I recently updated to the most recent release of iTunes. I did this as soon as it came up in my Software Update, as I always try to have the most up-to-date versions of the software on my computer. Newer is better, right? Well, that’s usually been my view, but in addition to some cool new and improved features, there were some things that I was very used to that I now had to learn entirely new ways of doing. This led me to hate the new iTunes, and only after finding ways to recreate old features, which took me some time, could I really accept it as an improvement.

After looking at the changelogs—both the shiny publicized one as well as the more technical support one—I realized that the primary changes that I had issue with were all covered under the phrase “an improved look and feel.” With respect to the geniuses at Apple, this is a terrible way of doing things. The largest way a typical user interacts with a program like iTunes, whether or not it has Home Sharing, Genius Mixes, and the like, is through its UI. We get very used to these interfaces. And yet, there are never any specifics given as to what the changes to the UI actually are. This itself must change.

I’m not saying that the old iTunes interface was perfect, but it was something we were all used to. To suddenly change things around in an interface that makes sense just confuses everyone. Take the new column view, for instance. It is useless to me to have a list of all my artists, and then a small window for the songs. I preferred the old way, when I could have albums, artists, and genres all along the top, while still being able to see the song list below. This doesn’t necessarily mean it shouldn’t have to be changed, but Apple should at least tell us how to make it look the old way. I only found the options for reverting the view by wandering around in the menus for some time.

The playlist and other icons were changed in the sidebar as well. I, personally, don’t really care about this one way or another, but again it brings up the question of why Apple would do this when the old ones worked perfectly well. Is an off-center note more trendy than one in the middle? Is a cut-off gear nicer than a complete one?

About fifteen minutes after upgrading, I had reverted most changes, and made my peace with the new changes that I couldn’t fix. Satisfied with my life, I clicked the green button to minimize the window into the Mini Player I always keep in the corner of my screen. The window simply jumped slightly. Huh. I must have pressed the wrong thing. I clicked again. And again. And again. My world exploded once again. That was the most useful feature of iTunes—to have the display become small and unobtrusive. Had Apple actually gotten rid of this? Luckily, this was not the case; I eventually discovered that you could bring up the Mini Player by pressing Shift+Apple+M. Although this made it possible, it still seems like a stupid idea on Apple’s part. Why make this so much more difficult to do? I’m all for keyboard shortcuts, but if my hand is on the mouse, it would be nice to click. At least, tell me how to make it appear, rather than, once again, making me hunt through menus.

So, I’m not against change. Many of the new features of iTunes are great (I love the new Genius Mixes, among other aspects), but just, tell us about them, okay? An “improved look” is not nearly descriptive enough for me. Make sure that I—and people with less patience for scanning menus—know how to make a program do what it had always done in the past. Progress should not come at the cost of information. We’ll like the updates more if you tell us what’s in them, I swear.