iLounge

By Dennis Lloyd

Publisher, iLounge
Published: Thursday, May 1, 2003
News Category:

iLounger Nicholas H. emailed us his humorous review of iTunes 4. Click “Read more” for the full review.

iTunes 4

...the iTunes staff went on Vacation, and left the iTunes 4 development to the interns. Want proof? Strange quirks and odd logic to follow:

The volume slider now has a bezelled “dot” within the knob. Why is there a dot? Who requested that Volume now have a dot? No other Apple programs have a dot.

Green? Green here, green there, green everywhere. The App icon is green, MP3 icons are now green. Last time I saw this much green was when I dreamt I was a head of lettuce.

Playlists’ icons are flat and ugly. All iApps are brushed metal, but the icons look like something out of System 6. And while we’re at it, do we really need a musical note on every icon that represents a list of music?

Wow! Check out the gnarly colors! Library is yellowish-orangish-brown, shared music is pastel-baby blue, and the Music Store and Purchased Music bins are bright green. And by bright green I mean to say “Owww, that green hurts my eyes.”

The new font looks like it used to look when your mom would accidentally switch your System Font in OS 9 to something awkward and then complain that the computer was “broken.”

The button for “Show or hide album artwork” could not look less like what it’s describing. The icon is a square with a shaded rectangle encasing a triangle. What???

Grab the tab to stretch-out a minimized iTunes control window. It only slides out to a certain point… and then stops. Do any other programs do this?

You browse the iTunes Music Store by genre by default. Who wants to browse by genre over artist?

Why, on the left side of the main window, do we have New Playlist, Random, Shuffle, and Show/Hide Album Artwork and on the other side Equalizer, Visual Effects, and Eject? There’s no rhyme or reason for this organization. Can’t we do something about this?

The “Advanced” menu has the strangest mishmash of functions I’ve ever seen. Can’t we split these functions into “Store” and “Network” menus? And while we’re at it, why in the WORLD does Visualizer have its own menu? Can’t we just tuck that guy into the preferences panel somewhere and have it activated in the Window menu?

Speaking of menus, why did View Options get moved to the Edit menu? And why on EARTH are Hide Browser and Show Artwork in the Edit menu??? You’re not editing anything!

Sound Check: It doesn’t work. It needs to be fixed. And if you claim it works, you’re just lying.

Okay, it’s not new but: The “Browse” button is a rainbow eye. RAINBOW EYE, PEOPLE!! AHHHHHH!!!!

Other than that, go Apple, iTunes 4 is KILLER.