The last thing we want to cover following Apple’s event yesterday is the new iTunes. Your humble editor has a real problem with iTunes in that it’s so unbelievably bloated, sluggish and damn near unusable. That’s why whenever there is an update to the media software I prick up my ears – because I want it to work.
So with the new iPhone comes, as ever, an update to iTunes. This time though, it looks as though it’s a rather more radical change than we’ve seen previously.
New iTunes Slideshow
Now you get an edge to edge design, greater focus on album art, iCloud built right in and, perhaps most importantly, improved search (thanks to Apple’s acquisition of Chomp, maybe?). There are new features like “Up next”, which implies the ability to queue songs in any order you want to play after the current song, better, more iOS-like, navigation and a redesigned mini player that allows you to manage playlists.
And it looks as though Ping, Apple’s attempt at a social network for music, is absent, as is the left hand navigation bar – which I’m happy about.
All of this is very, very good. Until, of course, I update to it and find it just as slow, bulky and unusable as its predecessor. If that happens, Apple has wasted its time. If it doesn’t I will once more gladly connect my iDevices to my computer and start using iTunes again.
