iTunes: “Wouldn’t This Be Cool”
Aren’t you sick of lists of text? I sure am. The iTunes dock menu, though functional enough, seems a lot taller than it should be. Do we really need 3 menu items for repeat options (off/all/one)?
Tiger introduced a new menu control that to date I’ve only ever seen in the Finder: the label selector. Instead of having a submenu with the titles of all the labels and the color of it beside as was the case in OS 9, the Tiger Finder shows the label icons inline with the menu going horizontally, with the name of the label appearing below as the different icons are hovered over. It’s a great concept for reducing menu clutter, and it’s a shame that Apple’s only implemented it in the Finder so far.
So why not iTunes? The setup lends itself well to the concept: each of the functions in the menu can be represented as a distinctly recognizable small icon. Instead of traversing through a submenu to rate the playing song, the stars would be right there - same function, less mouse movement. As you hovered over a star, those to its right would dim, and it and those to its left would turn black, returning to its original rating on mouse out. I’ve seen this implemented on many different websites (for example, the stars at the top of this one), and it only seems logical to apply the same to iTunes.
Secondly, play/pause, forward and back as icons rather than text is simply more intuitive. My brain will register “back a song” faster if it sees double arrows pointing backwards than if it sees the text “Previous”, and I imagine most people would be the same way. I’m certain Apple could come up with better looking icons for this row than I did, but nevertheless, it’s a perfect match for the Finder’s label control and music-control icons. And for the people that don’t immediately recognize the icons (of which I can’t imagine there are many - they are using iTunes after all), it’ll even display the name of the function - i.e., “Repeat” or “Play” - when you hover over it.
Lastly, I can think of many times when I’ve wanted to check the album of the song playing without leaving what I’m working on. But the menu doesn’t show the album, so I have to bring focus to the iTunes window to check that. “Now Playing” is a rather pointless menu item - it doesn’t give any information of itself, and it’s a general waste of space. I think it would be better to use that space instead to display the album of the currently playing song. It’s a minor kvetch, I know, but isn’t it the attention to detail that sets Apple apart from everyone else?
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