Michael Tsai on Showtime

Amongst a half dozen or so other observations (and a bunch of good links to commentary elsewhere that I’m about to steal), Michael Tsai points out this change in iTunes 7:

The right-pointing music store arrows are now shown only for the selected tracks. This makes it look a bit cleaner, but it’s an odd UI precedent.

I noticed this right away, and I think it’s a poor decision. Too cute. The circled arrows weren’t overly distracting in iTunes 6, so hiding them does not, in my opinion make the lists any less cluttered-looking. But because they’re now hidden, they’re also less obvious.

★ Thursday, 14 September 2006