iTunes Tip: New “Mini Player” Window in iTunes 10

You may be familiar with the iTunes Mini Player window. When you’re playing music, and click the green button at the top-left of the iTunes window, the Mini Player window displays, offering you basic controls for your music.

iTunes 10 added another type of “mini player,” which I’ll call the “artwork player.” When listening to music in iTunes, display the music’s artwork by clicking the artwork viewer button, the fourth button from the left at the bottom of the Itunes window . Click on the artwork, and it will display in its own window. If you hover over this window, you’ll see that there are controllers visible. (These are the same type of controllers you can see when playing videos in iTunes, or in QuickTime Player.)

Now, you can minimize the main iTunes window by clicking the yellow button in the top-left corner, and use this window to control your playback.

If you’re listening to a single album, the artwork will remain the same; if you’re listening to a playlist of songs from different albums, the artwork will change as the songs change. If what you want to listen to has no artwork, you can still use this window: it will display two musical notes. You can resize the window by dragging the bottom-right corner, so you can make it very small if you want. It doesn’t, however, give you the option to have it float over other windows as the Mini Player does.

Learn more about iTunes 10 in my forthcoming Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ, due out in mid-September.

Coming Soon: Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ

Now that iTunes 10 is out, I’m going to make a pre-announcement for my forthcoming book. Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ is the latest in the Take Control series, and the first book to look at real-world uses of iTunes. As a long-time music fan, I’ve learned, over the years, how to tame iTunes, and bend it to my will. In this book, I’ll show you how to manage your media files, tag and organize them, choose the best views in iTunes, and I’ll give you dozens of tips to make working with this complex and powerful program easier. Written in frequently asked question format, Take Control of iTunes 10: The FAQ looks at the main questions that users have about the program.

Ready for publication in August, we waited for Apple’s music event this week, and the announcement of iTunes 10, to finalize the book. I’m going over the last new iTunes features, and it should be published in about ten days. It’s totally up-to-date for all the new features and interface elements in iTunes 10. Stay tuned for more info.

iTunes Tip: Force Artwork to Display No Matter How Many Tracks in an Album

With iTunes 10′s new Album List view, you may find that if you have fewer than five tracks (for medium-sized artwork, three tracks for small, or seven tracks for large), no artwork displays. I’m a visual guy, and I like to see my artwork all the time, especially because I have a lot of albums with few tracks, since I tag many classical works as albums.

So, you can force the artwork to display no matter what. For each library or playlist where you want to do this, choose View > Always Show Artwork.

I’d prefer the way it was before, where you could choose the size of the artwork by changing the column width, and I find the “large” size still a bit small. But at least there’s a way to see artwork all the time.

What New iPod Features Will Apple Present Next Week?

It’s iPod time again. As Apple has done for many years now, the company has announced a “media event” for September 1, undoubtedly to announce new iPods, but also, perhaps, other iOS devices or features. My Macworld colleague Chris Breen ponders this, as do many others in the Mac punditry. I thought I would add a few pixels to the discussion.

First, it’s important to note that Apple has announced this media event just as my new Take Control of iTunes book has been wrapped up and moved into production. (Which will, most likely, delay the book a few days, as I’ll need to add new content for the new features if iTunes is updated.) So I’m particularly interested in any newness in iTunes itself, as well as for the iPod line.

Back in June, I tossed out a few ideas for iTunes improvements: that the program could add new file formats, add a streaming feature, and, above all, offer wireless syncing to devices that have wifi. Others have talked about a possible iPod nano with a touch screen (I don’t see the point), or a refresh to the AppleTV.

My guess is that we’re going to see several things: an increase to the capacity of the iPod touch, with a 128 GB model. This will lead to the retirement of the iPod classic, which is marginal at best. With more capacity on the touch, those with large libraries will be able to move over to the improved interface of the touch device, and will have all the apps at their fingertips.

There will certainly be a new nano, as this is Apple’s prime unit seller in the iPod product line, but I won’t speculate on what it will offer. (Though if Apple adds wireless syncing to iTunes, I could imagine the nano getting wifi, just for syncing.)

I hope Apple ditches its horrid shuffle-with-no-buttons. I have one, and have only used it a couple of times when I was writing about it; I far prefer the previous model with buttons.

As for iTunes itself, other than possible wireless syncing, will we see a streaming service, related to Apple’s purchase of Lala some time ago? The rumors aren’t there, and for something that big (which involves agreements with the major record labels), info does leak.

In any case, stay tuned for more information about my Take Control of iTunes ebook, which will be out very soon.

Find Out What You Listen to Most in Your iTunes Library

Have you ever wondered what you’ve listened to most in your music library? Not just songs (which you can see by sorting your library by Plays), but also albums, artists, or even genres? Doug Adams, the AppleScript wallah, has released a neat application called Spins which tells you just that. It scans your iTunes library, then lets you choose a number of ways to sort: by unique tracks, pooled tracks (all tracks with the same name by the same artist, to include different versions), album, artist, and you can get stats about which genres you play the most and even the total play time for your iTunes library.

Spins is fast: with my 56,000-track library, it scans the file and displays info in just a few seconds. It offers all kinds of sorts, and is perfect for those who are into statistics. For just $10, find out much more about your listening habits; you may even be surprised.

Oh, by the way, it’s Mac-only. Sorry to all you Windows users…

Voice Memo Bug on iPod touch with iOS 4

Researching the iPod’s voice memo feature (with a mic, you can record memos, lectures, or anything else), I discovered that the iPod touch (the latest model) won’t record voice memos if it’s running iOS 4. The iPhone works fine, but I confirmed this bug with a friend who has the same problem on his iPod touch.

I didn’t see anything in Apple’s forums, but this suggests that not many people use this feature. Do any readers use voice memos, on any iPods? Does this feature work on your iPod touch?

Apple Updates iBooks E-reader App

With the release of iOS 4 yesterday – the latest version of Apple’s operating system for the iPhone and iPod touch – Apple has also released an update to the iBooks app for iPad, and a version of that app for the smaller iDevices.

While the addition of iBooks to the iPhone and iPod touch is important – it levels the playing field with the Kindle, which has apps for such devices – there are a couple of interesting features in the new version of this app.

Apple added some new display options: First, you can choose to have text displayed justified (aligned on both the left and right of the column) or not. (To change this, go to the Settings app, tap on iBooks and make your choice.)

Next, the Georgia font is now available (I still prefer Palatino; Georgia is too cramped). Finally, there is a “sepia” display option. I’ve never liked this in practice, though I like the idea. The principle is that the background is beige (something I see as I type this in BBEdit; I’ve long used beige backgrounds for my text editors and terminal apps), but the fonts are reddish-brown. If the fonts were black, I’d be all for it; there’s less contrast, and in low-light situations, it would be easier to read. But the lack of contrast between the font and the background makes it pretty hard to read, defeating any advantage you get by the softer background.

The biggest change, however, is one of syncing your current location as you read. When you close a book, your device sends the location to a server, and the next time you open the book – on the same device, or on a different one – iBooks checks to find all your books’ locations. This bookmarking was, of course, the way you kept your place on one device before, but now you can switch devices and keep your place (as long as you have network access when you close a book). This matches what Amazon offers with its Kindle app and device.

Finally, the iBookstore now more clearly shows you that you can re-download books you’ve already purchased. Before, you’d see, in the Purchases section, a list of books, but the links would suggest that you had to buy the books again if you wanted to re-download them. Now they are marked Redownload (if they’re not on your device). Again, this aligns with the Kindle, which manages your library on its servers; you can now easily get to all the books you’ve bought, even if you don’t save them on your computer in iTunes.

All in all, these are nice improvements for an app that’s already changing the market: both the Nook and Kindle announced lower prices yesterday, in part, I believed, because the iPad and now Apple’s other devices are providing stiff competition to them.

What New Features Would You Like to See in iTunes?

I ask this question, and offer some ideas, in my latest Macworld article.