# the new iTunes



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sucks soooooo bad. 

Can I get the old one back? 

If not, this is the last straw. Screw apple. They've sucked since Steve Jobs died. I hope they go bankrupt.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

What happened with iTunes? I have iTunes, but I don't really go on my home computer very often these days.


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## Schubussy (Nov 2, 2012)

It hasn't asked me to update it or anything. Guess I'll decline if I can if it asks me to. Might be worth switching to winamp if only for its visualizer, it's much better than itunes' one.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I love my winamp. It has always been my music player.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I will look into winamp. I have an iphone now so it's not a good option, but I won't make this mistake with my next phone! 

Sonata, two things important to me changed: one, you can no longer view the album artwork if you view a playlist as a list of songs; second, the time of a playlist can no longer be displayed as "days:hours:minutes:seconds" - only something like "14.1 days."

And in general, it's rear-end-ugly. It's like the old iTunes got hit in the face by a toddler with a transformer doll.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I'm not sure how much you'd like winamp coming from itunes. I know there is a media library option with artwork and all that now, but I don't use it. I stick to the very basic, basic design of the original. Just a window you load mp3s into and then play. No frills, really. Therefore, I can't attest to the quality of the other, more modern, features. I also downloaded sound enhancers, which is what I feel puts it over the top of any other music player I've tried.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I think I have been stopping this update... I usually press "no" when it asks "do you want to update?". I don't like updates, I don't need updates, and half of the time I do updates I regret it. If I get a new computer with processing power to waste, then I might update some stuff.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

I actually have always hated iTunes. It really makes my computer run slow, and there's other irritating featuers. I only use it because I like the hardware so much (my iPod touch and iPad), and they don't let you manage those with any other software.


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## Meaghan (Jul 31, 2010)

I've been declining its requests to update for the past year and a half or so. Things are great over here!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I almost updated, then I saw this. Thanks for the warning.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sonata said:


> I actually have always hated iTunes. It really makes my computer run slow, and there's other irritating featuers. I only use it because I like the hardware so much (my iPod touch and iPad), and they don't let you manage those with any other software.


Evidently the new version is supposed to be much faster.

Before I had a Mac iTunes slowed down my computer a lot, especially when it was uploading from a CD. But on a Mac, it hasn't been so bad.

Still, the new version sucks. When I change phones, I will put some work into finding a better music player.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

iTunes is designed for the Mac from the ground up. On other machines, it's an approximation. I have a Mac Mini media server, an iMac, iPhone and iPad. I have a Mac Airport extreme and Airport base stations throughout the house streaming music 24/7. I can throw music from or to any device or stereo wirelessly using my phone. I can control iTunes or set up playlists from anywhere using my phone. I can even control the remotes for my home theater and control any computer from any other computer. all this functionality worked simply right out of the box.

I have only one wish for a new iTunes feature. I'd like to be able to edit tags from my iPad.

By the way, the updates to iTunes usually just add support for new models of iPhones and iPads. iTunes itself hasn't changed much in over a year. you can skip updates if you want, but it really does't make much difference. Today's update had something to do with compatibility with image formats.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

This is unbelievable to me: 

- You can no longer search a playlist.

- About half the time the "play count" thing fails (ie it doesn't add one when you've finished the track). 

- When you highlight a group of tracks, it no longer tells you how long they are: how the **bleeps** are you supposed to make playlists from selections if you can't tell how flippin' long the selection is? 

- When you sort a playlist by "date added," the default is to list newest additions first, so that everything is backwards (ie the third movement of a symphony is listed before the second, etc.)

- If you choose to view a playlist as a grid, there is no option except to sort by artist. WTFF? Is it possible that the entire iTunes staff has never heard of flipping classical flipping music? I think it is. Bunch of flippin kids don't know what the flip they're doing probably only listen to music on flipping youtube anyway flipping illegal flipping downloaders. 

Seriously. People at Apple needs to lose limbs. Medi. Flacking. Eval. I want blood.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot said:


> Today's update had something to do with compatibility with image formats.


Maybe it matters what country you're in. Today's update (from iTunes 10.something to iTunes 11) really screwed me over. If I had an iTunes designer here now, and a baseball bat in my hand, pretty good chance I'd be in prison before long.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

And there'd be one less iTunes designer in the world.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

If you uninstall itunes you can get older versions to install from this page http://ipod.about.com/od/advanceditunesuse/a/history_itunes.htm and just disable it from updating more. Depending how you do it you may lose playcounts and other details though. I hate automatic updates and I disable them for even the most benign software, you never know when they take a turn for the worst.

But yes, use winamp, or maybe mediamonkey http://www.mediamonkey.com/ or songbird http://www.getsongbird.com/desktop/ both of which have very itunes-like interfaces.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I just rebooted my server and I see what you're talking about. They got rid of the sidebar full of stuff I never use and it makes more room so my super long classical music song titles fit on the screen now. I'll have to learn where some of the stuff is tucked away, but I think I'll be happy with this. Is cover flow gone? (I never used that because most of my music does't have covers.)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> If you uninstall itunes you can get older versions to install from this page http://ipod.about.com/od/advanceditunesuse/a/history_itunes.htm and just disable it from updating more. Depending how you do it you may lose playcounts and other details though. I hate automatic updates and I disable them for even the most benign software, you never know when they take a turn for the worst.


That would've been so helpful if it'd worked! But I clicked through and it says it's no longer available. Still, I looked for this earlier today and couldn't find it, so it was a good find.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Apple has betrayed my trust as a consumer. I've spent thousands of dollars in the past couple years on their products - iPhone, iPods, a Time Machine. They won't get one penny more from me. Their brand image is ruined. I hope they go bankrupt ASAP.

I've spent thousands of hours uploading my music and fixing the labels and now they totally screwed me over by making their product worthless. It's a really good thing I don't have them here now. I don't get that time or money back. They deserve to have their lives shortened by the amount of mine they've wasted. 

I hope there is a just God, and a judgment.

One lesson I've learned good and well: never update anything before bed if you need to sleep that night. Do it in the morning, after you've slept.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Which one did you try and download? iTunes 10.7 for PC worked for me. http://ipod.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1...=0&bts=0&zu=http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.htm


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> Which one did you try and download? iTunes 10.7 for PC worked for me. http://ipod.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1...=0&bts=0&zu=http://www.oldapps.com/itunes.htm


Oh, I'm on a Mac.

If I had a PC and an android phone, I'd have this problem solved by now!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

how dramatic!


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

No they just updated their software knowing that at least a percentage will scream bloody murder if they change anything as much as a bit on a pixel on the grey of a button on a submenu.. Chill, listen to some music.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Ok old mac itunes here http://www.iphonefirmware.com/download-old-versions-of-itunes/ they seem to work. winamp won't work for you then as you are on mac, clementine is the popular mac itunes alternative http://www.clementine-player.org/


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I was giving clementine a look earlier today. I guess I have to do something like that. I don't want to buy another phone for at least a year. I might try Windows Media Player for Mac too.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

quack said:


> No they just updated their software knowing that at least a percentage will scream bloody murder if they change anything as much as a bit on a pixel on the grey of a button on a submenu.. Chill, listen to some music.


Well, at the least they ought not to have taken features away. I don't mind changing the look. But the main ways I've organized my music are at best about half as effective as they were. They've screwed me over, bottom line. This update reflects a low opinion of their users, as if we all listen to pop music one song at a time, as if our libraries were just a few thousand tracks long.

Goes a big step toward ruining music. I cannot listen to anything now, too angry. Can't sleep. I start work in less than four hours, but ... and there's no way I can sleep.

edited

First Windows Vista and now iTunes 11.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

And hours later they put up a tutorial that shows nothing. Evidently they think you've never pointed and clicked or something.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

Ramako said:


> I think I have been stopping this update... I usually press "no" when it asks "do you want to update?". I don't like updates, I don't need updates, and half of the time I do updates I regret it. If I get a new computer with processing power to waste, then I might update some stuff.


I never update my itunes and it's been running great for years.
In general the annoying thing about the internet and computers is they cant leave anything alone. You just get used to something and then they go and change it and you don't know were you are!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Ut oh! No Join Tracks? That's a deal breaker!

If you aren't running Lion, you can trash the iYunes app and reinstall. But back up your library!!!

http://appldnld.apple.com/iTunes10/041-7195.20120912.d3uzQ/iTunes10.7.dmg


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot said:


> Ut oh! No Join Tracks? That's a deal breaker!


Mock us all you want, but a company can't treat its customers this way and keep winning. The Samsung Galaxy has surpassed the iPhone, the new Kindle Fire appears to be better than the iPad....

Anyway, it's true that I haven't put enough thought into this stuff before. I just assumed I'd use Apple/Mac for... I suppose, the rest of my life. It was great because I didn't have to think about anything: just plug in the device and it works. Then... a couple of updates ago iTunes lost my library for awhile, and I had to restore it from the Time Machine, which barely worked.

I'm about five years away from retiring, so that's 1-2 more phones and 1-2 more laptops, and then whatever I decide to take traveling with me. I'll have to put some thought into this, look into the different products that are out there, decide what I really care about, who I can trust. You know, I really did trust Apple - and to be fair, everything except iTunes still works wonderfully (well, I'm not sure about the Time Machine, but hopefully....)

Worst case scenario, I just have to re-upload all my CDs and fix all the track info again - probably 18 months of work.... I guess it's not that bad, for a hobby. It's just a mistake to care. Get attached, the world changes - the Buddha had some insight into this. I suppose pretty soon I'll be one of these guys that listens to music on youtube all the time.

You know, I really don't care about music so much. It's just been a giant waste of time. I should've been bettering myself or something. Probably iTunes has done me a favor. I cared too much, took it too seriously. If I have so much music uploaded that a redesign of the program means I have to rethink how I organize it all, it's too much.

I guess I should've been using the composer's name for the artist field anyway. People told me to do that. I didn't listen. I didn't know that someday the only way I'd be able to view the album artwork would be if they were sorted by artist. What a doofus. Oh well. Maybe nested playlist folders will work better on this new version.... That's worth a try.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

What needs to happen is someone needs to develop a player for classical music. The fact that the default (and now only) way to sort library is by artist reflects that iTunes was never intended for us, we were at best an afterthought to its developers.

We need a player that will sort classical by composer (last name first), by work, by artist, then by date of recording - automatically. And of course "artist" needs to be deprecated: we need [soloist], [featured performers], [conductor], [ensemble/orchestra], [chorus master], [chorus] - always last name, first name (dates).

We need a player that will scramble not by tracks but by work.

That will have separate fields for "composition date," "recording date," "release date" and maybe even "remastering date."


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

A quick google reveals this...

http://www.musichi.eu/

It looks quite interesting, if not perfect...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Wow, that does look good...


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Just got off the phone with Apple. They can't find any mention of the join tracks function, so they've bumped it up to the technical team. Without that, I can't use iTunes.

I've got emails into three companies that put out third party rippers. None of their websites list join tracks as a feature. I might be using my old laptop with the previous version to rip if I can't find something else that works with Mountain Lion.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

First world problems...


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

RichardWagner said:


> First world problems...


Lol, yes, but I can imagine I'd go bananas if I suddenly had to reorder all my itunes collection; and mine is only a fraction of some here...


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot said:


> Just got off the phone with Apple. They can't find any mention of the join tracks function, so they've bumped it up to the technical team. Without that, I can't use iTunes.
> 
> I've got emails into three companies that put out third party rippers. None of their websites list join tracks as a feature. I might be using my old laptop with the previous version to rip if I can't find something else that works with Mountain Lion.


My bad, man! I thought you were joking earlier!

I'm absolutely sorry.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

On the recommendation of another poster here, I have started using Foobar2000. The only thing I miss is being able to have preset equaliser settings, but that is only because I have been too lazy to download the addons or create my own settings. The program is highly customisable to any set up you might prefer, but requires a little bit of manipulation at first.

With regrard to iTunes, I always named the composer as th artist and had the performers listed under 'Comments'. There are usually more than one way to skin a cat with these things, but I generally have a very thorough way of homogenising my entire digital collection anyway.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ramako said:


> http://www.musichi.eu/


I really love the look of this. The one drawback that I see is not being able to use it on my iPhone. But I'm really glad to know it's out there.

I guess I'm stuck with my iPhone for about another year - unless they continue doing this kind of thing to me I won't shell out for another smartphone until I absolutely have to because I am one cheap summamma. And as long as that is true, I'll try to make iTunes work. Hopefully there'll be an outcry about some of the discontinued functions and future editions will restore them - I cannot think Apple did some of these things on purpose; it had to be mere carelessness.

Most of all, I hope I find a way to view the album artwork in playlists - it made it so much easier for me to organize my playlists .... but if I really have to live without that, then... I guess maybe I'll just have to make dozens more playlists in order to keep track of my listening projects. A playlist of two thousand tracks just isn't useful if I can't organize a dozen tracks at a time at a glance.

Also, I might recombine a lot of things into larger albums - like Mozart's violin concertos, rather than treating each concerto as a single album, I might put them back together as a single album so that it'll be visually simpler to look over; I'll be able to find the concerto easily enough I want after I find the group of them, but finding the group needs to be easier. Whereas before I could've looked for the album art, now I'll have to read the album field; before I could find albums fairly quickly even if the playlist wasn't sorted by album.

Their stupidity created a lot of work for me, but I suppose that's how the world works. Stupid people do stupid stuff, and the rest of us have to figure out how to work around it.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I read that it now forces the order of the tracks to either alphabetical or chronological in playlists now. You can't set your own order. Is that true?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I FOUND JOIN TRACKS!

It's in the options menu... but ONLY if you have consecutive tracks highlighted. Otherwise it doesn't show up at all. That is really dumb. Before it was grayed out.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Honestly the changes only seem cosmetic to me, nothing has really changed in the way things are done, if you want composers as the top thing in itunes, just put them as the artist, if you want them as what is viewd as the artist in an iphone or ipod you do the composers as album artist instead, and as for joining tracks, I use a tag called "grouping" which does the same thing without joining the actual tracks, it isn't recognized in the ios though. The smart playlists have changed from showing the list of whats coming up next to a different part of itunes all together rather thanin the playlist, that kind of irks me a bit, but it's nothing I can't adapt to. You can change even the order of smart playlists if you want to not shuffle them, on itunes, i haven't messed with the ios on that very much.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Of possible interest -- hidden features, etc.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/g...-new-features-bring-back-old-itunes-1C7361026


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

The Windows version of iTunes is, in my opinion, an invasive little horror. On start-up, it asks if you want to set it as your default player. That's fine, but even when you tell it "no," it still does it. Loads itself as the default player, even when Windows Media Player is still shown in Control Panel as being the default player. There seems to be nothing you can do about this, and it loads much more slowly than Media Player, so I uninstalled it right away.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Fsharpmajor said:


> The Windows version of iTunes is, in my opinion, an invasive little horror. On start-up, it asks if you want to set it as your default player. That's fine, but even when you tell it "no," it still does it. Loads itself as the default player, even when Windows Media Player is still shown in Control Panel as being the default player. There seems to be nothing you can do about this, and it loads much more slowly than Media Player, so I uninstalled it right away.


Odd behavior, and nothing I've seen on my system. I have a different player set to default now, works fine and iTunes doesn't complain a bit. At least not out loud!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Of possible interest -- hidden features, etc.
> 
> http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/g...-new-features-bring-back-old-itunes-1C7361026


Good find.

The one thing we can't do is view the album artwork in a playlist or in the list of songs. I actually depended on the ability to do that, and will miss it sorely.

But getting the "status bar" back means I can see the length of a selection of songs.

The play count thing is an amateurish abomination. I could make a play count work in BASIC. They ought to be shot or at least not allowed to program anything ever again for not being able to do that.

(Edit: the playcount just succeeded for 6 tracks in a row, which is the new record. The old one was 3.)

(More edit: Listening to the Patrick Gallois disk of Takemitsu - the play count worked on less than half the tracks, only getting 1 out of the first 6. It was batting over .500, but this hurts its average.)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Well, I tried winamp and it can't handle my library size (keeps freezing), and also I wasn't able to move the fields around (ie it put name, artist, album, in that order and I couldn't change the order). 

Foobar is only for Windows, as far as I can tell. 

On the bright side, I've found time for lots of iTunes feedback.

Continuing to try to work with iTunes, the deprecation of the search function -- that is, you can no longer search within a playlist or even your music as a whole; when you try to use the search some stuff comes up but it isn't usefully displayed: i.e., you can see the album artwork but little else: no "last played," for instance -- means that I will need to make a lot of nested playlist folders and playlists in order to find things conveniently. That is another project of many, many months....


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I just saw an update bar today and declined. I made sure to not automatically give me updates. So I'll just stay with the old version. No point in updating at this point.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I hate updates. I loathe and despise them. Don't like them much either. 

Added: Nobody's commented on my snazzy new avatar. Anybody recognize this worthy gent?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Added: Nobody's commented on my snazzy new avatar. Anybody recognize this worthy gent?


I don't! I look forward to the answer.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> I don't! I look forward to the answer.


Ah, how quickly they forget. It's...Dan Quayle!

I guess his 15 minutes were up quite a while ago.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Um... I hope you'll cut me a break for being in middle school the last time he was significant...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> Um... I hope you'll cut me a break for being in middle school the last time he was significant...


I'm not sure he was ever significant. :lol:


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I'm not sure he was ever significant. :lol:


No, he doesn't look like it. (No offense... )


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## Guest (Dec 2, 2012)

I just updated my iTunes on my MacBook Pro, and I don't have any problems. I actually like the new look.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DrMike said:


> I just updated my iTunes on my MacBook Pro, and I don't have any problems. I actually like the new look.


Yeah, the look is fine.

My biggest problems at this point are not being able to see artwork inside playlists or search within playlists. That messes me up. I have begun to rename things and to create a bunch of playlist folders that will help me reorganize. I just can't scroll through thousands of tracks reading the albums.

The play count thing isn't a problem because I can just use iPod all the time and not listen through the computer. Sucks, but I can deal with it.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I guess I organize tracks differently. I never use album images, and I really don't care about the album title tags either.

When I rip, I join tracks into complete works (or complete acts of operas). I tag like this...

Title: Schumann: Piano Concerto in minor op. 54
Artist: Walter Gieseking (piano), Wilhelm Furtwangler / Berlin Philharmonic

That way I can sort the song titles by composer and everything is complete when played shuffle by songs.

I think it's wise to put most of your work into formatting tags into a stardardized format, rather than worrying about formatting to a particular app or piece of hardware. If all the data you need is organized in the tags, it will work in any program, and you won't be tied to any version or platform.


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## pwatel (Dec 3, 2012)

Hello I am the designer of the application MusiCHI that you mentioned (www.musichi.eu), indeed it was designed with 100% classical in mind, but being a multi library system you can have also a Jazz lib (or else). I wanted to comment on the post by "Science" on the "Artist" field issue, I totally agree "Artist" is useless, a left over of the Band>Album>Songs logic [I put composer there], the way we solved this is to use the "Album Artist" field and make it multi-lines and to add role(s) after the performer name; so you are not forced to have a field for conductor if it is a piano recital. For ex.
Perahia, Murray [Piano][Conductor]
English Chamber Orchestra <<< here no role, when blank it is an orchestra/ensemble
or for Mozart, Don Giovanni K527
Östman, Arnold [Conductor]
Hagegård, Håkan [Baritone]
Augér, Arleen [Soprano]
Cachemaille, Gilles [Bass]
Jones, Della [Mezzo-soprano]
Bonney, Barbara [Soprano]
Terfel, Bryn [Bass]
Drottningholm Court Theatre Orchestra

when the lib is built it will create an entry for each line
We provide a reference database for composers, performers and composition catalog of the big guys that we upgrade monthly
And yes we do have random feature by compositions and we have a Composition field on top of the Album field.

*HOWEVER *it is Windows ONLY application, [but can run on a mac with VM like fusion or Parallel or bootcamp]
It does NOT join track, because we are HIFI minded [we have bit perfect output] and messing with the files destroy the bit perfect feature


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I would be very reticent to use app specific tagging, or tags contained in databases, not in the file itself. Everything should carry across to any player with no compatibility problems. The Artist field is for performers- comma delineated. I've been able to fit the names of every performer in an opera in there. Plenty of room.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot, do you use a lot of different players?


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## pwatel (Dec 3, 2012)

I agree 100% with you 
one day sooner or later the library will be lost/corrupted and you will loose all your work, also it makes you prisoner of an eco-system, and I love freedom...Therefore in MusiCHI ALL tags are stored inside the audio files, all what you see has been read from the music metadata, I had forgotten to mention that


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

science said:


> bigshot, do you use a lot of different players?


For video, yes. Lots of video players because codecs are funky. Some play in some and not others. Not so much for audio. I just have a couple of those, ut I use iTunes. It's the most convenient because my iPhone is my remote anywhere in the house.

I have a half dozen libraries, broken down by genre. All total they add up to over a year and a half's worth of music. I try to keep them simple... I tag as I rip and leave it at that.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2012/12/05/5-downside-catalysts-for-apple/

I choose to believe that iTunes being so bad is a 6th reason...


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Ridiculous. You can't shuffle playlists to your iPod now. And it forced me to use the new version without me accepting.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

RIP iTunes.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I think your guys' only hope now is to create a Facebook group in defiance. Or maybe an online petition. That will teach Apple a lesson.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I've figured it out and it's working fine for me now. They moved a bunch of stuff around and didn't make it clear where it was.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Figured what out. How to shuffle playlists? It seems like you can only shuffle when playing songs which doesn't work well if you want to transfer a shuffled playlist to an iPod.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

My big probem was Join Tracks. They hid that function really good. Shuffle still works fine for me because I join tracks into complete works as I rip. that way shuffle songs doesn't chop everything up into bits. I never really use internal cues anyway.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Anybody know the easy way to add artwork in the new iTunes? 

I know I can save the jpg to my computer and then add it to a track and then use cut & paste for the other tracks; but on the old one it was much simpler, as there was a little thing on the lower left corner that you could pop up to add art work through that, to lots of tracks at once. It's a lot more more the way I'm doing it now! But I can't find the easy way any more. 

I suspect iTunes "deprecated" that function as part of their ongoing effort to combat pirating, but that's just rear-end-stupid. It isn't any easier or harder for me, legally uploading CDs, to get the artwork than it would be for someone who downloaded the tracks from... napster or oyster or whatever. One might think they just deprecated it because nobody used it, and maybe I am the solitary individual who did. And since they also "deprecated" the ability to view album artwork in a playlist (or any other list), maybe they're actually trying to discourage us from using the album artwork feature. (Even so, they could at least put some thicker or different colored lines between albums, like Media Player used to. Lord is it hard on the eyes trying to decipher a playlist anymore.) But at this point I prefer less charitable hypotheses.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

There should be a way to do it by selecting multiple tracks and pasting them all at once. Like putting data in the get info fields. The option is probably there, it probably is just invisible as an option until you select multiple.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I just checked. I was right. In album view select the album and do a get info. There's a field for an image. Double click on it and you can create images for the whole album at once.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Were you able to use shuffle in the playlist view? The shuffle I used didn't shuffle the songs but rather play songs in random order. That's fine for listening on the Computer but my iPod doesn't shuffle on its playlists.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Party Shuffle is gone as well. You can shuffle the songs but it starts at 0 with each new listening session. What is it with techies that they automatically assume that new and different equal better? One big raspberry for Apple


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

The iPod won't shuffle songs within a playlist? That's weird. That shouldn't be tough for them to put in a software update. Try sending a suggestion to Apple on that. I did that about not having a list view in the Album page.

Isn't party shuffle kind of like up next?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I stumbled across an edit screen in up next last night. You can add and delete songs and change the order on up next from your iPhone.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Well I got an older version of the iPod Classic. But I'll look further into finding a way to shuffle songs in my playlists.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

That would involve the iPod software, not iTunes itself. Is your iPod software udated?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

bigshot said:


> That would involve the iPod software, not iTunes itself. Is your iPod software udated?


Found it. It's under Settings. You can shuffle by songs or albums.  Imo it should be on the top of each playlist as an option.


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## PhileasFogg (Dec 7, 2012)

why is this in Classical Music Discussion?

Sorry, I like order and organization


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

science said:


> you can no longer search within a playlist


- This is not true.

I just made up a small playlist of various violin concertos, and here is how you do it, step by step (I hope you get it even though it's in Danish):




























Alternatively, you can click on the arrow and uncheck the top option. Then the search will work like it used to, instantly filtering the current view.










I hope this was useful.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The biggest feature I like on the new iTunes is being able to sort by artists rather than having to go through all the songs to sort artists. So the new iTunes is confusing at first but better in the long run imo.


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

It's also not true that you cannot view album art in playlists:


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Hmmm it bugs a lot!I used it for couple of years and listened to some classical stations but last version has some problems music and voices repeat themselves sounds funny actually maybe it was due to my computed hardware problems i upgraded my configuration few days ago and am yet to see the results...


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## msvadi (Apr 14, 2012)

When iTunes 11 came out, there were a bunch of things missing or not working properly (like searching devices). But my impression is that 11.0.1 fixed the bags, and it works fine on my MacBook Pro. Disable "Search Entire Library" and select "Show Sidebar" to get more familiar interface.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

jttoft said:


> - This is not true.
> 
> I just made up a small playlist of various violin concertos, and here is how you do it, step by step (I hope you get it even though it's in Danish):
> 
> I hope this was useful.


I'm not sure that your program works the same way mine does, but you did help me figure out how to search a playlist. This doesn't change my opinion of iTunes 11, though. It is still a huge, inexcusable step backward from iTunes 10. It's not as horrible as the maps on my iPhone, but at least in that case I can use Google maps instead.

It angers me greatly to think of the thousands of dollars I've wasted on Apple products over the past few years to have them treat me like this now. Fact is, they simply don't care about people who use iTunes for music. They want you to buy stuff - one at a time pop song crap because that's what they think of us - and to watch TV and all that stuff, but to organize a large library, no. They don't care.

And hey, I just found out too late. It doesn't have to bother me from here on out. I'll just buy other products in future. Problem solved.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

jttoft said:


> It's also not true that you cannot view album art in playlists:


That's viewing by artist. You can't keep the list in the order you created it; you have to sort it by artist or one of the other options they give, which do not include the order you put it in. The only way to see that (and to play it in that order) is list view. When you cannot see the artwork.

Hey, I don't know whether you're trying to make me look stupid or what, but the fact is, I can't do things I used to do. I've been working with the program for a few weeks now and it still sucks, bottom line, it sucks. Not a little bit, a lot. But I'm finding ways around it. It involves creating loads of playlists in order to find the music I want, which is a ton of work, but hey, Apple, I got the damn message: you don't give a flying squirrel about people with large music libraries, or people who listen to classical music. Got it. First chance I get, you'll see what I think of you too.

Never buying an Apple product again. Never, ever, ever. RIP Steve Jobs. I hope you can't see what they're doing to your company.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

By the way, I suppose you're not actually an Apple rep or you'd've had screenshots in English. So, thanks for trying to help. 

The lost function that has hurt me the most is the fact that in the older versions, you could view album art while viewing the playlist as a list. (I don't understand viewing it as a grid - who in the world does that? - and viewing it by artist is obviously geared toward pop music listeners rather than classical music listeners.)

In the old days I would have my music on large playlists, which I could scroll through at a glance by looking at the album art work. (You could select "Always show album art" in a playlist, and I always had it selected. The main ways I sort the playlists are by play count and last played. 

With the program as it is now, I have to find new ways of doing things. For instance, I switch back and forth between "grid" view and "list" view a lot - it's more work, but I almost get the functionality of the previous versions. Also, I'm condensing albums - I used to break things like Handel's opus 4 organ sonatas into different "albums" for each work, but now I'm recombining them so that the "grid" view is more convenient, especially when viewing an entire playlist folder. 

A long time ago I had my music pretty well organized by playlist folders - a folder for Beethoven, with a folder for Piano Sonatas inside, with a folder for #32 inside that, with a playlist for each performance. But in one of those periodic snafus, my library was lost. I got my music all back without having to re-upload it, but the playlists did not come back. Also, I read that iTunes worked better without a lot of playlists, so I decided not to re-do that work. Now I read that iTunes 11 works fine with loads of playlists, and so far it does. It's much faster, usually, than it was before. But to me, speed has never been a big deal - as long as the music plays and I can organize it conveniently, I'm fine. 

Thanks for trying to help. It's going to be a multi-year project for me, abandoning Apple. I guess my phone probably has another year left, and then I'll probably get a Samsung product. I hope my Macbook Air has a couple of years left, and I'll look for something like a Samsung chrome book. We'll see what's on the market come that time - I don't need a cutting edge beast for gaming or anything, just something that can handle normal internet sites, Microsoft Word, and a decent media player. When that time comes, I'll look for different media players, very likely the one that was discussed earlier in this thread. But until then, I'm stuck with iTunes and I'll make the best of it.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Well I changed the Artists name on all my cd's I imported to the Composers last name. I guess that made things easier for me.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

neoshredder said:


> Well I changed the Artists name on all my cd's I imported to the Composers last name. I guess that made things easier for me.


I've considered that a few times. I suppose you use "comments" or one of the other fields for the performers?


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I can easily find the performer later if needed. I'm more interested in knowing who the Composer is than the performer. A quick search on Amazon could find the performer if I forgot who the performer was. But I guess you can add it to another field like the piece name or album title.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

I learned something new about iTunes: enabling half-star ratings !!!

To enable, first, quit iTunes, then enter this command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE

Relaunch iTunes, and you'll find you can now click between the stars (in the Ratings column) to get half-ratings. If you prefer to drag, you can do that, too, and you'll see the half-star values as you drag across the stars.

I just tested this for iTunes 10 (not the latest version) and it works. I bet it works in iTunes 11 as well. Pretty cool.

Methinks there are other hidden features. Hmm.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

science said:


> I've considered that a few times. I suppose you use "comments" or one of the other fields for the performers?


I wonder if you could put the original artist info in the album artist field ?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

BPS said:


> I wonder if you could put the original artist info in the album artist field ?


I include abbreviated artist info in the album field ("Beethoven: Symphony #5 [Karajan 1963]"). Also, since I do it like that, I usually see the composer in the album field.

The complication is "recital albums." In that case I have to use the track info for the composer.

I really don't have a problem with any of that. The problem is when you have a playlist of 2500 tracks, trying to scroll through it decided what I want to move up to a higher priority on my main play list. No matter how you fill out the fields, there's eye pain.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

Two things I do, which I love and strongly recommend for the **** retentive:

1) I put the composition year in the year field. I love being able to listen to, for example, all my Faure in chronological order. Sometimes this info can be quite informative. I get most of my composition dates from archiv.com or wikipedia.

2) I use the Grouping field to group my music by type. E.g. violin concerto, piano solo, other chamber, etc. I have about 50 categories now. It makes it very quick and easy to find mozart violin sonatas for example.  Or look for my favorite piano trios.

Heck, I can even listen to all my clarinet sonatas in chronological order! Now that's cooking with gas.

Edit: Wow! My **** was automatically censored! Cool!


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

@ science:

I was indeed trying to help, and I am glad you recognized that. I'm sorry if my tips didn't turn out to be that helpful, but it seems they did at least help a little.

I have been reading through this surprisingly long thread and have gathered that you are not fond of the latest change in the iTunes software (to put it mildly). I understand some of your frustration, but for my needs iTunes 11 works just fine. My biggest problem is that I now have to "Get info" in order to see play count and the last played date for my music unless I'm using the "Songs" view, which I decidedly dislike. I do miss Cover Flow a little, but the album cover grid view is fine, too.

Now, my library is not particularly large (162 albums at the moment) and it seems yours is, so my needs are perhaps more moderate than yours, but I don't see the big problem in the organizational features of iTunes 11. I mainly use the album cover grid view and just scroll through my albums there or search for whatever I need to find. I can see how it would be inconvenient to scroll through a library of thousands of albums, but even then one should be able to find a particular album or work within the "Album" view pretty quickly using the search function. Say I'm looking for Beethoven's 9th symphony performed by Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in my library. I just type in "9 haitink" in the search field, hit enter, and voilà:


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

At first I was adrift with iTunes. A lot of the things I used were tucked away neatly where it wasn't obvious. I've found them all now and I'm getting along fine. The only thing I miss is list view of all albums, but the individual album page that pulls the colors from the cover is very nice, so it makes up for it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

bigshot said:


> At first I was adrift with iTunes. A lot of the things I used were tucked away neatly where it wasn't obvious. I've found them all now and I'm getting along fine. The only thing I miss is list view of all albums, but the individual album page that pulls the colors from the cover is very nice, so it makes up for it.


That's true - that is a nice touch. I don't use it much but it's nice to look at. Hopefully in a future update you'll be able to listen to music with the with a playlist going through that screen.



jttoft said:


> @ science:
> 
> I was indeed trying to help, and I am glad you recognized that. I'm sorry if my tips didn't turn out to be that helpful, but it seems they did at least help a little.
> 
> ...


Yeah, the search function will help me a lot, so it wasn't wasted effort on your part. I'm a deeply cynical dude, so I don't expect strangers to be helpful without any reason whatsoever, so please forgive me!

I suppose that in a world of constantly changing technologies it is a mistake to get too attached to anything computerized. I'll try to make my library and listening patterns more resilient to new changes!


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

I've only been using iTunes for transferring cds to mp3s, now I've started doing it on wmp, this is ******, all these players and file formats, and this and that, and that and this, it is a whopper of a headache; not to mention multiple places to buy digital music and cloud storage, I really makes mad as hell. 

Sorry for whining.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

even more off topic and and whiny...

this new windows 8 literally directs you to windows to buy an add on to play dvds on wmp, that is so dumb, you can't even play a dvd on wmp! i'm sticking with vlc player. all you really need is to buy a 2 to 4 gbram memory card and put it in a simple cheap acer netbook, it would be a fraction of the price and much faster, but then you could dance around in a choreographed way with your snap on keyboard and touch screen like in the commercial, what a bummer, and what utter....!

i'm not sure if this is literally a new thing with wmp, or it has to do with an add on sale pitch with my new pc, makes me mad which ever!


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## msvadi (Apr 14, 2012)

Use EAC for ripping CDs: http://blowfish.be/eac/



Clovis said:


> I've only been using iTunes for transferring cds to mp3s, now I've started doing it on wmp, this is ******, all these players and file formats, and this and that, and that and this, it is a whopper of a headache; not to mention multiple places to buy digital music and cloud storage, I really makes mad as hell.
> 
> Sorry for whining.


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## campy (Aug 16, 2012)

jttoft said:


> Alternatively, you can click on the arrow and uncheck the top option. Then the search will work like it used to, instantly filtering the current view.


Thank you times 1000 for finding this! It never occurred to me to click on that little arrow!


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## jttoft (Apr 23, 2012)

campy said:


> Thank you times 1000 for finding this! It never occurred to me to click on that little arrow!


- Well, you're very welcome.


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## pasido (Apr 2, 2012)

I have no problems with the newest iTunes update. I think it looks awesome.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

pasido said:


> I have no problems with the newest iTunes update. I think it looks awesome.


Agreed. I like it as well. Though it was a headache at first to learn.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Meh, still haven't updated.


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## msvadi (Apr 14, 2012)

It looks like iTunes 11.0.1 did not fix all the bugs. I just noticed that there is no composer info for the last couple of albums that I purchased from the iTunes store and downloaded with iTunes 11.0.1. When I download the same albums with iTunes 10 (on a different computer), composer info is there. I guess they did not test 11 for classical purchases.

Also, when previweing albums in the iTunes store, it does not show composer. It's a serious drawback for people like us who like classical music. When there are multiple tracks by different composers on the same album, you either have to guess composers or search for info from other sources. Again, I believe it's iTunes 11 issue. When I use iTunes 10, the information is there, but iTunes 11 does not show it.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

The new iTunes is ghastly for me.

I have organized my music library painstakingly, and in accordance with a specific formula.

For example, my albums are named like this:

Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 77

Within that album, I have the quartets arranged in numerical order. If, in my library, I am using the "albums" view, I cannot read the entire album name. Each window, representing a separate album, looks like this.

Haydn: String Quartets...
Haydn: String Quartets...

I cannot distinguish album from album because the text cuts off before it specifies, and I cannot manually adjust the album sizes to show the entire album name. I have to click on each album to figure out what's in it: the album name is no longer very descriptive if it never shows. What's worse, when the track names are shown in the album [still in Album View], I cannot see the whole name of each track because it is also cut off, and I can do nothing about it. In order to see the entire track name, I must right click and summon the track information window in order to read the entire track name.

The solution seems clear, Album View is irredeemable. So I turn to "Song View", which gives me the ability to adjust the column width in order to display the entire track name--

But there's a great difficulty. No longer are the albums separated among each other like the old iTunes library display. The tracks are, understandably, listed one after the other, but there is no longer any of the separation--that is, delimitation--among each album that made the old iTunes so useful and visually intuitive. Each track now declares the album to which it belongs. True, the albums are clustered together if so set, but with the old display, there was a single item that declared the album, and one needed only look at that one item to scroll easily from the one to the other. Now, I must read each line to see upon which track Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 76 ends and upon which track Haydn: String Quartets, Op. 77 begins.

The single item which declared the album was analogous to a binder using tabs. We could easily find the tab [as there were fewer of them] and from there, find the track we are looking for: a simple, elegant utility. Now, with the album view, the tabs are mostly unreadable, and even if we find the right tab, all of the pages in that section are half-missing, so we must search carefully through each page until we find the one we want. With the song view, there are no tabs at all, we simply must leaf through the whole binder until we happen to come across the page we are looking for.

I rue the day I agreed to "upgrade".

I realize that I probably shouldn't complain too much, as we don't have to pay for iTunes, but this program worked so well for me for so long... and now. The new setup probably isn't so difficult for people who listen to modern music, because track names aren't usually so long, and albums probably do not come in series. Last I checked, Britney Spears' music isn't segmented by Opus numbers, although I might be wrong.

As classical music listeners, we can have difficulty in that our track names are inclined to be lengthy. That fact precludes easy use of Album View, and the difficulty Songs View make iTunes no longer so useful for me. Sure, I could search for the exact thing I'm looking for in the search menu, but sometimes I like to browse through my albums to see what piques my interest in the moment.

For illustration of my frustration with Album View:

Say that I want to listen to Couperin's Le Parnasse: "L'Apotheose De Lully", particularly the movement called "La Paix Du Parnasse Faite Aux Conditions; Sur La Remontrance Des Muses Fra". I can locate the album fairly easily, but when the "smart view", showing all of the track names in that album comes up, all I see is this:

1. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
2. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
3. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
4. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
5. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
6. Couperin: Le Parnasse, "L'Apotheos...
...

Big help. If I could enlarge the columns on Album View, then all of my difficulties would disappear, but as yet, it cannot be done.

=\


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Thanks Novelette. I am using the old iTunes and will leave it that way. If it ain't broke...


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

KenOC, I didn't even hear that it was such a radical redevelopment of iTunes when I so impulsively chose to upgrade.

Some other aspects of the new setup are excellent, but these few things--simple things, to boot!--have ruined the whole thing, in my opinion.

I'm glad you still have the old program!  I'm going to see if I can find an old version to download.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Novelette said:


> The new iTunes is ghastly for me.
> 
> I have organized my music library painstakingly, and in accordance with a specific formula.
> 
> ...


We have exactly the same problem. I believe the people at iTunes are genuinely unaware that people listen to classical music, because their program appears to disregard our needs entirely. Anyway, either I buy a new phone, or I adapt for now.

So I'm creating a lot of playlists and folders.

The first playlist folder is for "albums and sets." This includes recitals such as Hough's Spanish Album, which are not convenient to organize by composer, and things like the Hyperion Romantic Piano Concerto series, which I sometimes want to see as a set. So I have a subfolders for Hyperion RPC and each disk is a playlist, so I can keep the individual works listed as different albums for other purposes.

The next playlist folder is "by composer." The subfolders are by last name, as many composers as I care to do.... In each is at least one more level of subfolders. For instance, there is a "Haydn, Franz Joseph (1732-1809)" folder, within it a "Symphonies" folder, and within that a folder for "#98 in B-flat." Then each particular recording is a playlist: "Brüggen 1992" and "Davis 1979," for example.

I have loads of other playlists because usually I like to prioritize my listening according to how often I've heard the work (with less heard things being higher priority) or how long ago I've heard it (with longer ago being higher). So I keep track of that with other playlists.

It has been a bit of fun to go through my library. If I were serious about this project it would take me probably a year to finish, but I'm not serious, because if iTunes doesn't get its act together then when I get a new phone I will change programs, and I will have to do it all over again. If/when I make this transition, I'll look into ways to make my work less vulnerable to mischievous updates, easier to move from one program to another without losing information.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Drop the developers an email. They listen and incorporate fixes. I called the Apple help line and their development team actually called me back on my request (list view in albums)


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

BTW, it looks like it's possible to reinstall iTunes 10. I haven't tried it yet bc I'll back up my library again first (haven't done that for about a month... too long!) and I've been too busy, but it looks like it'll work:

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1575


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## bassClef (Oct 29, 2006)

iTunes + classical music = nightmare

http://forums.slimdevices.com/showt...Support-Thread&p=731741&viewfull=1#post731741


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Having read this entire thread (on a Mac) and having gotten the notice to upgrade iTunes which I haven't done and now probably won't, I'm kind of glad that my music collection is a result of going to the local CD shops and buying the CDs. The art work, liner-notes and booklets come on paper. Who wants to listen to classical music "on the go" anyway when dynamics are such an integral part of the classical music listening experience and pedestrian and/or traffic noise can ruin the quiet passages? Changing Cds? No problemo. I just got back to Berlin after a couple of weeks in Asia and took a Portable CD player, 18 CDs and in-ear buds. It worked great, was more than enough music for serious listening and sounded - being lossless -good, too. Call me a Luddite if you will, but I'm not pulling my hair out in frustration this end. (Not that I have any to pull out - but that is beside the point). I imagine techies just hate irrelevant posts like this?


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

bassClef said:


> iTunes + classical music = nightmare


I'm doing it without nightmares. It's only a problem when you try to swim upstream by using non-standard tagging schemes.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

I guess I'll be the first to say iTunes 11 is awesome.


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## campy (Aug 16, 2012)

I'm getting used to it. It loads faster on my computer than version 10 did. 

I do still miss being able to easily see the album art of whatever was selected.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

I leave iTunes playing 24/7 on my server. The latest iTunes bug fix is very stable. I haven't had a single lockup since I installed it.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

I'll have to drop Apple Support a line to suggest that they give the ability to expand columns in "Album View". That would solve most of my problems. An easy fix, I should think.

If that were done, I would be very happy with the new iTunes.


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## pwatel (Dec 3, 2012)

bassClef said:


> iTunes + classical music = nightmare
> I could not agree more, but it is a great front end to buy music and that what it was designed for....out of this frustration and love for Classical I came up a couple years ago with MusiCHI. We just released our metadata editor MusiCHI Tagger as a stand alone application so you can use any ripper or player you want, but at last you will have real tool to classify Classical music in your hands.....you can get also a light free version of the player here no strings attached
> Note: These apps are for MS Windows only or Linux with Wine, Mac version using winebottler in development......
> 
> The problem is that classical requires a lot of complicated data, but worldwide is a small part of the recorded music business...so few software companies cater for us....


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## pwatel (Dec 3, 2012)

Standard tagging scheme were done by youngsters with the logic of pop Artist > Album > Songs which collapses with a compilation CD and with Classical it cannot work because it is too simplistic. square peg in a round hole...no matter how hard you try. Either you stay with an inappropriate scheme everybody agrees on [mediocrity rules!] or you try something else which I find very healthy


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Gonna bump the old thread bc this guy has it figured out:

http://www.mcelhearn.com/2012/12/07/itunes-11-and-classical-music/


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## julianoq (Jan 29, 2013)

Just a loosely related comment, I recently moved all my digital library to Google Music and I am impressed with the service. You can upload 20k tracks for free and then stream or download them directly from the browser (or Android phones). I have 15k tracks there atm and it works really well, my only concern is that there is no way to expand the storate at this moment (I hope they will release paid plans soon).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm making progress with the new iTunes... it may even come about that someday I might purchase an Apple product again. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but it's possible.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The album view thing is back! 

It's under "view - show view options" and it is the "show artwork" option. 

Good move iTunes people. Were I the almighty, I would now deliver you from the fiery abyss prepared from the foundation of the world for people who mess up my classical music experience.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

The trouble I've been having with iTunes lately on Windows 7 is when I want to rotate my collection on the iPod (it won't all fit by a long shot) it only wants to move a very few files at a time. If I try to move say 10 CDs worth, it just sits there and does nothing, then it puts a grayed out inaccessible version of the file on the iPod that doesn't play. The only was to repair is to delete the grayed out file (or maybe it's a place holder of some kind), unplug the iPod, plug it back in, let it sync, and then reload the files manually a few at a time. 

It used to drive me nuts and it was doing that for several months. I'm not sure but this latest version seems not to do that.


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## Guest (Sep 7, 2013)

I finally switched to the new iTunes (on the Mac) a few weeks ago -- I had no choice. On balance, I think this "upgrade" is clearly a downgrade but not a complete catastrophe.

On the bright side:
1) I still have my playlists, both manual and automatic. That's key because I've put a lot of effort into playlists (don't ask).
2) I can still use the grouping field to group works by kind (e.g. piano trio, violin sonata, symphony, etc). Moreover the grouping field is still one of the choices available for the Column Browser.
3) The "list" view option for playlists and the "Songs" view option for the main Music library are workable and yes you can show the artwork.

Less positive:
1) The Column Browser now only appears at the top. I preferred my browser on the left side - i.e. as columns.
2) I miss the (badly named) iTunes DJ feature. The Up Next feature is confusing and it makes it hard to do things like rate the music you just heard. I now use a "Now Playing" manual playlist to organize my listening, but it's not as convenient.
3) Practically all other view options besides the two mentioned above are pretty awful, at least for my purposes.

Still dumb:
1) The description field is only accessible on the "video" tab of the data entry window. It should be on the "info" tab.
2) I have a certain arrangement of columns that I want to be my default when I create new playlists. I can't figure out how to implement this.

I just try to ignore the new iTunes' huge flaws, and just hope things don't get any worse with future "updates".


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

I'm pretty familiar with iTunes.... I also have owned several other types of technology, so adapting to annoying updates, etc. is not very new to me.... 
Yes, though, it does get annoying. Assuming we are talking about the newest iTunes (Version 11.0.5), the most effective formatting for classical music can be found online at this website: http://http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm
I personally found this very useful, but you do not need to read the whole thing.... Just look at the pictures as you scroll down, and you'll figure it out!  
Good luck!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mstar said:


> I'm pretty familiar with iTunes.... I also have owned several other types of technology, so adapting to annoying updates, etc. is not very new to me....
> Yes, though, it does get annoying. Assuming we are talking about the newest iTunes (Version 11.0.5), the most effective formatting for classical music can be found online at this website: http://http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm
> I personally found this very useful, but you do not need to read the whole thing.... Just look at the pictures as you scroll down, and you'll figure it out!
> Good luck!


Whoa, whoa, whoa. I reject using the "composer" field for the conductor and orchestra. Otherwise, it's close to my own system.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

science said:


> Whoa, whoa, whoa. I reject using the "composer" field for the conductor and orchestra. Otherwise, it's close to my own system.


Generally, I don't even _touch_ the composer field.... I agree, it all pains me as well.... But if you bear through the pain, it's a lot simpler to sort through your music on iTunes. I've tried it other ways, and this is the way that works best for me. But calling composers "artists" and symphonies' names "song titles" is definitely nerve-wracking, to say the least.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mstar said:


> Generally, I don't even _touch_ the composer field.... I agree, it all pains me as well.... But if you bear through the pain, it's a lot simpler to sort through your music on iTunes. I've tried it other ways, and this is the way that works best for me. But calling composers "artists" and symphonies' names "song titles" is definitely nerve-wracking, to say the least.


I usually use the album field for the work, the song title field for the movement.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

I haven't upgraded from 10 yet on my PC (main database). My Macbook has 11 and I hate it.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Couchie said:


> I haven't upgraded from 10 yet on my PC (main database). My Macbook has 11 and I hate it.


Do you get those constant reminders from Apple to upgrade iTunes? I used to get enough of them to drive a person mad before I decided that I could just give in and install the first time they asked....


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

science said:


> I usually use the album field for the work, the song title field for the movement.


Is the navigation smooth? Of so, perhaps I will give that a try....


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

mstar said:


> Is the navigation smooth? Of so, perhaps I will give that a try....


Works for me.

Since the update that upset me so many months ago, I've gone to using playlists as the primary way to organize my music. Of course I still use the search function, but

I've got playlist folders for composers, with subfolders for works, and the different recordings are the actual playlists. Such as a playlist folder titled "Bach, Johann Sebastian" with a subfolder "Mass in B minor, BWV 232," with playlists titled "Gardiner 1985," "Richter 1961," and so on.

I've also got playlist folders for performers, which I use mostly for medieval music or recitals.

But the main playlists I use goes by "albums" as in the way it all was on the CDs (sometimes I arrange things as they were originally released instead), and those into playlists of priorities, according to how urgently I plan to or want to listen to them.

But anyway, even without the folders, labeling it that way makes the search function work well.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Ah, interesting! To be honest, I do not even use the Albums feature. Instead, the composer goes in the Artist section for easy navigation through my music. Perhaps a bit simpler, but definitely convenient. So clicking on Albums at the bottom of the page when iTunes is opened gives me all the composers' names.


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## Guest (Sep 8, 2013)

I highly recommend using the year field for year of composition. I find it very interesting and informative to listen to a given composer's music in chronological order, or to listen to all works for a certain narrow period (e.g. 1830s or 1890s). It really does help draw connections or other patterns you might otherwise miss.

Dates of composition are readily available for most music post-renaissance, though you do have to make some guesses. For example when I only know the date of composer's death, I use that date minus ten years for my guesses. Composition dates are a pain for early music though (just try to find composition dates for all the tracks on a typical Jordi Savall lollapalooza!)

I also highly recommend using the grouping field for classical music types (string quartet, orchestral, etc). I have about forty categories I use. I suppose you could do the same via genre (e.g. "classical - string quartet" , etc), but I like having all my classical music in the same genre. I also use "Classical Archives" as the genre for classical music I want to move out of my active collection though for whatever reason (duplicate version, dislikes, etc).

I put "tags" in the description field (e.g. "jewish", "russian", "pops", "cafe", "great", etc) which are used to drive corresponding automatic playlists. This is a lot better than trying to maintain such lists manually. Most of my tags give the nationality of the composer. I reserve the comments field for personal reactions or other notes. 

I have groups of automatic playlists dividing my collection by date added to my collection (e.g. 2010 2nd Quarter), by composition date (usually by decade), by composer (generally any from whom I have more than 2 hours of music), by tag, and by type (e.g. piano trios). A lot of these lists are sorted by date last played so I can quickly find neglected stuff.

I make manual playlists for albums that I like, but can't say I use them much. Still they can be good for loading up an iPod. Albums are typically titled in the patterns "Composer: Work" or "Composer: Album Name" or "Performer - Album Name".

Starting with an "All Classical" playlist, I use the column browser to narrow down the selection by composer, then maybe by grouping, then I browse by album. Or I use one of my custom playlists to find something to listen to. Usually this is all I need. I only rarely use the built-in search feature, but it comes in handy sometimes. Once I find something I want to listen to, I drag it to my "Now Playing" list. 

One last tip - I blank out the composer field for all non-classical tracks. This cuts down on the clutter, with only some loss of info on the non-classical side of things. Oh, and all composers are last-name-comma-first-name, except Chinese composers who don't have the comma.

My artist and album artist (?) fields are generally not curated. Shame on me. But if I wanted to see all works performed by Hilary Hahn, I'd just use the search field.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

My. Dear. Lord. God.

The option to "view artwork" and "always view artwork" are even back when you're viewing the library organized by "songs." 

iTunes is back and better than ever. It was a painful process, but it has worked out well.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

BPS said:


> I highly recommend using the year field for year of composition. I find it very interesting and informative to listen to a given composer's music in chronological order, or to listen to all works for a certain narrow period (e.g. 1830s or 1890s). It really does help draw connections or other patterns you might otherwise miss.
> 
> Dates of composition are readily available for most music post-renaissance, though you do have to make some guesses. For example when I only know the date of composer's death, I use that date minus ten years for my guesses. Composition dates are a pain for early music though (just try to find composition dates for all the tracks on a typical Jordi Savall lollapalooza!)
> 
> ...


The problem with using the date field on iTunes for the date of composition is that it's too rigid: it has to be a four digit numeral. Unfortunately that kind of information isn't often available for compositions earlier than 1700 or so, and it's often more complex anyway, as with Bach's B minor passion. Also, sometimes a work was rediscovered lately (as with Pergolesi's 7 Words) or has an interesting premiere.... So...

So I prefer to use the comment section for that kind of information.

I do have an idiosyncrasy with the date field, which is that I strongly prefer to record the date of the recording rather than the date of release, which seems to be contrary to the gracenotes method.


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## Tero (Jun 2, 2012)

It could be worse. You could be stuck using windows media player.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Well, iTunes has updated itself again and once again the geniuses at apple decided that I'd like to spend the next two weeks figuring out how to view my playlists.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Just abandon iTunes and use something else...
This is what I did a couple of years ago. Now I am using JRiver (on a Windows PC) and I am very happy.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I am loving the new iTunes 11... works like a charm except when it crashes rarely on movie imports.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

albertfallickwang said:


> I am loving the new iTunes 11... works like a charm except when it crashes rarely on movie imports.


I won't say "loving" but it has not been a disaster.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Supposedly some think that J. River is better at organizing stuff than what iTunes default provides.


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## scratchgolf (Nov 15, 2013)

The new "Red iTunes" is terrible. My playlists aren't viewable on the main screen, although I accidentally got them to show up for a day. The next time I opened iTunes, they were gone again. I also manually added music to one of my iPods and there was no way of deleting it after that. I even went on the "dummy question threads" to get help and it didn't work. They said to manually control iPod and delete from there. It worked, until I hit "sync" and they'd immediately show back up on my iPod. I had to do a factory restore to delete the music and start oven. Very annoying.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Necro-posting in this thread looking for tips about how to deal with upgrades.

Both iTunes and the iPod itself are nagging me to install new versions, but every time I do this my settings default back to whatever _they_ think I need, and it's wrong. Wrong, I tell you!

I listen to a lot of podcasts in between music and audiobooks. The podcast player defaults to sort from newest to oldest and playback from newest to oldest. Well that doesn't make any sense! If you're following a podcast wouldn't you want to hear them in sequence oldest to newest? And it does this for each podcast, so every time I upgrade I have to go back through and laboriously fix the settings for each title - show oldest to newest / playback oldest to newest. There doesn't seem to be a global setting.










I visualize a hell in which programmers must use their own creations.


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