News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

September 12, 2006

music

iTunes 7: first impressions from the underground

Authored by Scott Silverman at 1:53 PM
Category | Music
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iTunes 7 LogoNo later was the Apple Store back online than I was downloading iTunes 7. Touted as “the most significant enhancement to the… [iTunes Music] store since it debuted in 2001,” I wanted to see just what iTunes 7 was really about. Here’s a few of my first impressions, complete with pictures and a few tips—after the jump!

200609121457First of all, an exciting new feature presents itself during the install process. As you can see from the image to the right, iTunes 7 now supports the automatic downloading of album art. And yes it works with all your music—not just the songs you’ve purchased from the iTMS. The option for this is under the menu Advanced > Get Album Artwork. There are also several other new and exciting options under the advanced menu, such as Join CD Tracks and Submit Track Names.

200609121508The next interesting function of iTunes is what it immediately started doing to my music. I noticed my hard drive was clicking away—that was because iTunes was “Determining Gapless Playback Information.” I suppose this means that, similar to Sound Check, there will be settings built into every file on your iPod for Gapless Playback. Once it finished processing my music for gapless playback, it took no breaks and immediately starting “Processing Album Artwork,” which I will assume means it is downloading Album Art from the iTMS (what a great feature!).

200609121517The most obvious new feature of iTunes is the brand new look. As you can see in the image to the right, Apple gave version seven an entirely new interface (along with an entirely new icon). The interface reminds me of an “underground” music service that I used back in the day, with it’s negative-style text, and glossy, glasslike icons. It has lost any resemblance of the Aqua interface. Yup, that’s right, goodbye glassy-blue scroll bars. I like the new buttons and underground look, but hope it doesn’t grow too old too fast.

The new music/movie store is pretty cool as well. I love Apple’s implementation of the 3D scrolling on the new “Movies” page. But enough of my blabbering—go download yourself a copy of iTunes 7 and check it out for yourself! (As of posting time, the iTunes 7 update is still not showing up in Software Update.)


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