iTunes is broken

I like iTunes. However, version 4.9 is broken in some ways. I am already looking forward to the next generation application.



What happened is that features were crammed into the existing user interface that made the overall usability suffer.

Here are some examples of thing that are broken in iTunes 4.9.



The status display



Picture 1 - play status



iTunes' status display shows information of the currently playing item among other things. The problem is that it is used for too many different kinds of information. Especially now since iTunes can be doing a lot of things at the same time.



For example:

You are playing something. You see the progress of 'play' in the status display. (See picture 1.) You can navigate through the item by clicking in the timeline. You can change the information that is being displayed by clicking on 'Remaining time:'.



Now iTunes starts updating its podcasting subscriptions.



Picture 2 - updating subscriptions



The result is that you can not see the progress of what's playing anymore. Updating subscriptions can take quite a while and it can't be interrupted.



'iPod Update is complete.' sticks



Picture 3 - iPod update is complete



'iPod update is complete' appears after each update of the iPod. That can happen quite often. (Suppose for example that you have set iTunes to automatically update music, podcasts, calendars and contacts.) By clicking the icon in the status display it switches back to displaying progress but you have to do this manually, every time!

It would be nicer if the 'iPod update is complete' would disappear after a few seconds or if it were displayed somewhere else. (Maybe the developers of iTunes can take a look at Apple's Mail application.)



Cancel!

The user should be able to undo an action or cancel while in progress. When iTunes starts updating your podcast subscriptions it can't be stopped.

At work I have to connect to the internet through a proxy server. The proxy was temporarily not available. Then iTunes started updating subscriptions. For each individual subscription it asked for my proxy username and password. There was no way to cancel the update process. I had to either press cancel more than 100 times or kill the application. After restarting iTunes you have to find where you left and hope it doesn't happen again...



I like more than one podcast

One podcast. Stop.

After. Playing. One. Podcast. You. Have. To. Select. The. Next. One. And. Press. Play. Again. This. Is. Especially. Annoying. On. An. iPod. While. Walking. Through. Town. Or. When. Driving. Imagine. Wanting. To. Listen. To. Several. Short. Podcasts. In. A. Row.