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Almost every year, Apple releases a new version of iTunes with some new feature. Last year it was Home Sharing. This year, it’s Ping. Apple also usually tweaks the UI, many times creating a backlash. This year Apple has outdone itself.

Vertical Buttons

I’ll start with the most obvious UI tweak: the close/minimize/maximize buttons. I understand why Apple made this change: it saves space. When you hit the maximize button in iTunes, you get the mini-player, which has vertical close/min/max buttons in order to save space. Apple used the same reasoning with the main iTunes window.

There is a way you can disable it. Fire up Terminal and enter the following code:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES

That will put the buttons back horizontally. You can change it back if you want to by changing the “YES” to a “NO”.

I don’t mind this change that much. I usually use the keyboard shortcuts to close or minimize iTunes anyway, and the vertical buttons do save space (if only a little).

Monochrome Sidebar

This one really irks me: Apple completely did away with color in the icons in the sidebar. To show you why this was such a dumb idea, I’m going to quote from Apple’s own Human Interface Guidelines:

Making each toolbar icon distinct helps the user associate it with its purpose and locate it quickly. Variations in shape, color, and image all help to differentiate one toolbar icon from another.

Making all the sidebar icons monochrome makes it harder to identify them, especially since they’re all similar in size. Back in iTunes 9, you could easily tell where the iTunes Store was because its icon was green. In iTunes 10, you have to distinguish between the shapes, which is harder for us to do and takes more time.

There are currently a couple of hacks available to address this.

Show/Hide in the Sidebar

Another change made to the sidebar is getting rid of the triangle buttons on the left of list headings. These have been replaced by “Show/Hide” buttons that only appear when you’re hovering over a list name.

Album List View

Album list view is basically list view, but with albums on the side. A version of this existed in iTunes 9, but Apple tweaked the functionality of it as well as added a new toolbar button for it.

The New Icon

The new iTunes icon isn’t bad, it’s just not terribly interesting. I think Apple should have used a color other than blue, because, as Josh pointed out, there’s already a surplus of blue icons in OS X (Finder, Mail, Safari, iChat, QuickTime, etc). Purple would’ve worked nicely.

Apple chose to change the icon as the former “CD” icon has become less and less relevant in the age of digital downloads. But Apple could have taken it a step further. It could have changed the name as well, seeing as iTunes has long been for more than just music. My current favorite is “iMedia,” but that’s a little too broad; media can be images, as well. Also, “iMedia” doesn’t sound as good as “iTunes.” I think Apple will eventually change the name (and the icon to reflect that).

If you’d like tou can change the icon yourself:

1. Open your Applications folder in Finder and highlight iTunes.
2. Right click on it and select “Show Package Contents”.
3. Go to Content -> Resources and replace the iTunes.icns with a new one. There’s already some great replacement icons coming out, like this one from Mattias Ekstrom. Of course, you can also just use the old iTunes icon.

Conclusion

It seems to me like most of the changes in iTunes are changes for change’s sake; just to make it look newer. The only really new feature in iTunes is Ping, and that’s basically just a link in the sidebar.

Do you love or hate iTunes 10? What other new names might work for it? Tell us in the comments.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: With Ping, Apple Builds a Social Network Inside a Walled Garden

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iTunes 10 was released yesterday and brought with it a few UI overhauls. The loss of color in the sidebar for one, along with the change of orientation of the window controls at the top of the window. There currently isn’t a way to bring back the colored icons in the sidebar, but there sure is a way to get the window controls back to their former positions.

It’s simple enough, and requires just one line to be entered into Terminal. Quit iTunes, wait for it to close completely, then fire up Terminal, which can be found under Applications → Utilities. Either type or paste the following code into the Terminal window and hit Return:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

Now when you reopen iTunes, the ‘traffic light’ controls should be back along the top of the window, side-by-side. It does a lot for keeping the look of OS X consistent across applications. Of course, perhaps this is Apple’s way of telling us that in the next version of the Mac operating system, all the windows are going to be laid out like this.

Should you ever want to restore iTunes 10′s default setting, and put the controls back down the side, enter this code into Terminal (again with iTunes closed):

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -0

Now we have a fix for the window controls, all we need is a setting to bring back the color in the sidebar. If you know a way, shout out in the comments!

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After each Apple press event, there is a visible track of turbulence online, in the technology market and on Wall Street that some cannot help but get caught within. There is no denying that when Apple decides to head in a particular direction, it will lead. And all that is left for the rest of us to decide is whether or not we will follow or get out-of-the-way.

When you continually take such wide strides in innovation, intentional or unintentional, there will always be casualties. In 2010 alone, Apple held no less than five major media events that in some way affected the way markets were defined and revenues were earned for a significant number of companies.

Dead or Dying Already

This year we have witnessed the fall of HP’s Slate that Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer introduced at CES, a massive shift in consumer purchasing behavior in the netbook market and media moguls struggle with the hard decision between propping up traditional print or adopting newer digital technologies. When it comes to development platforms, Steve was more than willing to speak out and share his thoughts on the subject, while evidence continues to mount that he was right about Adobe Flash on mobile devices. With just one of two new lenses, two consumer markets were affected: the digital snapshot camera and the handheld HD video recorder. I loved my Flip Mino HD video recorder (past tense). With HD video recording capabilities, on-device editing, and the ability to share instantly online, the justification for a separate Flip video recording device just did not make sense any more.

September 2010 Media Event

There is a reason the entire tech industry pauses a moment to see what Steve will say next at these major press events. Many are holding their breath to see if their bottom line will be affected in either a positive or a negative manner. Every time Steve talks, things change. And yesterday’s event was no different. In many ways, the latest media event from Apple will shake more things up than any previous media event yet this year.

Multi-Room Entertainment Systems: AirPlay has some pretty big names backing it including Denon, Marantz, B&W, JBL and iHome. Simply having the ability to stream music simultaneously to multiple rooms could add some serious competition to products like the Sonos Music System, Bose SoundLink, Yamaha MusicCast and Klipsch LightSpeaker to name a few. Apple is potentially cannibalizing its own product by competing with the presently available AirTunes capability of the AirportExpress.

Print Apps in App Store: So what will happen to the sale of printing apps now that Apple will support printing on the iPad? Until we see exactly how printing will work, it is hard to say at this point. But rest assured that consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for specialized printing abilities will be at a minimum. Currently there are more than a dozen apps for the iPad that can print. Many of these are currently priced anywhere from $4.99 to $9.99. These price points will likely drop, as will support for some of the apps simply because the market will shift in this category.

HDR Apps in App Store: Just as the 5.0 MP camera that Apple introduced with the iPhone 4 has likely cut into the sales of casual point and shoot digital cameras, updating the on board camera app supplied with each iPhone will undoubtedly affect the sales of HDR Apps. This includes wonderful Apps like HDR Camera, TrueHDR and Pro HDR. I have tried these apps and I must say that the when the camera is held steady, the results are stunning.

Roku and Boxee media Devices: While the new Apple TV is not revolutionary, the price point sure is. At the magical price point of just $99, it will be hard for any household with iPads, iPhones, iPods and iMacs to refuse. Especially when this device will make it easier than ever to view all of the memories captured, organized and edited with each of those iPads, iPhones, iPods and iMacs. If Apple would ever decide to make MobileMe free to Apple customers again, this one time cost would be easy to justify. Devices like Roku and Boxee now have some serious competition to contend with.

Everyone wants to lead, but just how far out in front is Apple? Can any company, including Google, have as dramatic of an impact across the entire technology industry, each and every time they decide to have their CEO invite the media over for a chat? In fact, it may be a good idea to check with Steve before you make any sudden moves in the tech industry.

So how has Apple affected your life in 2010?

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So is Apple TV still only a hobby for Jobs and company? Because if it isn’t, then I’m missing something from yesterday’s presentation when the new iteration of Apple’s set-top device was unveiled. The new Apple TV is smaller, cheaper and sexier, I’ll grant it that, but what else does it really have going for it?

Let’s start with rental only. That’s right, you can only rent content from the Apple TV, not purchase it. It makes sense given the device’s lack of onboard storage, but does it make sense for a buying public that’s only just now moving past the point of physical media ownership? All of a sudden, not only do you not have a disc you own when you pay for content, you also don’t even have a file. Instead you get a window of opportunity.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like archiving my material and I like to have it available whenever I want to review it, or just revisit a favorite scene to make sure I remember it correctly. True, as Steve Jobs said in the presentation, I’ll be able to rent it multiple times for cheaper than I’d be able to buy it, but then I can’t lend it to friends and family, pass it on to my kids or view it again 50 years down the road when its gone out of print.

Putting aside the tyranny of streaming-only, at least you can access your media on your computer, where it is comfortably stored, right? Well, only if you’ve adhered to Apple’s way of doing media, and haven’t strayed to any of the other terrific and much more popular video formats out there. Apple TV remains closed, and as a result, any machine running Boxee hooked up to my TV remains a better option, even considering the price differential for the original purchase.

Speaking of price, let’s look at that $99 tag Jobs dangled in our salivating faces. It’s almost an impulse buy at that point, and I know a few people who indulged that impulse. But you know what else is a good price? $10 for a fancy razor with replaceable heads. Those heads will cost you $40 for a four-pack, sure, but that’s later. Apple isn’t going to make most (if any) of its money on the Apple TV itself (though without much onboard storage, it’s cheap enough to build), but on the gobs of media you’re almost forced to purchase from them as a result.

The inclusion of Netflix is one of the few genuinely impressive things about the new Apple TV. It means that people who already have a subscription don’t need to go in for Apple’s pricier rental options, and the implementation looks pretty impressive as compared to its counterparts on other platforms.

But even if you exclusively use the Netflix option, which means being behind in terms of release dates on TV and movies, you’ll end up paying much more for the hardware than you probably would if you opted for a media PC (or Mac mini, even) purchase and just depended on free streaming from network websites. Occasionally you’d still run up against content you have to pay for, but you can own it, and you options for sourcing that could equate to a much better per purchase price.

In general, I’m willing to deal with Apple’s closed systems and devices because of the trade-offs I get in terms of quality. But third-party apps and desktop software make it possible for me to still use Apple hardware with my own content, regardless of format and point of origin. That’s not likely going to be the case with the Apple TV, and until it is, it won’t find a place in my living room, regardless of cost and cosmetics.

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Until now, the state of Twitter on the iPad hasn’t been great. There were a few pretty good apps (I’ve been using Tweetdeck), but the field needed a champion. Enter the official Twitter for iPad app.

Early this morning, Twitter for iOS was updated as a universal app, bringing a new iPad-specific format to the existing iPhone one. Loren Birchter, the man behind the Twitter app, and Twitter itself has long heralded its arrival. So is it worth the wait?

Well, Twitter definitely has the right idea with this app at first glance. Unlike some other third-party clients I could mention, Twitter for iPad takes full advantage of the iPad’s generous screen space, and does so creatively. You won’t find the same sort of columns that Tweetdeck uses, but you will find a modular, multi-pane layout that pushes new content to the right allowing you to navigate through threads of tweets without losing the thread of where you’ve come from and how exactly you got there.

You can also use two nifty new multitouch gestures. Pinching a tweet will show you the user profile of the person who tweeted it, and pulling down with two fingers will open up a view of the entire conversation related to that tweet, if there is one. Video plays inline, or you can expand it to take up the whole screen. It also continues to load in the background if you want to keep navigating through your stream or open panes.

In terms of the differences between landscape and profile view, there really aren’t any, other than getting to see more of your history in landscape, and more of your timeline in portrait. Users of the OS X Tweetie desktop app will recognize the left-most account overview column, and it works equally well on this platform for switching between multiple Twitter profiles.

So, while some power-users might still prefer Tweetdeck’s columns, Twitter’s iPad app is a much better choice for the rest of us. It’s clean, simple, but powerful when it needs to be, and I’ve yet to run into any bugs. Plus, it’s free. This is by far the best Twitter app out there for the iPad platform.

Users who haven’t yet updated to iOS 4 on their iPhone devices might want to hold out updating for now, though, as many negative reviews in the App Store indicate that the new version crashes on iOS versions 3.1.3 and earlier.

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AirPlay was one of the most nebulous topics up for discussion today at Steve Jobs’ special press event regarding iOS, iPods, iTunes and Apple TV. In many ways, it’s something we already know a lot about, since it’s the successor to AirTunes. In others, it’s a mystery.

AirTunes, for those who didn’t know, was the technology that allowed iTunes users who also owned AirPort Expresses to wirelessly stream their iTunes music library to speakers connected to the portable routers. It was good, but you had to pay $99 for every AirPort Express, and connect them either with optical audio or mini stereo cables to your sound system or receiver.

Now, AirPlay will provide the ability to stream directly to devices that support it, which will include offerings from Denon and JBL, among others. Along with music, AirPlay will also stream track and artist information, including album artwork, either over a wired ethernet connection or wirelessly using Wi-Fi.

That’s not all AirPlay is good for. It’ll also allow you to stream video and audio content from your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 4.2 when that drops in November. You’ll be able to stream your content from those devices to the Apple TV, for one, as Steve demoed today during the press event.

Here’s where things get murky: Will you be able to stream content to your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad from other sources, like your computer? Jobs cleverly eluded any mention of such a feat, which makes me suspect that the streaming magic is one-way only. That’s troubling news, especially when Google’s acquisition of Simplify Media means such a feature is likely on the way for Android devices.

Many might also wonder why Apple doesn’t just put to use an existing open standard for media streaming, like, say DLNA, that’s already got the backing of many hardware manufacturers. My guess? DLNA has received some major hate, and not without reason. Apple might want to sidestep that debate altogether, and at the same time retain tight control over which hardware partners they work with. AirPlay is less about freeing your music and video and more about a controlled expansion of the iTunes ecosystem.

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During today’s press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that 450 million TV episodes, along with 11.7 billion songs, 100 million movies and 35 million books, have been downloaded from the iTunes store, making it the number one digital media store in the world. How will its newly announced 99-cent rental program change the marketplace? It depends what’s on offer.

When we compared Hulu Plus to Netflix Instant during its launch, we found while the back catalog was comparable, Hulu Plus had Netflix easily beat when it came to new episodes of current shows. Apple’s rental program, though, draws from a larger pool of content, which could be a game changer.

Note the use of the word “could” here. Jobs announced that so far, only ABC and Fox have signed up for the 99-cent rental program. While we don’t yet know what specific shows will or won’t be available for 99 cents, based purely on studio, the below chart indicates that about a third of the content Hulu Plus is offering this fall won’t be available for rental on iTunes.

NBC is clearly the missing link here, and if it decides to participate in the future, that would put Hulu Plus and iTunes on par with each other. Of course, you can’t necessarily compare a subscription service to a per-item rental service; for the $10 a month I pay for Hulu Plus (which, without shelling out $99 for an Apple TV, I can watch on my television thanks to the PS3), I have unlimited access to the service’s catalog of content.

That definitely works in Hulu Plus’s favor. When the new fall season starts, for example, I’ll be watching the theoretically rentable Castle, Glee, House and Modern Family on a weekly basis. If I were renting them a la carte from iTunes, in a month when each show premiered three new episodes I’d spend $11.88 to keep caught up, and if I wanted to review them after 48 hours, I’d have to plop down another 99 cents each. Compared to Hulu Plus, that’s not a great way to spend my money (even with the commercial-free video Apple provides).

The deal breaker here is that the iTunes catalog extends well beyond ABC and Fox, thanks to its relationships with pretty much every major TV network and studio. If cable or premium channels like AMC, HBO or Showtime — which do currently sell episodes via iTunes — join the rental program, it could be a very different marketplace indeed.

Frankly, Mad Men is half the reason I still have a cable subscription, which currently costs me $100/month. If I could rent the weekly misadventures of Don Draper for 99 cents each, that’d leave me about $96 a month in savings, which I’d find much easier to use towards a la carte rentals and purchases for series and movies not available through subscription services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.

In short: The iTunes rental program might not make me rethink my Hulu Plus subscription, but if more content providers get on board, it could make me rethink cable.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable

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