iTunes 5
Beside the stunning new iPod nano Apple also released a new version of their famous music jukebox. The most significant change is the new, polished user interface. Just in case that you haven’t downloaded it yet — here are some screenshots.
What’s new?
First of all let’s take a look at what’s new beside the new interface. iTunes 5 comes with a spotlight like search bar, providing you with a way to easily find the songs you are looking for. Furthermore it’s finally possible to organize your playlists into folders. Thanks. Windows user can now sync their iPod with Outlook and Outlook Express. What about Thunderbird? And last but not least the new built in parental control limits kids’ access to podcasts — this obviously happend in response to the porncast discussion a few months ago.
Polished user interface
Anyway, back to our actual topic — iTunes’ revised user interface. To tell the truth the new interface does not differ that much from the old one, but there are nevertheless some aspects that are worth mentioning. First of all you will notice that all margins are gone — similar to the new UI of Apple Mail or NetNewsWire 2 — which is space saving and makes the whole UI look much lighter. The source list on the left has a subtle bluish background, similar to the one used in Apple Mail’s mailbox list. I like it.
Brushed metal gone
But the most significant change is that the controversial brushed metal theme has been replaced with a… well much sleeker one, which is also quite similar to the one of Mail. There are only a minor differences in the main window’s color and border radius.
Consistency
Some of you may argue that this is yet another theme for Mac OS, may argue that it is another step towards inconsistency. Well if you just look at existing apps you may be right — but what about future apps? What if this new theme would become the default theme for all brushed metal applications, such as iCal, Address Book or the iLife apps? Don’t you think that this would definitely improve consistency? Well at least I do and it makes me curious about how future releases of iLife apps could look like.
