How to Restore Old iTunes Features to New iTunes

The revamped iTunes - iTunes 11 - has been lauded for its spare design and for taking what some iTunes users have called a bloated program back to the basics.

But other people may miss classic elements that have disappeared. The good news is that not all of them are really gone. Some are just hidden or renamed. You can get those back easily if you want to. Below are a few examples. (Other features that few people - except me, apparently - had used, such as cover flow and the ability to open multiple iTunes windows, are unlikely to reappear, said Apple.)

The most obvious loss is the sidebar, the vertical column that used to appear on the left side of the iTunes screen, giving easy access to things like playlists, TV selections and movies. To bring it back, go to the very top toolbar and click the View tab. That opens a drop-down menu. The fifth choice from the top is Show Sidebar. Choose it and the sidebar will reappear.

The iTunes DJ has been replaced by Up Next. At the top of your iTunes window in the center is a box with album art and song information. On the right of that box is the icon for a list â€" it's a square of dots and stripes that looks a little like a flag. Click it and you see a list of upcoming songs, similar to DJ. Hold the cursor over a song to make controls appear that will let you remove that song from the list or get more information. You can also drag the song to a different position on the playlist. Or from your main music menu, right-click (control-click on Mac) a song to add it to the Up Next list.

Also missing is the little box in the lower left where album art used to show. It was useful because you could drag a picture into the box to manually fill in missing album covers. Now to manually add art, you need to “Get Info” on the song. Highlight the song you want, click on File in the tool bar for the drop-down menu, and Get Info will be the tenth item down. Or you can use a keyboard shortcut by right-clicking on the song (or on Mac, control-click).

The Find Duplicates button - which helped you discover when you had two copies of a song in your library - is likely to reappear in the future, said Apple, but if you can't live a day without that feature, there are apps for sale, such as TuneUp for the Mac and dupeGuru for Mac, Linux and Windows.

Q&A: Using iTunes Music on a Windows Phone

Q.

Can I copy my iTunes music collection from my PC to my new Windows Phone?

A.

If the music in your iTunes library was purchased in mid-2009 and later or ripped from your own compact discs, you should be able to copy it over and play it on your Windows Phone. Music files originally purchased before April 2009 are probably still protected by digital-rights management (D.R.M.) software that restricts them from being played on non-Apple devices.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 users can sync the music between computer and phone with the Windows Phone app for the PC, which gives you the option to sync iTunes playlists and music to the phone. Third-party syncing apps may also copy files between the phone and the computer.

To get Microsoft's Windows Phone app on Windows 7, connect the phone to the computer with its USB cable, go to the Start menu and choose Devices and Printers. Double-click on the Windows Phone icon t hat appears on the screen and follow the on-screen directions to download the Windows Phone app. On a Windows 8 system, you should get a message on screen that guides you to downloading the app as soon as you connect the phone to the PC.

For those still using Windows XP or Windows Vista, connect the phone to the PC with the USB cable. If you have Windows XP, go to the Start menu to All Programs, choose Accessories and then open Windows Explorer. Using Windows Explorer, drag and drop the music files from your iTunes folder to your phone. On Windows Vista, go to the Start menu, select Computer and then drag the files you want to copy to the phone from the iTunes folder.

Microsoft's site has a syncing guide on for new Windows Phone owners, as well as more information on copying iTunes files.