Getting Back to Basics...

So as a follow up-post to iTunes Improvements, Part One, there was just a couple of interface-related things I might have missed...

Posts are few and far between these days, so keep those submissions coming! Shoot 'em over to joel.esler [at] me [dot] com, and the Dear Cupertino monkeys will hammer on their keyboards for a while and spit out good quality posts... Or meaningless gibberish, one of the two.

Dear Cupertino,

iTunes is awesome, but lately it has become bloated with features and now runs sluggishly as a result.

What happened to the original Apple design modus operandi of "less is more"? John Gruber, of Daring Fireball fame, has even said that: "Figure out the absolute least you need to do to implement the idea, do just that, and then polish the hell out of the experience" in regards to iPhone App design, but doesn't the same apply to most Apple apps?


One of the main reasons people like Apple is because things are so much easier to do - even if features are sacrificed for usability and/or aesthetics. Oh yeah, it's happened before - firewire anyone? Going back even further, floppy drives, anyone? The invention of ADC was practically so USB, power and display signal could all be done through the one cable - even if users didn't want these features.

To point you in the right direction again, I've compiled a list of iTunes interface improvements, as follows:

• The ability to search lyrics and restrict your search to only the lyrics field.

• Make the grouping tag work like it does on the iTunes Store. If you browse the Complete U2 collection that Apple advertised, you will see that the collection breaks down per disc with titles of each original U2 release in the set. You can then hide or reveal the tracks on each disc by clicking the arrow on the left side of the header. I would like to see something like this implemented in iTunes, especially for classical albums, which often contain multiple symphonies on a single disc.

• Support for lyrics display on iTunes, not just on the iPod.

• Multiple artist support in the browser pane.

• Improved print layouts with album artist support.

Thanks,
Ian Rawluk.

Editors note: Now, these improvements are all well and good, but I personally don't think these are the improvements should be making to iTunes.
iTunes, being in it's 8th revision now, has simply become one of those apps which we can't live without - but at the expense of simplicity and aesthetics. Sure, the new grid view is "pretty cool", but is it really needed?
In this blogger's opinion, Apple needs to do what it did with OS9 and scrap it, and start from scratch. iTunes was originally a media player, and while the iTunes Store is a big part of that (5 billion songs can't be wrong) it needs to do what it does best - play music.
Lately, though, it just seems that iTunes isn't a music playing app, it's a spending-money app. All these Genius features are excellent in terms of music recommendations, but in reality they're just another way for Apple to get you to spend money at the iTunes Music Store.

Now, I can't blame Apple for trying to make money - they are a business, after all. However, it does bug me when these so called "features" are really thinly-veiled attempts to suck more money out of consumers. If I like a song, I'll look it up in the iTunes Store, preview it, and then buy it if I like it. That's what the iTunes store is for, and for that, it works beautifully.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that iTunes needs a massive overhaul - forget all the extras (5 visualizers, ooh!), and get back to basics, 'cos that's what Apple is all about.