Yes, Apple has officially released iTunes 11, which I must say is the biggest change to iTunes in sometime. My first impression of the new iTunes is a bit of a surprise, Apple has done a really nice job with this release. Of course with all things that are new, it will take a while for us to truly evaluate the new and improved iTunes, but so far things are looking pretty impressive.
So what’s new? Well, quite a bit actually. iTunes has essentially been completely redesigned and you will notice these changes the moment you first launch the application.
Preview History:
iTunes 11 now features preview history, something that I greatly appreciate. I actually find that I will preview certain songs and then move on with out keeping track of them, then when I want to go back to the one I liked, I completely forget the song name. This new feature gets rid of the guessing game and it does so across all of your devices thanks to iCloud. The preview history is not just for music, it will also store any movies or TV shows you previewed as well.
Saving your place:
You can now pause any movie, podcast, TV show, iTunesU Lesson, or audiobook and pick up where you left off on any device.
New Mini Player:
Apple is all about mini these days and it’s no different when it comes to iTunes. The new mini player offers up a nice way for you to be able to gloss through your library by providing you with a mini version of it. You can also see what song is going to play next by clicking on the new “Up Next:” button. The “Up Next:” feature is also available in the full size version of iTunes 11 and will also allow you to queue up music ahead of the song your currently listening to. This feature should come in handy when you’re in charge of the party music.
A Clean New Design:
Yeah, I know looks aren’t everything, especially when it comes to software. I use a ton of great apps that for lack of a better word look like, crap, but are extremely useful. iTunes 11, however, looks great. The new redesign is enough to make you feel uncomfortable at first, but once you settle in you quickly realize that things are where they need to be and that everything looks great. The interface just seems to get out of the way and it lets my content shine. This is also true of the iTunes Store which now features a very image rich experience.
iTunes Store Now Features a Gift Card Scanning Feature:
You can now just take a photo of your iTunes Store gift card to redeem it, which is actually a really nice little feature that I missed initially, thanks to MacRumors, who pointed this out.