What is Apple playing at with the iTunes 10 interface?

In the latest issue of our newsletter ( http://www.elated.com/newsletter/ ), I ponder the oddities of the new iTunes 10 interface.

What do you think about Apple's interfaces, or indeed the new iPod line? Are they right to bring back the buttons for the shuffle? Will Ping take off? Sound off below!

[Edited by matt on 07-Sep-10 21:00]

--
ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

Personally I don't understand why so many people are up in arms against the iTunes icon. It's only an icon -- get over it! There are more important things in the world...

The new "traffic light" arrangement of the window buttons is odd, but it does save space, so I can see why they did it. The question then becomes: Is it OK for some apps to go vertical, while others remain horizontal? Or should all apps follow the same convention?

However I totally agree with you about the new desaturated icons in the left pane. They all look the same now. In fact I already subconsciously ignore them and read the text next to them instead.

Odd though these changes might be, I'm still glad that Apple experiments with new UI designs. If they didn't then OS X would still look like this:

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macosxpb

Regarding the iPods: I'm not convinced by the new nano, it seems like they've sacrificed a lot just to make it smaller. And putting the headphone jack on the same side as the dock connector is an odd choice (no more listening to music while charging in the dock presumably?). It looks cute though!

Quite like the new Shuffle - I can see myself getting one for the kids.

Matt

--
Matt Doyle, Elated
3rd Edition of my jQuery Mobile book out now! Learn to build mobile web apps. Free sample chapter: http://store.elated.com/

@matt, I think you're right in that it's good that Apple experiments with interfaces, I just think that sometimes they do things very randomly. Traffic light buttons? Just on iTunes, in defiance of every other window on the Mac? That's just fiddling.

And that icon is truly horrid.

Simon

--
ELATED : )
http://www.PageKits.com
Professional Website Templates

Personally I don't use iTunes, but I did find the fact listed in Elated interesting that a lot of the interface was changed around from what most people would feel is the "conventional" setting for some functions. Why change something for change sake?

It's fine to maybe bring out new colors, styles, but when it comes to the functionality that all are very familiar with, why change it and make people look for where that common functionality they knew so well has been moved to or what it looks like now? This isn't too bad, when you can get the same tooltip information by mousing over all the little changes to find what you need, after the interface has been redone.

This is my take on the new logo...just for funnsies:

http://img807.imageshack.us/img807/2171/tearitunes10icon.jpg

Ron

[Edited by PayneLess Designs on 15-Sep-10 19:56]

--
For economical web site designs, see us at:

http://PayneLessDesigns.com