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September 13, 2006

itunes

iTunes: is there a standard UI element left?

Posted Sep. 13, ’06, 7:35 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | iTunes

iTunes 7 UI iTunes has with each new version, departed farther and farther from the familiar and safe user interface elements we know and love. Here is an all inclusive picture version of what’s going on. I’ll do a text rundown.

  • Gone are the standard scroll bars. Instead of having a set of up and down arrows at each end, they exist at only a single end. They’ve also got their own individual cartoonish look. When I first saw it in Windows, I thought it was particular to windows. So much for that.

  • Everything has a greyish-blueish tinge. Even the checkmarks have it.

  • The buttons are squarer, flatter, and grayer than any I’ve seen before.

  • The iPod screen has its own kind of tabs, unique to iTunes. I don’t know what to make of them yet. They certainly don’t fit the Aqua or Bushed Metal aesthetic. They seem at home in the Unified environment, but only because other elements give the blue hue needed.

  • Even the pop-up menus are unique to the new interface.

  • The check-marks and radio buttons are very reminiscent of Greg’s Buttons (for those with a memory that long).

  • The Spotlight scope selection interface is gone. The scope is solely chosen based upon what is chosen in the source list.

I can’t decide if Apple has decided to shout that iTunes has its own UI and always will or if it’s trying to give a little Leopard preview. At any rate, the stodgy old codger in me doesn’t like the departure from the standard. The wild child in me likes how it looks.


11 Comments

Joshua Dickens said:

Okay ignore my dumb comment. You are right...

September 13, 2006 9:37 AM
jwbjerk said:

I like the iTunes 7 overall. The cover browser is fun—and a nifty new UI element. Some things, like the scroll bars, and the ALL CAPS HEADINGs in the playlist bar bother me. In general, though, i hope it indicates the direction of things in the leopard UI.

September 13, 2006 10:36 AM
Kevin Mellem said:

This seems odd to me, since my scroll buttons in the iTunes window are at the top and bottom as they always were (at least on a PC).

September 13, 2006 10:46 AM
Howard said:

Wildchild that doesn't like change?

On the PC the scrollbars are exactly where they always where, at the to pand bottom.

I prefer the less childish look to be honest

September 13, 2006 10:27 PM
John said:

I think the new UI look is really nice, muted and classy. The old aqua thing was starting to look really dated and the new UI is certainly (for me anyway) a bold step in a new direction. I hope they make the WHOLE UI systemwide consistant with Leopard, it’s pretty haphazard in Tiger. Lot’s of glowing buttons and ‘bling’ factor scroll bars might win fans in the short term but a more stylish and restrained UI will not date as quickly and will actually grow on people over time. Two thumbs up from me!!

September 15, 2006 4:00 PM
eric.l Author Profile Page said:

Ugh! The ALL CAPS headings bother me too.

September 15, 2006 4:05 PM
Carl Jonard said:

The scroll bar arrows match the setting chosen in the Appearance preference pane, which is "at top & bottom" by default, but can be changed to "together." This is actually more consistent with the Mac OS X GUI.

As far as the scope is concerned, you can choose which categories to search from the drop-down menu. Why would you need a redundant interface to select which playlists to search when everything is already one click away on the left side of the screen?

(BTW, Greg's Buttons rocked, but didn't it just emulate the "Copland" button style used in Mac OS 8?)

September 18, 2006 10:41 AM
Rob Marquardt said:

The all-caps sidebar headings can be edited in iTunes.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/Localizable.strings (or whatever your preferred language is) starting down at line 136.

And if iTunes 7 is a sample of the Leopard to come, I have to wonder why Apple fired their interface designers.

September 18, 2006 10:54 AM
Niclet said:

Also the "Keep this ipod in source list" feature is totally gone :(

September 18, 2006 11:36 AM
Justin Damer said:

DON'T BE CRUDE, CAPS AREN'T (always) RUDE!

Unless they are used in the body of an email, or in a posting online (like I just did), the typographic device of capitalization is used to denote hierarchy. This has been the case (no pun intended) for a long, long, long time. For perfect examples, refer to the heading "POST A COMMENT" on this page, among others, which uses capitalization instead of a weight change or a significantly larger size to create contrast and thereby denote hierarchy between itself and its subordinate elements.

Capitalizing the headers in the iTunes source list is a great way to create sub-sections in the list, without having headers that overly fragment the group as a whole.

September 18, 2006 7:07 PM
Derik Author Profile Page said:

I clearly didn't explain the scroll bar thing... clearly.

I use Tinkertool to change my scroll bar style the hybrid "together at both ends", which gives both up and down arrows at both ends of the scroll bar.

iTunes is the ONLY application that doesn't respect this. As such, it's clear that they are not standard scroll bars.

September 18, 2006 9:13 PM

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