iTunes 12’s New Interface ⇥ macstories.net

Federico Viticci of MacStories really doesn’t like the new iTunes’ UI:

I don’t understand most of the changes that went into the iTunes 12 interface: from the lack of a sidebar to the new tabs for navigation and separation of media types and iTunes Store, I feel completely lost using the new iTunes.

Neither does Marco Arment:

Of all of the complaints people had about iTunes… is anyone ever asking them to dramatically revamp the window layout and hide everything?

I, oddly, disagree. I actually think the new iTunes UI is extremely effective. I think the separation of views based on media type makes a lot of sense, and that the sidebar was never really a great idea in such a complex app. When you’re browsing through movies, for example, you probably don’t need to see your music playlists. The two live in separate realms.

Of course, the tenability of having so many media types shoehorned into iTunes over the years is a different matter altogether. I’ve previously argued — and I stand by this — that the all-in-one solution is the least worst option for iTunes. It’s not the best, but it would be more convoluted to have separate apps for managing music, movies, apps, and podcasts, for buying all of those things, and for syncing them. That’s too many things. The isolation of iBooks into its own app in Mavericks is a good illustration of just how confusing this is: iTunes syncs books, but you buy and manage them in iBooks. Confusing.