# The Best "iTunes"



## dwp (Aug 12, 2003)

I've heard a lot of chatter lately about iTunes both good and bad which got me to thinking which is/was the best version of iTunes?
Some argue the current version is best, some the one just before the current version and others argue pre 10!

Here's the link to the iTunes Version History

iTunes version history - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What's your favourite and why?


----------



## SummerClique (Feb 16, 2013)

I definitely love the latest version of iTunes. I think the simplified UI and aesthetics were a welcoming change from the usual sidebar. Of course, some others loved that sidebar which is still accessible until now via a slight change from the view menu bar.


----------



## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

1.0

It was so slick for its time, and free to download. It really did make me say "wow!" even though I had tried various other jukebox programs on Mac and Windows. Or maybe it wowed me because I had tried so much of the fussy, gaudy software that came before. What it lost in power compared to its predecessor, Soundjam, it more than made up in style and ease of use. The iPod and iTunes music store were still a couple of years away, I was still using OS 9, but somehow I still had the feeling this was a game changer. 
.


----------



## tompatrick (Oct 14, 2011)

itunes 10 for me until itunes 11 got in which was hated in the beginning for its complexity.


----------



## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

11 is an unusable mess, I've downgraded back to 10.


----------



## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

11 is awful, nothing works well at all.


----------



## dona83 (Jun 26, 2005)

I love 11!!!


----------



## monokitty (Jan 26, 2002)

dona83 said:


> I love 11!!!


+1; version 11 is the best version to date.


----------



## Z06jerry (Mar 16, 2005)

dona83 said:


> I love 11!!!


+2. Another vote for iTunes 11.


----------



## rgray (Feb 15, 2005)

The "best" version of iTunes depends on the version of OSX you are dealing with, the version(s) of iOS and the age of the iDevices you are trying to sync up.


----------



## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly where they'd moved the furniture around to, but now I really enjoy iTunes 11. Note that all my systems are bang up to date software wise.


----------



## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

iTunes 11 is still too buggy.... SoundJam is my favourite version of iTunes ;-)


----------



## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

My only qualm about 11 is that it forces me to find out how to turn off warnings about such things as a cloud service I never use. Otherwise 11 is fine with me.


----------



## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

rgray said:


> The "best" version of iTunes depends on the version of OSX you are dealing with, the version(s) of iOS and the age of the iDevices you are trying to sync up.


And whether or not you need to connect to the iTunes store. I have an older computer using iTunes 4.x which works absolutely great as a music hub attached to a seventies era stereo.

If store connection is not required then 7 or 8 were great versions and still very usable on older equipment. 

iTunes 9 was the first severely bloated version and store speeds still require about a minute every time you turn around.

I like 10 and therefore have not bothered to upgrade to 11. Since iCloud is not a consideration for me, I will stay at 10 for the foreseeable future.


----------



## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

Starting to like the latest update to 11.02, It's a bit better than 11.00
It's less confusing, Especially without an iPod or iPad hooked up,
I find it a lot easier to navigate the store without the added confusion of having the iPad hooked up.


----------



## chas_m (Dec 2, 2007)

I did notice that 11.0.2 improved the speed of media importing.


----------



## cap10subtext (Oct 13, 2005)

I'm good with 11. 10 was starting to annoy me. I don't think much of the top layout in 11, but functionally it plays nicely with all the machines I've installed it on and I like the way it handles multiple devices. Seems pretty stable too (which I've more or less stopped counting on these days).


----------



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

Version 11 is a steaming pile of horse **** for musicians that rely on playlists. I find that I constantly have to use the drop-down menu to do any of the simple tasks that I need to do every day. I'm going to downgrade. Plus, they got rid of the scrubber on the mini player which was invaluable for searching within long audio files when it is in always on top mode.


----------



## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

I hate how I can no longer make the shuffle feature apply to only certain playlists like I could previously. 
I have a playlist of singles that I like to have shuffle... Turn it on and it affects all my playlists. Turn it off and it gets turned off in the playlist as well


----------



## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

SoundJam was the best iTunes.


----------



## Gerk (Dec 21, 2012)

chas_m said:


> I did notice that 11.0.2 improved the speed of media importing.


And I can still reliably crash it searching shared libraries. Apple's QA has gone downhill in a huge way.


----------



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

<startrant>The worst part is that when you put in a CD you only seem to have an import cd option. Since apple did away with the perfectly functional clicking and dragging into the left hand column, I couldn't find a way to import only one, or a few songs from a cd! Plus, before, you could import a cd right into a playlist, if you so desired. Right click as I might, I couldn't find a way to do that. It's probably buried somewhere in their ridiculous arrangement of drop down menus but I consider myself a pretty experience iTunes user and I couldn't find it after a good amount of fiddling. It's not like iTunes ever was a professional grade playback system but the latest version pretty much castrated any usable features that any pros could use in favour of stupid cover art pictures leaving pros looking for alternatives. </endrant>


----------



## dwp (Aug 12, 2003)

I'm still trying to get iTunes to stream to my Apple TV2 without losing the connection after 3 or 4 songs.
Still working on it. I've narrowed it down to the Macbook Pro and I know it's not the ethernet cable, wi-fi, or the energy saver preference, so I'm getting close. A few more months and I'll have it nailed down, by George!
But 11 works well for me so far. It's so beautifully grey! Goes well with Ontario in the winter.


----------



## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Pat McCrotch said:


> <startrant>The worst part is that when you put in a CD you only seem to have an import cd option. Since apple did away with the perfectly functional clicking and dragging into the left hand column, I couldn't find a way to import only one, or a few songs from a cd! Plus, before, you could import a cd right into a playlist, if you so desired. Right click as I might, I couldn't find a way to do that. It's probably buried somewhere in their ridiculous arrangement of drop down menus but I consider myself a pretty experience iTunes user and I couldn't find it after a good amount of fiddling. It's not like iTunes ever was a professional grade playback system but the latest version pretty much castrated any usable features that any pros could use in favour of stupid cover art pictures leaving pros looking for alternatives. </endrant>


Just check the songs you want to import and uncheck the ones you don't. Easy-peasy.


----------



## jhuynh (Mar 21, 2011)

Pat, you can't drag and drop even when you turn the side bar back on? I've never really used the feature for importing CD's but I just tried dragging and dropping a file with the sidebar on and it let me do it...


----------



## heavyall (Nov 2, 2012)

I get frustrated with people who say they like iTunes 11. IMO, those people are a problem for the quality of the Apple products going forward. Apple delivers complete garbage, and they say "thank you sir, may I have another?"

I've yet to see or experience a single improvement going from 10 to 11, but I have seen functionality that I use daily removed. iTunes 10 is iTunes Pro, iTunes 11 is iTunes Lite.


----------



## dwp (Aug 12, 2003)

heavyall said:


> I get frustrated with people who say they like iTunes 11. IMO, those people are a problem for the quality of the Apple products going forward. Apple delivers complete garbage, and they say "thank you sir, may I have another?"
> 
> I've yet to see or experience a single improvement going from 10 to 11, but I have seen functionality that I use daily removed. iTunes 10 is iTunes Pro, iTunes 11 is iTunes Lite.


I take it you don't like grey either? Grey is... so grey, so conservative, so flannel pant like,
like a sensible suit! Half a shade away from black. Like death!

Seriously as a long-time Apple customer I jumped over their wall back in September when the iPhone 5 was introduced. I've since sold my iPhones and iPads and am down to my Macbook Pro running 10.6.8. Apple doesn't speak to me anymore as a consumer, they're geared for a younger demographic of which I'm not a part.

My friends don't care what music I'm listening to, they don't care what I just saw, they don't care where I am every moment of the day and they don't give a rats-a.. as to what I'm thinking. As you can gather social media doesn't play a large role in my life.

But I'm not the average consumer and I'm not the customer Apple's trying to attract.

I think you might be right about iTunes 10 although change and adjustment is always difficult.


----------



## jhuynh (Mar 21, 2011)

I don't mind 11. I really don't have a preference of one over the other. I do notice that I have less issues with 11 and wireless sync. I still have issues occasionally and have to restart iTunes but with version 10 I always had to restart every time I wanted to sync wirelessly(the device would not always show up in iTunes 10 no matter what I tried to fix it except for restarting iTunes).


----------



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

jhuynh said:


> Pat, you can't drag and drop even when you turn the side bar back on? I've never really used the feature for importing CD's but I just tried dragging and dropping a file with the sidebar on and it let me do it...


Wow! I have my sidebar back! Sweeeet. Thanks for the tip. I'm gonna fill my dad in on this so he can get a useable interface again. I'll try and spend more time sifting through all the random features they've hidden in their menus. Thanks apple for making my iTunes so windows like. Might as well ditch system prefs and replace it with a cluttered up mess called control panel :clap:

One feature I've always though should be easier to find is how to adjust the bitrate for encoding mp3s. It's under prefs / general / import settings . Seriously, thank you again for helping me reactivate the sidebar. Managing music and playlists on my iDevices won't be such a nightmare now.


----------



## mlmummert (Jan 3, 2013)

jhuynh said:


> Pat, you can't drag and drop even when you turn the side bar back on? I've never really used the feature for importing CD's but I just tried dragging and dropping a file with the sidebar on and it let me do it...


It lets you do it. I did it that way the other week.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

heavyall said:


> I get frustrated with people who say they like iTunes 11. IMO, those people are a problem for the quality of the Apple products going forward. Apple delivers complete garbage, and they say "thank you sir, may I have another?"
> 
> I've yet to see or experience a single improvement going from 10 to 11, but I have seen functionality that I use daily removed. iTunes 10 is iTunes Pro, iTunes 11 is iTunes Lite.


That's a strange comment. Why should it bother you if other people like something you don't? I think the choice for AirPlay options at the top by the play button makes perfect sense, and I welcome the return of color. Not sure why you need to be so negative.


----------



## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

fjnmusic said:


> That's a strange comment. Why should it bother you if other people like something you don't? I think the choice for AirPlay options at the top by the play button makes perfect sense, and I welcome the return of color. Not sure why you need to be so negative.


I think the reasoning is that many people, myself included find that iTunes 11 is a steaming pile of road apples. It has some mediocre eye candy added but has done away with many features people found vital. I used to use the mini player on always on top mode all the time. Now that it doesn't have a scrubber, how am I supposed to sift through a two hour long recording of rehearsal and go to the eight song to look over the chord changes? Also, I find it much harder to navigate.

Same thing goes with Lion. When I first started using macs, I loved it because I didn't have all that much difficulty doing stuff. The interface was pure awesomeness. I convinced my father to start using macs and his first experience was with lion. When he had questions about using certain features, I found that I had to search a long time to find solutions. This was unlike the out-of-the-box ease of use that I experienced with previous operating system versions.

Some users are frustrated by apple's recent decision/direction and feel that they might not be tempted to change if most of the faithful just accept with open arms any garbage that apple puts out. No offence if you like the new iTunes but I'd much rather keep some nice features than look at cover art all day! Anyway, as soon as the music gets playing, I usually just turn the screen off on my iDevices to save battery life. Who sits there and stares at the purdy pictures while their music plays?


----------



## irontree (Oct 28, 2006)

For those who don't know about DockArt it's a neat little plugin that will change your iTunes icon to that of the artwork of your currently playing tune.
DockArt
Pretty neat little piece of software


----------



## dwp (Aug 12, 2003)

heavyall said:


> iTunes 10 is iTunes Pro, iTunes 11 is iTunes Lite.


Heavyall, I'm curious why you say iTunes 10 is Pro and 11 is Lite?

Are you talking about the quality of the conversions iTunes performs from CD to sound file? I haven't played with iTunes 11 enough to discover the differences between 10 and 11 yet, but I've always been somewhat suspicious of the "quality" of the conversions iTunes performs when converting from CD.


----------



## fellfromtree (May 18, 2005)

Still extremely annoyed with the Store in 11. You can't swipe back and forth- arg! Too much clicking and scrolling. Click to see songs, click to see reviews, click to go back. 
iTunes 11 doesn't remember where you were. If you click on something on a main page, look at it, go back to the main page- you're back at the top or beginning of a side scroll.

Ditto in Library view. If I'm listening to an album in album view, I have the album open and expanded, click to see something in the store, click to go back to the Library- I'm back at the top of my library, and the album playing is no longer expanded, and I have to scroll scroll scroll to find the album again. 

There's no reference for where you are in album view. I get nauseous scrolling through albums. There needs to an alphabetic reference down the side like in iOS, and I should be able to return to where I left off.
If they fix the reference/navigation, I will enjoy 11.


----------

