iTunes 5

Call me crazy, but I'm really liking the new iTunes interface. My favorite new feature is the option to display the album cover of the currently playing song. Yes! I can't believe it took until version 5 to get that, but hey, it's here. That was going to be this week's Friday "bug" to file. Now if I could only get a version of the mini but not so mini iTunes interface that shows the album cover. Maybe that'll be my new Friday bug? What I didn't like was that I wound up rebooting my laptop twice yesterday, once for iTunes (why?) and once for Quicktime (this at least I can understand).

[Update:] I just noticed that the track names are no longer editable in the main interface table. Thank you, thank you. I always seem to have a few empty track names littering my music library thanks to the overly aggressive clicking of my young kids. This solves that problem nicely.

[Update: 09/13/2005] Bummer, I take it back, the track names are editable. How you get the track name into edit mode seems to have changed slightly. It's not quite as easy? There's a rhythm to it, clicking the track name with enough of a delay after selection and it becomes editable. I wish there was a way to lock the whole thing down. Like I said, my kids have this way of acting just like monkeys on my keyboard.

Links:

1. iTunes 5 is released.
   iTunes
2. A very astute observation about the new iTunes look and NeXT.
   iTunes 5 and UI Trends, inessential.com, Brent Simmons.
3. A hilarious look at Brushed Metal, getting the brush off.
   Anthropomorphized, Daring Fireball, John Gruber.
4. Just when I understood how shuffle worked.
   Itunes 5 Shuffle Got More Random, TUAW, David Chartier.