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.
17 comments so far
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macx September 08, 2005 at 12:06 AM
Ich hab mir gerade mal das Video der Keynote angesehen. iTunes sieht nach dem Update eleganter aus. Über die Features müssen wir nicht wirklich reden, die sind sehr sinnvoll — vor allem die Searchbar.
Kobayashi September 08, 2005 at 12:13 AM
Wow! What a good design. I didn’t read the post because i cant take my eyes away from these superb colors. Thank you!
Tom September 08, 2005 at 12:32 AM
Die alten sortierten/geordneten Alben/Interpreten/Lieder bleiben?
Wolfgang September 08, 2005 at 12:41 AM
Ja, die alte iTunes Bibliothek wird konvertiert und alle Inhalte, Playlists etc. bleiben erhalten. Ging sogar auf meinem PowerMac G4 1.25GHz ziemlich flott — ca. eine Minute.
Marc September 08, 2005 at 12:50 AM
And still I don’t have a clue how this can compete with Winamp 5.1.
iTunes 5 comes with a spotlight like search bar… it’s finally possible to organize your playlists into folders…
Features that are part of Winamps basic functionality for ages. But, for not being the worst (don’t shoot), I will give it a go :-D
Yannick September 08, 2005 at 01:01 AM
It’s looking pretty good if you ask me. I love the new look.
Alex September 08, 2005 at 01:30 AM
Auch ich finde iTunes 5 wirklich hübsch und kann die viele Kritik, die man auf den verschiedenen Seiten lesen kann nicht so ganz verstehen. Das neue Theme finde ich persönlich angenehmer als Brushed Metal und ich vermute auch, dass die ganzen iApps mit dem nächsten iLife-Paket auf dieses Aussehen umgestellt werden.
Es gibt ja auch nicht wenige, die sich über die verschiedenen Themes bei OS X beschweren. Ich finde das hingegen nicht schlecht, dass verschiedene Anwendungsgruppen verschiedene Aussehen haben. Vielleicht liegt es daran, dass ich erst seit zwei Monaten einen Mac habe und davor Windows, was ja nicht unbedingt sehr schön ist, benutzt habe.
melted September 08, 2005 at 01:40 AM
nice… nice…
Bernd Hubl September 08, 2005 at 01:59 AM
hallo
tolle seite hier und geniales design, gibts irgendwo noch so ähnliche seiten als inspiraton ?
Dodo September 08, 2005 at 03:07 AM
Zitat von Wolfgang:
“Ging sogar auf meinem PowerMac G4 1.25GHz ziemlich flott — ca. eine Minute.”
Der war echt gut ;-) es ging sogar auf meinem iBook ziemlich
schnell.
Und ich muss sagen das Design sieht auch klasse aus.
Ein klares ++
cya
Dodo
Johannes September 08, 2005 at 03:09 AM
@Marc: “Features that are part of Winamps basic functionality for ages. ”
The Searchbar isnt new in iTunes, too… The search just has been refined…
I used Winamp for years but then switched to iTunes even on my Windows PC, because iTunes manages my music much better (my opinion which is partly based on facts, and partly on my sympathy for apple products ;) )
greetz, Johannes
Alex September 08, 2005 at 03:15 AM
@ Bernd Hubl:
Auf der Seite pixelgraphix.de von Manuela Hoffmann wurden mal einige sehr schöne Seiten zusammengetragen. Hier der Link:
Link
Patrick September 08, 2005 at 06:35 AM
Hallo Wolfgang
Wirklich sehr schönes Design von Deiner Site wie auch Deine Arbeiten.
Wurden die iPod mini’s durch den iPod nano ersetzt. Schade habe mir gerade einen iPod mini silver gekauft und das Dumme — der nano gefällt mir besser :-)
Grüsse
Patrick
One Stop Under September 08, 2005 at 09:16 AM
They also seem to have fixed up the handling of podcasts. In 4.9, I had several podcasts (e.g. IT Conversations) that would go a week without downloading anything, even though I could see from the web site that there was new content available. Then one day it would start working again, before stopping again a few days later. I’m guessing it was a problem with iTunes’ parsing of the XML files, but it’s great to have it working properly again!
pickupjojo September 09, 2005 at 01:51 AM
I think that the new iTunes version is very cool, but on Windows the look seems strange… However the new search bar like Spotlight is very nice !
Alicia September 13, 2005 at 11:45 PM
That’s very interestin, thank you for that information.
ZeFroG September 14, 2005 at 08:29 AM
My iPod Shuffle doesn’t work anymore :s
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