Taking iTunes Full-Screen in Lion
If you’re one of the million-plus people who took the leap and installed Lion on your Mac last week, odds are you know about the new OS’ Full-Screen App feature—but if you haven’t upgraded to iTunes 10.4, you might be missing out. One of the first things you might notice upon launching the app in Lion is a pair of diagonal arrows pointing out towards the corners of the screen—these are there to let you turn on Full Screen mode, which can also be activated by hitting control-command-F on the keyboard.
Once in Full-Screen mode, you’ll notice that the typical menu bar at the top has disappeared—but fret not, as moving your pointer to the top of the screen will make it automatically reappear, complete with a blue box in the upper right corner with two diagonal arrows pointing toward each other inside, which lets you exit Full-Screen mode (the same keyboard shortcut listed above also works for this purpose). If you’re like us, you may find Full-Screen mode to be a nearly perfect match for iTunes’ album art-heavy Grid view, which is the same default view used by the iPad’s Music app.

Whether you’ve got iTunes in Full-Screen mode or not, however, the feature will still offer something for one of iTunes’ sub features in the upcoming iTunes 10.5: the Visualizer. Fire up the Visualizer by selecting it from the View menu or hitting command-T, and the Visualizer appears in its own virtual Full-Screen desktop, letting you move quickly between it, iTunes, and whatever other applications you might be running. As if iOS 5 wasn’t enough to look forward to this fall.
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1
WHy am i the only one who hates Full Screen? I use duel monitors, so for me, enabling 2 screens is like turning one monitor off. It is stupid to sell a $1,000 display, and pump a feature that turns it off. If full screen mode worked on both monitors, it would be awesome… but it doesn’t.
Posted by Rich Cassady on July 26, 2011 at 5:44 AM (PST)
2
I find full-screen annoying because the app moves to its own Space. I am using to knowing which space each app is in and moving there with a swipe.
Posted by Me on July 26, 2011 at 6:23 AM (PST)
3
If you are having a hard time adopting full screen mode, it is because you do not have an 11” MacBook Air. Just saying.
Posted by jiji on July 26, 2011 at 8:07 PM (PST)
4
Agree with #3. I hated it until I realized it’s really for a small(er) screen. On a MBAir, it’s great. Other Macs don’t really need it…
Posted by sb on July 27, 2011 at 9:41 AM (PST)
5
Why the h*ll do I need to go on a forum to figure this out?! why not just keep the esc as an option to get out of this?! Also, why cant I change the size of my itunes minimized box anymore. Why break things that work perfectly well?
Posted by synx on January 17, 2012 at 8:53 AM (PST)
6
In agreeance w synx on this one. This feature is really annoying and not intuitive in any way. Not an improvement.
Posted by cf on December 23, 2012 at 1:48 PM (PST)