The tech masses are applauding Apple for its latest update to iTunes, which strips away the service's bloated, feature-heavy past without delivering a much anticipated streaming music service. "It's fast now. Which is crazy," notes Gizmodo's Kyle Wagner. "It is one of the biggest overhauls of the media management service yet. Perhaps the biggest," adds MG Siegler at TechCrunch. "Overall, it's probably the biggest UI revamp iTunes has ever received, and at a first glance it seems like a smart new system," writes The Verge's Nathan Ingraham. Everyone loves it, and the praise goes on and on. But the one thing that iTunes still doesn't have: streaming music. Opening the new software to test it out felt weird for someone like Gizmodo editor-in-chief Joe Brown, who has forgone a small library of music for Spotify's big streaming option.
iTunes 11 installed, and… uh… I don't have any locally stored music anymore. All on @rdio and @spotify.
— joemfbrown (@joemfbrown) November 29, 2012
Even these two designers, who you would think might appreciate the pretty legitimate overhaul, didn't have any interest, were heading back to the green and black ugliness that is Spotify.
"Whoa, iTunes 11 looks like Spotify" he thought as he launched Spotify.
— Martin McClellan (@hellbox) November 29, 2012
iTunes 11 installed, opened, closed... back to Spotify.
— Jason Schuller (@jschuller) November 29, 2012
iTunes might look a lot better, giving it better usability than before, but it doesn't have all that streaming goodness that we can get on Rdio, Spotify, Pandora, etc. Back to Spotify we go. Except, well, rumor has it that Apple is working on a Pandora competitor that will have virtual radio stations, which will match music to people's taste and stream over the Internet. That, however, is not in iTunes 11. Nor is it exactly a Spotify competitor, because of the randomized song aspect. But it's something to look forward to.