As many of you are probably aware, iTunes 11 is ready for download.  Many of you may not know, however, that the initial look of this latest version of iTunes has changed quite dramatically.  If you use iTunes as a media player you will be very happy with the look and feel.  If you use it as a device manager, however, you may not feel the joy quite as much!

In version 11, Apple has streamlined iTunes to simplify playing music or videos, which is great because the new look is very clean.  Many educators, however, use iTunes more for adding content to devices for their classrooms than for playing back content.  The device management options that were readily available in earlier versions of iTunes do not seem quite as accessible in version 11.  Fear not!  The device management options are there…you just need to know where to find them.

Menu Bar

To access the device management options, or return to the iTunes 10 feel, your first course of action will be to get your menu bar back.  Click on the menu button located in the upper left-hand corner of the screen and choose to “Show Menu Bar“.

Left Side-Bar

Once your menu bar is visible, it is on to step 2 of this transformation.  You will want your left side-bar back so that you can view and manage the iOS devices connected to your computer.  From the menu bar, select “View” and “Show Sidebar“.  Breathing a little easier now?  This version  of iTunes may not be so bad after all!

Tabs

The last step for me was to select “Music” from the left side-bar, and then the “Songs” tab so that I could to view my songlist.  The  iTunes transformation is now complete!