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digruntled by iTunes 7 design

decksnap

decksnap

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Apr 11, 2003
3,078
88
I was called a whiner for saying this in the iTunes 7 thread, so I thought I'd start a new thread for those of us who hate the new design to commiserate. And perhaps to hear how some actual designers feel about it.

Does anybody else HATE the new scrollbars and buttons? I feel like I am running some OS 9/ Windows cross-breed, and am regretting upgrading, features be damned.
 
The interface on the whole is a bit too dark and drab. I prefer the lighter UNO color scheme and aqua buttons.
 
I agree its not the best looking the scroll bars make it look very unpolished, I am surprised apple would release it looking like this lets hope they listen and make it look a bit nicer in 7.0.1,

SHadoW
 
I'm kind of impartial, though I think I like it.

Funnily, off the top of my memory, isn't its look and feel now somewhat similar to Sony's Connect music software?
 
I like some aspects of the new design - the colour palette and scroll bars. But I really don't like the look of the music note icon in blue, and it seems that the actual shape of it is slightly different. I also think the sidebar has too much empty space.
 
max_altitude said:
But I really don't like the look of the music note icon in blue, and it seems that the actual shape of it is slightly different.
Click to expand...

I like it, but then I hate green... :p I bet they'll use purple again in the future at some point, and then it'll be back to green again.
 
I definitely like the scroll bars' new look, but why are they drab awful blue (even in the graphite theme)? If it was uno-ified, and the scroll bars were still smooth but a much lighter grey (and not effing blue) it would be a lot nicer. Having said that, I wish OSX's graphite theme changed more than just the apple logo and a few other bits. If the colour's going to be nasty blue I'd rather not have any, thanks. :p

I like the new side menu and playlists menu look, there's a lot more space around them but why the capitals for the titles? The play buttons at the top look a lot better and smoother, and I like the view buttons, but the ones at the bottom look really cramped, they need more space above and below.

Overall, there's some nice bits, but it seems a bit unfinished looking in places. Hopefully it'll mature over future editions.

Edit: Here's a lighter UNO type version, with red highlights. I loves me some red. :) :

 
Is that a mockup or did you actually edit the source? I'm looking at definitely replacing the new play buttons with the old ones, and I would love to remove the craptastic blue from the godawful scrollbars.
 
One thought that occured to me, and that worries me, is that they are making these changes simply to make it easier to transition to an all-vector interface for the res-independant GUI. If that is the case, I don't like the trade-off.
 
I like it... It's not perfect, and it may not even be an improvement, but it's nice.
 
It's the inconsistencies that bug me. The itunes window uses the new style popup menus, but the equalizer uses the old style aqua control.

The source list uses black for the selection, instead of what the user has selected in the Appearance control panel, but the song list does use the correct colour.
 
decksnap said:
Is that a mockup or did you actually edit the source? I'm looking at definitely replacing the new play buttons with the old ones, and I would love to remove the craptastic blue from the godawful scrollbars.
Click to expand...

Just a mockup. I'd love to have it (and the rest of OSX) looking like that, so if anyone knows how to do it, I'd be very grateful. :D
 
I think, unfortunately, with iTunes and the iPod, Apple has made it clear that Windows comes first or at least takes high priority. The whole feel of the new iTunes strikes me as very Vista and less OS X. I doubt that this was an accident much like switching to USB2 over Firewire was a slap in the face to Mac users.

With that said, I actually like most of the new look. The buttons are nice. They looked too flat in the old iTunes. The scroll bar though is not their best design.
 
baleensavage said:
I think, unfortunately, with iTunes and the iPod, Apple has made it clear that Windows comes first or at least takes high priority. The whole feel of the new iTunes strikes me as very Vista and less OS X.
Click to expand...

It struck me as being more influenced by the Motion GUI (albeit less shiny) than by Vista...
 
whooleytoo said:
The source list uses black for the selection, instead of what the user has selected in the Appearance control panel, but the song list does use the correct colour.
Click to expand...

i'm really not a big fan of the black highlight. Nasty nasty.
 
Consider me a fan.

Aqua, and its distracting shine and over-saturated colors has got to go.

But, in all fairness, I think the colors are a little too non-neutral. iTunes 7 has a very "rainy day" look to it.

I'd like it more if it were grays and subtle blue's as highlights, not dark grey and overcast blue everywhere :(
 
They embraced the Unified look-and-feel with version 6 and now, it's all gone.

It's as if the team just can't leave it alone. I suppose the metal looks more like the exterior of the new shuffle and nano models just released. I hope that this isn't a sign of the changes they've made to Leopard.
 
Does anybody know where in the system I can dig up the old .pngs for the play/ff/ buttons of iTunes 6? They didn't seem to be inside the iTunes 6 pacakge contents. I guess this is because they are shared with Quicktime and such.
 
decksnap said:
Does anybody know where in the system I can dig up the old .pngs for the play/ff/ buttons of iTunes 6? They didn't seem to be inside the iTunes 6 pacakge contents. I guess this is because they are shared with Quicktime and such.
Click to expand...
No, they're not shared with Quicktime, I believe they are in the file "iTunes.rsrc" inside iTunes' resource folder. I don't know why a bunch of iTunes' resources are stored in this file--I thought this kind of thing went out of style with OS 9.

You can still get to them but you have to use a resource editor. I'm not really sure what's out there, maybe someone else can help with that.
 
I'm more pissed off at Cover Flow. It works extremely poor on my pc, its slow and not smooth at all.


I dont know if its 'cause its a PC (its a fast machine) or because I have around 100-150 albums.




i do like the look of itunes 7 though. :D
 
I don't think it's the amount of albums. I have hundreds and it 'scrolls like butter' on my G5s.
 
xli_ne said:
I'm more pissed off at Cover Flow. It works extremely poor on my pc, its slow and not smooth at all.


I dont know if its 'cause its a PC (its a fast machine) or because I have around 100-150 albums.




i do like the look of itunes 7 though. :D
Click to expand...

It's smooth for me on a 1.33 GHz PowerBook with only 768 MB and with 159 albums but most of the artwork isn't there. It probably will require more tuning of QuickTime to get it to work better on Windows. However, QuickTime never seems to work well on Windows. Then again, what does? I suppose the good thing is that RealPlayer looks bad everywhere. :D
 
MacNut said:
It would be cool if Apple would allow us to edit the colors.
Click to expand...

I second this idea, the colours are dull, but I do like the blue icon - which is unusual as green is my favourite colour.

Here's something i posted in the iPod/iTunes Discussion thread, its about the design.
I think i maybe nitpicking, but i think these would help:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/233533/

Comments/Suggestions/Ideas are welcome
 
Me like! This is much better interface than anything else. Trust me. I hope they will do the same for Leopard. Sorry fellas but this is gonna happen. :D
 
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