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.
Comments
Author: Oscar Bravo`
Date: 2006-01-23 20:54:20
Great analysis and right on the money… I thought I was doing something daft when “iPod update is complete” jammed on the screen - forever… It seems that since I once updated my iPod, I have to be reminded of it as a matter of priority for the rest of my life.
Also, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one to be annoyed by the one. Podcast. At. A. Time. Bug.
I just updated to iPod 1.1 so maybe that’ll fix things (that’s another thing - a patch, and it takes 46 MBytes!)
Let me know if you ever find a fix…
Rgds,Oscar
Author: Matt Schinckel
Date: 2006-02-02 14:17:40
My biggest hassle is that HTTP Resume is not supported. I’m on dialup, and I seem to get a fair chunk of a PodCast, and then it fails, and needs to be restarted, and will restart from scratch.
Similarly, I’d like to auto-restart failed transfers, and also be able to limit the number of concurrent downloads (I’ve had more success downloading one podcast at a time).
Author: Clint
Date: 2006-11-23 19:13:50
About. The. One. Podcast. At. A. Time (on an iPod):
The solution is to put the podcasts in a playlist (manually or using the ‘podcast is true’ setting in a smart playlist)
Then in the playlist you can listen to your podcasts, just make sure that the ‘Shuffle Songs’ setting on the iPod is set to ‘off’.
Author: Tim Germer
Date: 2005-07-07 22:27:17
Hugo, do you know of any script that will pull the latest podcasts into a Smart Playlist in iTunes?! I can’t stand having to go through each podcast to see if there is an updated show.
Tim