If you haven’t heard, iTunes and Apple Music are about to get a refresh from Apple that will hopefully fix a lot of our ongoing issues with the apps while also introducing some fresh visuals. This isn’t that redesign, but a concept from graphic designer Thadeu Brandão showing how Apple could revamp iTunes on the desktop while integrating Apple Music and simultaneously getting rid of much of the clutter in the current design.
The concept imagines a world where all your music lives in the same location whether it’s downloaded from Apple Music or not and cover flow, grid, and list views (pictured throughout) to display music by album, artist, genre, favorites, or playlists. Each song and artist, however, offers a link to Show in Apple Music.
There is also a link to a “store” on the top menu bar, which would presumably take users to a main homepage for the iTunes Store and/or Apple Music. Otherwise, in this design content discovery stays hidden under the search bar and the entire app becomes about your music being front and center and easily manageable. Here’s a look at the List View for the concept, which uses a familiar sidebar and also displays other content from an artist as well as the most played songs, favorites, etc.
And this is how the concept imagines the transport controls and other UI functions:
Last week Mark detailed an overhaul of Apple Music planned for iOS 10 that includes a mostly black and white user interface with larger artwork, lyrics integration, and the demotion of the Connect feature that Apple has pushed as a differentiator for the service.
And while Apple is planning the refresh for Apple Music, it also has a new version of iTunes for Mac in the works that was has already been delayed since a release date previously stated by Apple execs has come and gone. That version will hopefully be ready in time for its Worldwide Developers Conference in June where we expect to get our first look at the Apple Music refresh as part of iOS 10. But we are hoping the new iTunes version will extend far beyond the leak of version 12.4 from last week that showed very minor tweaks to navigation.
But the planned features for Apple Music aren’t the only ones we’re hoping to see. Last week Chance detailed some other features in iTunes that need tweaking, and Ben did a series of Apple Music Feature Requests including one for Smart Playlists via Siri and another suggesting Apple shouldn’t remove local music without explicit permission.
More from Thadeu’s concept in the gallery below:
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