It's very easy.

~~~
Jkeg
>Of course not. That's how iTunes already works, and iTunes is already
consistent.

What's consistent about arbitrarily removing 'pause' functionality when not
necessary? That is not consistent, and it's poor usability.

> However, those things are contrary to your suggestion:

No. Browsing around non-playlist-determining sections of iTunes does not imply
I want to change or stop a playlist/track. So why remove the pause function,
if the only reason to do that is so you can start a new playlist?

>It's very easy: The playback controls "always" apply to the playlist you are
viewing.

Which is of no use to anyone if they aren't viewing a play list at all.
Really, this was established in my very first comment. It's the _iTunes
store_. There is no playlist to play other than the one I selected to play in
the first place. Why exactly prevent me from pausing, when there's just no
reason that would be helpful. You still haven't answered this.

> It's very easy.

Multiple clicks/mouse positionings are never easier than just one. Never.

> Look, it's clear you haven't really thought things through. You just need to
> learn how iTunes works.

That's sort of pointless to claim. You haven't proven anything, so such grand
pronouncements as to someones general comprehension of the issue are useless
to everyone. I suggest you prove your point with a specific argument, instead
of making unsupported assertions, basically that amounts to "You're just
wrong." That's never really a help to a discussion.

>(You also need to learn how to reply to the correct comment)

And no, I already know which comment to reply to, but the link simply wasn't
there. I suppose you think, as with the iTunes issue, that software always
works perfectly.

~~~
Jkeg
>The main playback controls apply to the content in the main window.

First of all, that's wrong. You are able to _stop_ a track in the iTunes
store, so you _can_ control media items from other areas of the program while
browsing. You just can't pause, even though there are no new playlists to
start in the iTunes store. So since you can't do anything with the stop/play
button _other_ than control the current track in the iTunes store, there
remains a lack of explanation as to why I can't just pause a simple track
while browsing iTunes.

Again, to simplify, the issue really is just this: "why can't there be pause
functionality in iTunes store? What would it prevent? Why would it be better
to keep just the 'stop' function?" If you can't answer that then you have no
argument.

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blahedo
Has Apple _ever_ followed the HIG when they didn't feel like it? It's a
brilliant idea, coordinating UI across disparate apps from multiple companies,
but I seem to recall that going all the way back to the 80s Apple has pretty
freely disregarded the guidelines when they thought they had a better idea.
(And at least some of the time, the "better idea" got worked into the next
round of HIG, so maybe that's ok?)

~~~
mcav
It's OK by me as long as Apple continues to let third-party developers do the
same.

~~~
lukifer
This is fine for Mac apps, but Apple can kill iOS apps dead for this reason,
while letting their own deviations slip through unimpeded.

In general, though, I think interface guidelines are like the rules of
grammar: when you understand them well enough, you understand when it's okay
to break them. Whether the change to the three upper-left buttons falls into
this category is somewhat subjective.

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ericz
Personally, I would feel very uncomfortable having one application with
vertical close/minimize buttons while others are horizontal. I wouldn't expect
the introduction of this level of inconsistency from an Apple product.

~~~
Gibbon
You can set it back to horizontal if you want: defaults write com.apple.iTunes
full-window -1

~~~
someone_here
I'm surprised you have to use the command line to change such an option in an
Apple product.

~~~
bruceboughton
Yes, it should definitely be in the Preferences dialog!

I'm not that impressed with iTunes 10.. the grey icons are a disaster for
quickly finding things; it refuses to play a TV Show I downloaded yesterday
from ITMS (not authorized); and Ping is lame.

~~~
Timothee

      Yes, it should definitely be in the Preferences dialog!
    

I'm not quite sure if it's sarcasm or not. Honestly my first thought when I
saw the buttons like this was "WTF is this?!". However, this should not be an
application preference! One thing that Apple does (that every company should
do) is making choices for the users. Sometimes they're wrong (this one looks
dubious to me) but adding settings is the wrong approach to it.

I recently started to use a Windows PC (granted it's XP) again and the number
of preferences (e.g. system, Outlook) available is completely insane.

~~~
bruceboughton
Sorry, that was indeed sarcasm. What's the sarcasm punctuation mark again?

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kaffeinecoma
Since upgrading to 10, all my music sounds flat and tinny. I have an audio
cable running from my Mac Pro into my stereo. If I play a song via iTunes, it
sounds like crap. If I plug the cable into my iPhone and play the same song,
it sounds fine. Anyone else experiencing this?

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astrange
Check the equalizer setting?

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matthew-wegner
Check Preferences -> Playback -> Sound Enhancer, too.

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thought_alarm
They've used that same headline to describe that last 5 iTunes releases.

There is a big difference between usability and artistic sensibility.
Ultimately, some people just have a difficult time reacting to change. iTunes
10 was released only two days ago. Why not let it sink in for a while?

~~~
sprout
Because iTunes is a bloated moneymaking machine that has had very little
thought put into UX since the store took off?

~~~
thought_alarm
We get it. You don't understand iTunes.

I have a saying: Never ask a computer geek for music advice. They'll always
give you a stupid answer.

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bep
I don't like that ars usually don't test in Windows. At least for the
photoshop and itunes articules I have read.

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peng
The upscaled UI elements suggest a touch-based OS X in the near future. Anyone
else think so?

~~~
Perceval
There's evidence that Apple is considering it:
[http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/23/apple_filing_s...](http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/08/23/apple_filing_shows_touch_screen_imac_with_adjustable_stand.html)

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naner
In the last picture what is the "checkbox" column for?

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jasonlotito
Syncing. Checkbox marks items you want to sync.

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J3L2404
In regards to the close/min/max buttons... No, 'abomination' is not too strong
a word.

