Whew. As the iPhone 4 antenna controversy faded into the sunset, I worried that Apple might not give us anything new to get rankled about.
But then right on cue comes iTunes 10 — which has successfully taken its place as the lightning rod du jour.
Let’s start with the undeniable: iTune 10 has flaws.
Personally, I’m fine with a flaw now and then. Apple is successful because it allows itself to take chances, and great leaps often come with a few stumbles. However, making mistakes is one thing — overlooking the obvious is another.
Ping launched with a nasty spam problem that turned off a lot of people. Literally as I write this, Apple has defeated the spam. It’s just incomprehensible that a company this smart would so naively launch a service like Ping without considering its vulnerability to spam. It was an unnecessary black eye.
I’m surprised that Apple unveiled Ping with so few participating artists. Following your favorite artists seems like at least half of Ping’s draw. It would have been an awesome start to have hundreds of artists signed up for the launch, but apparently secrecy trumped recruitment. Now Ping must go through a growing pain that also wasn’t necessary.
I’m surprised that Ping profiles allow users to express an interest in only three musical genres. Even I, ridiculed for my pathetically myopic taste in music, enjoy more than three genres.
Then there’s the matter of the new iTunes icon. Many believe it’s ugly and amateurish. Well, okay, good point. But its problem goes deeper. If Apple thought it was time to redesign the iTunes icon, I would expect them to aim for what iTunes is now, not what it was 10 years ago. Far more than music, iTunes has become the central access point for all our entertainment, including movies and TV shows. Yet the new icon focuses iTunes even more single-mindedly on music. (At least the now-discarded disc, archaic as it was, could have been loosely interpreted as music and movies.)
Apple's new iTunes icon vs. a concerned citizen's redesign (via Mashable.com)
In a Mashable article over the weekend, a number of designers pitched in their alternate ideas for an iTunes icon. You can be sure a similar exercise took place inside Apple. Obviously the priority was losing the boat anchor of the CD, rather than trying to capture the evolved spirit of iTunes.
Though I agree with some of the iTunes complaints out there, I don’t necessarily agree with the proposed solutions. For example, some believe that iTunes has simply become too bloated, and therefore needs to be broken into chunks. In my opinion, what they’re really saying is that it’s no longer as easy or fun to access the goodies as we’ve come to expect from Apple. Having everything in one place is the simplest way to go. iTunes just needs a thoughtful, imaginative interface overhaul. This is what Apple does best, and one wonders why this need has gone so long unaddressed.
I haven’t a shred of doubt that iTunes will quickly overcome its immediate issues. I will sit patiently, along with my three preferred musical genres, for the improvements to come.
