At Long Last, iTunes 11 Is Available — And We Dig It - Wired

Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired

So long, iTunes 10. Apple begins rolling out the 11th iteration of its iTunes media player and store today, and we’re digging the redesigned interface, improved search, ability to play content straight from iCloud and sync playback across devices.

For the most part, the new iTunes feels like the old iTunes. The experience is much faster though and has a decidedly more modern, streamlined user interface featuring flashy, colorful graphics. Apple has trimmed a lot of fat, but with so much information to present and sort through, navigation can still feel a bit convoluted, especially compared to minimalist services like Rdio.

As for the interface, gone is the left-hand navigation panel that used to permeate the experience. Now, you can toggle between the iTunes Store and your Library through a button in the upper right of the iTunes window. In your Library, a drop down menu in the upper left grants you access to your Music, Movies, Books, and other media. Once selected, you can swap between different views like Songs, Albums, and Playlists (for Music, for example). These are listed across the top of the iTunes window.

In the iTunes Store, which opens to a home screen highlighting side-scrolling album and poster art for music, movies, TV shows, and apps, you can toggle between Apple’s different media offerings by clicking options like Music, Movies, or App Store, again listed across the top of the iTunes window.

If you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, the main page for each store presents a multitude of curated options to select from. As in previous iTunes versions, I find the sheer number of app icons or images of album art a bit overwhelming (especially when they’re layered with rows of rectangular icons highlighting specific content collections).

Image: Screenshot

As for searching, iTunes seems to do a pretty masterful job of figuring out the context of what you’re searching for, and producing a robust collection of results in a matter of moments.

Other thoughts: Playing music straight from iCloud is convenient, and worked without a hitch for me so far. Playlist management is also much simpler than it iTunes 10. Click the arrow next to a song to have it play next, or to add it to your “Up Next” queue; alternatively, you can drag and drop a title to the Up Next queue icon. The redesigned mini player is great, showing the artist, title, and album art for the current song, which toggles to a play-pause-next interface (plus an AirPlay button) when you mouse over it. The Up Next queue icon is on the right of this mini player, along with a search icon.

Apple has clearly put a lot of thought into this iTunes redesign, and it shows. I see no reason not to upgrade to iTunes 11, particularly if you are a heavy user of Apple’s media distribution and music playing platform. The one thing that would make iTunes killer in my book is if it adopted a simple cloud-based subscription service like Rdio and Spotify â€" along with those services’ equally simple interface. As most of my music playing has shifted from on-device to Rdio

You can download iTunes 11 from Apple’s website here if you haven’t already.