4 ms·

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to provide a compelling reason why those features shouldn't be in iTunes if you want to make this argument. "I don't need th

by mrshoe 17y ago

I'm sorry, but you're going to have to provide a compelling reason why those features shouldn't be in iTunes if you want to make this argument. "I don't need them" isn't good enough. Is 88MB too much for you to download? Is it too much to store on your hard disk? Is that "Burn Disk" button in the bottom right when you're viewing a playlist too distracting? Is the UI hard to navigate now with all these features? Is the "Share on Facebook" contextual menu item getting in your way when you're trying to listen to music? All of those things (and more) could be potential arguments against adding those features to iTunes. However, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of iTunes users would answer "no" to every one of those questions. Apple has done a great job of adding features to iTunes without sacrificing much usability at all. If you click the button that hides the Genius bar, then the main screen is still just a list of playlists on the left, and your music library in the main pane. Pretty simple. Thousands of other people use and love those features. People love Macs because they don't need a separate application to burn CDs. Have you forgotten what a refreshing experience it is for a PC user to use a Mac for the first time and realize that it does everything they want out of the box? Presenting users with a set of checkboxes during install is one of the worst things you could possibly do. That's a usability nightmare. It's like setting a trap for your users. How do they know which components they need? How can they be sure it will work if they don't install all the components? What if they choose incorrectly and want to install more components later? Is that possible? The lack of these types of installers is yet another breath of fresh air when you switch to Mac OS X. In most cases you just drag the app into your Applications folder. Apple's applications need to work for ordinary people, not just techies. If you're going to accuse Apple of getting usability wrong, you better be a legitimate expert and have a compelling argument.

al3x 17y ago
There are some good points in this comment. Still, have you watched over the shoulder of a non-techie trying to use a recent version of iTunes? Accomplishing many goals, like configuring what content ends up on your iPod, is remarkably confusing for several people I've observed (and then helped). I'd just suggest that the number of installs of iTunes doesn't necessarily correlate to user satisfaction. If you own an iPod or iPhone, you have essentially no choice but to use iTunes, particularly if you're not technically inclined enough to investigate alternatives. Apple has a captive audience for iTunes.
- Perceval 17y ago
  I think you're right. Apple is daisy-chaining each one of its products to get more and more users. The iPod/iPhone requires iTunes, which requires Quicktime and Webkit, and which (on one occasion) was bundled with Safari. Because Apple has a captive audience, their usual aesthetic of hiding everything complex and letter the power user discover things has given over to the profit motive. Apple has an incentive to showcase features like the Genius Sidebar right off the bat, because Genius links into the iTunes Music Store. I read an interesting article on Steve Jobs and the original design of the iDVD application: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/28/idvd_hung_out_to_dry_as_apple_pushes_movies_online.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/28/idvd_hung_out_... The key bit for me was in this quote: Evangelist and a group of Astarte developers described pitching the simplified app concept to Steve Jobs. "Jobs never glanced at their presentation," the article noted. "Instead, he walked up to a whiteboard and drew a square. This is the program, he said. Users will drag their movies here to create DVD menus. Then they'll click 'burn.' That's it. 'I don't want to hear anything about drawers or pop-out' windows, he said." Seems like Steve needs to take his own hypercritical hatchet to iTunes. (http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2009/05/hypercritical.ars http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2009/05/hypercritical.a...). It would be just in time for iTunes X (pron. iTunes ten).
  - joubert 17y ago
    That is because all these devices center around media. Note, iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band, Final Cut, are separate, because they would not make sense as part of iTunes (but they do integrate beautifully with iTunes).
- ironkeith 17y ago
  It honestly took me 10 minutes to figure out how to create a "Genius Mix" yesterday. Somehow I don't feel that going "Store > Update Genius" is the most usable way to activate a new feature... I really doubt my Mom would have ever figured that one out.
zaphar 17y ago
I have a mac but don't use ITunes because the playlist management is so poor. I use the mac port of Amarok instead. It's playlist management is way better for my needs. I don't use the ITunes store, don't have an IPhone, and want to play my music in formats that ITunes doesn't support. So for me when it comes to playing Music the Mac most emphatically doesnt do what I want out of the box. Granted I'm not the average user but still there's nothing wrong with wanting a music player that is just a music player. For people like me ITunes is just wasted Disk space since it has so few features I want and doesn't support many of the ones I do like.
- derefr 17y ago
  I used to create playlists for everything, but I realized that I was compensating with synthetic metadata for the lack of natural metadata attached to my files. By actually making use of the secondary ID3 tags (Genre, Rating, Kind, Play Count, Skip Count, Compilation?, Disc Number, and other such fields), and making sure they all have correct values, I find that I never have to make playlists, only fulltext-search-then-sort (which iTunes is very good at.) I say this as someone with 28000 listened songs :)
  - riffic 17y ago
    yeah but it's so hard to get good metadata these days. It'd be nice if iTunes did some sort of MusicBrainz thing.
  - zaphar 17y ago
    Amarok has similar functionality. With the added benefit of song queueing. So if I want to listen to a particular song without killing my playlist it's easy. And queuing a particular song to be next can influence the dynamic playlist allowing me to have one playlist that changes throughout the day to match my current mood/desires. Itunes doesn't have this feature and doesn't seem likely to anytime in the future.
shoesfullofdust 17y ago
Most of the software I run on my Mac is not from Apple. While I consider myself as a techie/nerd/geek, most of my friends who are on Macs are not. And yet, most of them are running non-Apple software on their Macs. Sorry to hear that you're stuck on Apple usability, but we've moved on.
jpwagner 17y ago
Let's just clarify... So your argument is: "Apple did all the research and has been successful in design before, so you must be wrong if you dislike it." And your suggestions are: 1. people should just live without the 88MB even if they don't use it. 2. visually ignore pieces of the ui if you don't use them. 3. configure your view to be simpler (as opposed to starting simple and configuring your view to be complex) I think if I stick your response in the un-jerk-ificatilator, the tranlation is: "I like those extra features and I bet you could configure your view to be more simple. Maybe Apple could add an easier way than the checkboxes Winamp had. Have a good day." Ah, much better.
- joubert 17y ago
  I never use the Help menu item / feature in any app. But I don't demand that it be removed because of the tyranny of the creator's design decisions which they deem correct for their overall audience.
tolmasky 17y ago
I think we're actually approaching the problem from the wrong direction. For me, I don't want those features in iTunes because I feel that those features are hindered by being shoved into iTunes, not necessarily the other way around. Examples: * (As I stated in another thread): I wish the iTunes store was just on the web. Being inside of iTunes, I get a "web like" experience that is encumbered. I can't open multiple tabs, and this often drives me crazy. On Amazon.com, or any online store, I'm often given lots of suggestions, good suggestions. I like to open them up in lots of tabs and then read them one by one, or just keep them around until later. Can't do it on the iTunes store! Also, it is often difficult to get links to items. ALSO, why should I only be allowed to see the store essentially when at home on my iTunes? If it was on the web, I could browser, get the link, email it to myself, and make the purchase when I get home. If they want to force you to buy through iTunes, they could still make a custom URL that popped iTunes open just for the downloading portion. * Movies and TV Shows. The management of these just kind of sucks on iTunes, and the reason is because this is MUSIC player, and music organization is very different to video organization. They are forced into this music metaphor which works well for songs, but not at all for videos. Had Apple integrated this into Quicktime or something else, it may have been much better. More importantly, it sucks for playing videos. With other video players, I can full screen and not have my other screens go black. Can't do it on iTunes. Again, I believe this is a function of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. * Preferences for EVERYTHING. There's all sorts of different preferences and options in iTunes and they're confusing because you're actually managing 7 programs, not 1. And even still, some prefs are left out (like the movie ones for example) because then it would be even more overwhelming. I don't even want to get into the fact that iTunes even talks to xcode (!!!!) to do all the iPhone SDK stuff and all the headaches that brings. Let's not kid ourselves, adding all this stuff into iTunes was not some sort of "design decision". Apple got iTunes onto enough computers, so now if they want them to see new Apple stuff they are going to put it in iTunes. Logical enough from a business perspective, but it sucks from a program perspective.

by mrshoe 17y ago

al3x 17y ago

There are some good points in this comment. Still, have you watched over the shoulder of a non-techie trying to use a recent version of iTunes? Accomplishing many goals, like configuring what content ends up on your iPod, is remarkably confusing for several people I've observed (and then helped). I'd just suggest that the number of installs of iTunes doesn't necessarily correlate to user satisfaction. If you own an iPod or iPhone, you have essentially no choice but to use iTunes, particularly if you're not technically inclined enough to investigate alternatives. Apple has a captive audience for iTunes.

Perceval 17y ago
I think you're right. Apple is daisy-chaining each one of its products to get more and more users. The iPod/iPhone requires iTunes, which requires Quicktime and Webkit, and which (on one occasion) was bundled with Safari. Because Apple has a captive audience, their usual aesthetic of hiding everything complex and letter the power user discover things has given over to the profit motive. Apple has an incentive to showcase features like the Genius Sidebar right off the bat, because Genius links into the iTunes Music Store. I read an interesting article on Steve Jobs and the original design of the iDVD application: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/28/idvd_hung_out_to_dry_as_apple_pushes_movies_online.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/28/idvd_hung_out_... The key bit for me was in this quote: Evangelist and a group of Astarte developers described pitching the simplified app concept to Steve Jobs. "Jobs never glanced at their presentation," the article noted. "Instead, he walked up to a whiteboard and drew a square. This is the program, he said. Users will drag their movies here to create DVD menus. Then they'll click 'burn.' That's it. 'I don't want to hear anything about drawers or pop-out' windows, he said." Seems like Steve needs to take his own hypercritical hatchet to iTunes. (http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2009/05/hypercritical.ars http://arstechnica.com/staff/fatbits/2009/05/hypercritical.a...). It would be just in time for iTunes X (pron. iTunes ten).
- joubert 17y ago
  That is because all these devices center around media. Note, iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band, Final Cut, are separate, because they would not make sense as part of iTunes (but they do integrate beautifully with iTunes).
ironkeith 17y ago
It honestly took me 10 minutes to figure out how to create a "Genius Mix" yesterday. Somehow I don't feel that going "Store > Update Genius" is the most usable way to activate a new feature... I really doubt my Mom would have ever figured that one out.

zaphar 17y ago

I have a mac but don't use ITunes because the playlist management is so poor. I use the mac port of Amarok instead. It's playlist management is way better for my needs. I don't use the ITunes store, don't have an IPhone, and want to play my music in formats that ITunes doesn't support. So for me when it comes to playing Music the Mac most emphatically doesnt do what I want out of the box. Granted I'm not the average user but still there's nothing wrong with wanting a music player that is just a music player. For people like me ITunes is just wasted Disk space since it has so few features I want and doesn't support many of the ones I do like.

derefr 17y ago
I used to create playlists for everything, but I realized that I was compensating with synthetic metadata for the lack of natural metadata attached to my files. By actually making use of the secondary ID3 tags (Genre, Rating, Kind, Play Count, Skip Count, Compilation?, Disc Number, and other such fields), and making sure they all have correct values, I find that I never have to make playlists, only fulltext-search-then-sort (which iTunes is very good at.) I say this as someone with 28000 listened songs :)
- riffic 17y ago
  yeah but it's so hard to get good metadata these days. It'd be nice if iTunes did some sort of MusicBrainz thing.
- zaphar 17y ago
  Amarok has similar functionality. With the added benefit of song queueing. So if I want to listen to a particular song without killing my playlist it's easy. And queuing a particular song to be next can influence the dynamic playlist allowing me to have one playlist that changes throughout the day to match my current mood/desires. Itunes doesn't have this feature and doesn't seem likely to anytime in the future.

shoesfullofdust 17y ago

Most of the software I run on my Mac is not from Apple. While I consider myself as a techie/nerd/geek, most of my friends who are on Macs are not. And yet, most of them are running non-Apple software on their Macs. Sorry to hear that you're stuck on Apple usability, but we've moved on.

jpwagner 17y ago

Let's just clarify... So your argument is: "Apple did all the research and has been successful in design before, so you must be wrong if you dislike it." And your suggestions are: 1. people should just live without the 88MB even if they don't use it. 2. visually ignore pieces of the ui if you don't use them. 3. configure your view to be simpler (as opposed to starting simple and configuring your view to be complex) I think if I stick your response in the un-jerk-ificatilator, the tranlation is: "I like those extra features and I bet you could configure your view to be more simple. Maybe Apple could add an easier way than the checkboxes Winamp had. Have a good day." Ah, much better.

joubert 17y ago
I never use the Help menu item / feature in any app. But I don't demand that it be removed because of the tyranny of the creator's design decisions which they deem correct for their overall audience.

tolmasky 17y ago

I think we're actually approaching the problem from the wrong direction. For me, I don't want those features in iTunes because I feel that those features are hindered by being shoved into iTunes, not necessarily the other way around. Examples: * (As I stated in another thread): I wish the iTunes store was just on the web. Being inside of iTunes, I get a "web like" experience that is encumbered. I can't open multiple tabs, and this often drives me crazy. On Amazon.com, or any online store, I'm often given lots of suggestions, good suggestions. I like to open them up in lots of tabs and then read them one by one, or just keep them around until later. Can't do it on the iTunes store! Also, it is often difficult to get links to items. ALSO, why should I only be allowed to see the store essentially when at home on my iTunes? If it was on the web, I could browser, get the link, email it to myself, and make the purchase when I get home. If they want to force you to buy through iTunes, they could still make a custom URL that popped iTunes open just for the downloading portion. * Movies and TV Shows. The management of these just kind of sucks on iTunes, and the reason is because this is MUSIC player, and music organization is very different to video organization. They are forced into this music metaphor which works well for songs, but not at all for videos. Had Apple integrated this into Quicktime or something else, it may have been much better. More importantly, it sucks for playing videos. With other video players, I can full screen and not have my other screens go black. Can't do it on iTunes. Again, I believe this is a function of being a jack of all trades and a master of none. * Preferences for EVERYTHING. There's all sorts of different preferences and options in iTunes and they're confusing because you're actually managing 7 programs, not 1. And even still, some prefs are left out (like the movie ones for example) because then it would be even more overwhelming. I don't even want to get into the fact that iTunes even talks to xcode (!!!!) to do all the iPhone SDK stuff and all the headaches that brings. Let's not kid ourselves, adding all this stuff into iTunes was not some sort of "design decision". Apple got iTunes onto enough computers, so now if they want them to see new Apple stuff they are going to put it in iTunes. Logical enough from a business perspective, but it sucks from a program perspective.