I hate it when companies change a programs user interface (UI). I really hate it when companies change a single UI for a program in a collection or operating system.
I don’t know what Apple was thinking when they went crazy re-designing the iTunes 10 UI. Perhaps it’s a glimpse into Apple’s future OS design changes. Perhaps the apple designers got drunk and decided to screw with everyone…
Below are a few options to put things back the way they should have been left. These are all Mac only tweaks, I don’t care about Windows 😉
Make iTunes 10 Window Controls (traffic light controls) Horizontal
Quit iTunes, open Terminal (Applications/Utilities/) paste the following and hit Return:
defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1
Reopen iTunes and the magic will be done.
Alternatively James Cameron created a simple app that applies the above change without jumping into Terminal. You can find it here: http://drp.ly/1EF4bY.
Put Some Color Back in the Sidebar
Shaun_R over at MacThemes put together a nice little package that will revert the color and glyphs in iTunes 10. The tweak applies the following changes:
- Sidebar icons are back to iTunes 9 look, including iPods when syncing (Ping is intentionally left grey);
- AppleScript to change the stoplights to horizontal, just like iTunes 9!
- The “shiny” window chrome, top and bottom, back to iTunes 8/standard Snow Leopard look;
- “Shiny” media controls are back to iTunes 8’s look;
- The disgusting new icon is back to iTunes 8’s look;
- Volume bar back to iTunes 9 look.
- iTunes 9 grey-blue checkboxes in song lists.
- iTunes 9-like grey-blue list header. It’s not the same, but it’s pretty close. It also has 1px gaps between each row, for easier visibility of columns.
Get it: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2MBO9JVK
Alternatively, the following package reverts only the sidebar coloring and glyphs.
Get It: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F74OTMBG
Icon’s are So Iconic (iTunes Icon Image Alternatives)
You can find lots of replacement icons all over the web. www.twistermc.com put together a sample list of 32 replacement icons. They have some nice ones, give them a look and find your replacement today. I personally used “iTunesX” by deviantART artist Lukeedee. You can find the entire preview list at http://www.twistermc.com/17696/itunes-icons/.