Steve Jobs Defends iTunes 10 Icon After Getting Critisizing Email

Killian Bell ()

Steve Jobs Defends iTunes 10 Icon After Getting Critisizing Email

Following Wednesday’s release of iTunes 10, many users have mixed views and opinions on a lot of the changes that have come with it, particularly to its appearance. One notable change was the update of the application’s icon; after many years, the familiar music note over a CD has been updated to the simplistic, blue glowing icon above. Whilst some users have welcomed the modern design, others have criticised its appearance.

Wired reports that one user, Joshua Kopac, dislikes the icon so much, that he decided to email Steve Jobs with his opinion on the change.

Steve,
Enjoyed the presentation today. But…this new iTunes logo really sucks. You’re taking 10+ years of instant product recognition and replacing it with an unknown. Let’s both cross our fingers on this…

A short and sweet reply from Jobs’ email account simply read:

We disagree.
Sent from my iPhone

Wired claim that they’ve reviewed Kopac’s email for authenticity and believe it to be true. If it is indeed genuine, it’s nice to see that despite Apple’s disagreement with this disgruntled user, they still took the time to reply, albeit very briefly.

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Other appearance changes in iTunes 10 include the 3 round buttons to close & resize the window rotate from a horizontal to a vertical orientation, and grayscale icons in the left sidebar as opposed to colored ones.

35 comments »

About the author

Killian BellKillian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also writes for TechnoBuffalo. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell, or through his website.

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  • Pauly

    The hardest thing for people (in general) to deal with, is change. Perhaps I have a different perspective, but love it or hate it, it’s still just an icon.

    Is it a reflection of how great ones life must be, if the only thing they can find to complain about it, is a new icon? Or a sign of the opposite?

  • MacGoo

    Other graphic changes:

    the capacity bar (in the iPhone/iPod section) more flat and pastel-colored.

    The volume control is more in-line with iOS sliders.

    There are no longer dividers in between the columns when in list view.

    Did I miss any?

  • Alfred

    I like the new icon, and the old one was starting to look a little dated.

  • http://ljp.co.uk Laurie Jeffery

    iTunes is to much like a shop now and it’s been going that way for a while.
    I used to love the way I could just play my music (that I already owned) on my Mac/iPod. Now, I feel like I’m constantly being sold to to, asked to buy more, more, more. iTunes is still a fantastic way to get at music, films podcast… but it’s seems to be losing the “Apple way” of doing things…
    Same has happened to Apple TV. I can’t buy any more? I have to rent.. everything?

  • Andrew MacDonald

    I love all the changes to iTunes 10 personally. Especially the three buttons at the top left corner. Saving the space an having them vertically not only functions great, but looks much better too. I hope Apple roll this small detail out to the rest of their products.

    Only thing I didn’t like on iTunes 10 is Ping. It’s not something that I think id use, but I can see it becoming a huge hit, when they finally manage to sign up all the big names.

  • firesign3000

    The icon? Really? This is what people worry about, and is important enough to get a blog article? **eyeroll*

  • Sean

    The one thing I miss about iTunes 9 is on the TV Shows Store page. There used to be a section for the “Latest Episodes”.

    Maybe that is still available somewhere but I cannot find it. I miss it. Help! :)

  • Thomcarl

    Who cares, it works fine.

  • http://mackeeper.zeobit.com/ MacKeeper_Fan_Modua

    Icon bothering you that much? Just switch it back to the old one. Get Info on the old app, click the top left mini icon, press command+c, get info on the new app, click the top left mini icon, press command+p. Travel back in time to dated looking icons.

    If anything, I think this is a sign of things to come. Looks like 10.7 will have a new GUI with glossy looking icons. Not a bad thing in my opinion. Change may be scary at times but even terrifying new glossy icons won’t hurt you.

  • Greg

    It’s never “I”
    Always “We”

  • RayCon

    I don’t care one way or the other about the logo. While that’s been changed, it may even be time to change the name of the app, because it is so much more than “tunes” at this point.

    I don’t like the removal of the vertical separators, particularly because I don’t see how that improves the interface.

    I notice that they’ve removed the tabs metaphor when viewing the iPad/iPhone/iPod layout. Again, I don’t like it as much but really don’t care one way or another.

    The capacity bar is nice. When selecting or deselecting different items to add to the attached device, there is immediate feedback to tell how much space will be available with the change.

    The volume slider? Yeah, I like it. It’s certainly easier to see with my aging eyes.

    The change in the colored window buttons will most certainly be implemented system-wide in OS X 10.7. iTunes is where it generally starts.

  • Sario Nunes

    i don’t understand these people… caring about a icon???!! personally i either hate it or love it, it’s an icon, if you don’t like it… change it! (by now most of the people who notices or cares about the icon, should know how to change it!

    What i really care about the changes on iTunes, is the fact of most Workflow actions stopped to work, now that’s a bummer…

  • ErinsDad

    If this item was a joke, I’m laughing. If not a joke, still laughing… Ire over an icon – really?

  • http://www.themacuniverse.com kelly

    Hahahha…..

    What I think is so funny is how everyone is getting butthurt over the icon… Granted. I dislike it very much.. I changed the icon and things are peachy again. It’s not that big of a deal.

  • http://rb-b.blogspot.com/ Rory Parker

    Whilst I didn’t like the old one, the new one doesn’t fit in with the rest of the OSX app icons.

  • PDM777

    what did the old iTunes icon look like again? I think Steve is right…too me the icon is iTunes now.

  • Fr. Ignatius

    I actually like the new icon. It is a progression.

    I also like the now black and white icons in the left bar. At first I didn’t, but they grew on me.

    I noticed the colored dots immediately, since I always press the green button to minimize iTunes. When I maximized it, they stayed the same – I liked that, plus it uses less space.

    I haven’t noticed any other things, but whatever changes are made – you live with it (or you change it back to the old way – if you are so put out).

  • rlol

    The whole iTunes does not fit well into rest of the OS X :) still using carbon stuff for example, UI is at least inconsistent even with Apple guidelines and so on
    and the name.. should be called iMedia, or better i MediaStore long time ago

  • Darcy McGee

    Minimize = Command-M. A whole lot faster than hunting for those buttons in the top left anyway.

    I didn’t even notice they’d changed.

    Icon? Whatever. It’s fine. The CD in the old one has been largely redundant for the last five years.

  • Poppa

    It’s only an icon,if you don’t like it change it yourself..
    http://macapper.com/2007/04/21/how-to-create-custom-icons-for-your-mac/

  • Gnosis

    I’m suprised more ppl didnt react on that change, seemed like Steve Jobs actually declared the Music CD dead in this key note, tho kinda as a sidenote. I kinda expected some disgruntled CD lovers to react, good riddance imo tho :)

  • alexis

    I personally think the new icon goes well next to my Firefox icon in the dock…

    big deal…like some have said change it…there are a plethora of third party icons for free on the net…and there are even apps that you can use to change them all easily…

    get a grip…and lets deal with the real issue…why do we have to wait for a month for the new TV…that is why I’m upset

  • JVC

    I don’t like the new icon for iTunes neither, but all the monochrome icons within iTunes 10 bothers me more. Now it is a bit hard to identify folders, playlists, etc. on iTunes’ browser. It is not intuitive. I hope Apple will realize the mistake (I think it is) and put the color on the icons back on.

  • Phil

    I’m no Apple fanboy – and I have a friend who worked at Apple and told me all the legendary Jobs horror stories, but I really like the response.

    Many good points raised in the comments, including:
    - Yes, the CD as a means of delivering new music is on the way to extinction;
    - Yes, “iTunes” is now much more than just tunes – “iMedia” perhaps…

    From a graphic design standpoint, the new icon would be much improved with some small changes; especially more pronounced color shift in the background gradient, and an edge emboss + slight gloss applied to the music note.

  • Johanna

    Good riddance to the old CD logo. It has long been the ugly icon in my Dock….
    Not only smothing of an eyesore, I haven’t used a CD for 6 years now, so the old logo was not reflecting how iTunes is used either…

  • ged

    I want to those who have highlighted all the dreadful changes to iTunes.
    The vertical buttons, unbelievable, what are they thinking!?
    Did they get drunk one day, make the change then forgot to change it back?
    For those of us who have been using Apple computers forever, we know that Jobs is all about aesthetic rigor, this is sloppy. Recall when Jobs said the real problem with Gates is that he had no taste?
    OS 10.4 was really the most beautiful GUI, it has been down hill since.

    The new iTunes symbol looks great on my XP machines.

  • WElshdgo

    I guess those who are hostile towards the critics of the new icon are not designers. Or at least they have no design sense. This is what designers do, they analyze and critique their own and the work of others. The new icon may be adequate in a workman like fashion, but it is not great. I personally saw this set of icons linked on another forum and have replaced the icons on my iTunes.

    http://macmembrane.com/beautiful-itunes-icons-by-jonas-rask/

  • ged

    Also one does not have to be a designer to have the right to criticize design that has some level of impact on you.

    The Apple hockey puck mouse will be forever a black stain on design history, and sober reminder that even the best can make horrendous blunders!

  • vintagemacfan

    Here’s a very OT trivial piece of itunes history.

    Anyone remember OS 9′s itunes 2? It’s folder was 5.5 MB and the application itself was under 4 MB! It did the work it was written for – organize and play music files.

    Now a simple upgrade of our present-day itunes is 85 MBs of pure fun – 10 times the size. [I refuse to charge Apple with "bloatware", but ...]

    Sigh.

  • Scott

    Bring back the colored icons on the left side of iTunes 10!!

  • BoB

    The new icon looks cheap.
    Shame on you Steve.

  • charli

    @Scott. not likely to get the color back. the new icons are the same style as Safari 4+

    also to everyone saying that the new icon doesn’t fit with everything else. what you don’t know is that with the next 10.6.x update, all the other icons will be changing to fit with the new itunes one. I got it from an unnamed source close to the situation. Trust me this is solid info

  • http://www.lostyetidesign.com Richie

    They changed my beloved icon to something so generic as a blue glassy orb. Now I have to search for a blue glassy orb that’s next to a million other blue glassy orbs.

    Who cares if it was a cd, they coined that image and captured that mind share.

    Yes I’m a designer. Brand recognition is a big deal.

    Also where are my colored icons to the left? I can’t pick stuff out in that sea of gray. Blah.

  • toggi3

    New icon makes more sense, nobody who knows how to use a computer buys CDs hardly. CDs are dead. if that CD icon stays in use another 5 years, it will make as much sense as a record or an audio cassette..

  • Christine

    Sorry but why do people feel the need to change something good, it’ was a classic symbol not to be changed… why change it!. It would be like changing the Coca Cola emblem.?? They took the Macintosh element out of it as well….. I want to know who comes up with these ideas anyways of changing something like this? It’s not good advertising first of all. Once you have something good, keep it and it will be remembered forever if it’s something great like Apple itunes wich will probably be forever as long as Apple is around.