Upcoming iTunes 11 update will restore duplicate song detection

I hope you’ve grown accustomed to the new, highly visual library views focused on media artwork in iTunes 11 and don’t mind Apple dropping Cover Flow because that feature ain’t coming back. What Apple will add to the redesigned jukebox software is the ability to detect duplicate song, which mysteriously disappeared with the latest iTunes update. That’s what the Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg heard from his own sources within Apple. The company reportedly told him it will restore the duplicate song detection feature “in a minor update of the program”

Previous versions of iTunes had an option called “Display Exact Duplicates” that, as the name suggests, would filter only the songs in your library with multiple copies found.

Mossberg wrote in his iTunes 11 review:

Fans of iTunes will notice some omissions and flaws. The long-touted Cover Flow carousel of album covers has been dumped. The company says it found too few users considered it useful. A feature that finds duplicate entries is missing. Apple says it will soon be restored in a minor update of the program.

Also, if you’re seeing some missing album covers in the album view, don’t worry as “Apple says this is a rare bug”, one it’s already solved and is part of an upcoming minor update.

Another bug the company says will be remedied prevents owners of Apple TVs from wirelessly streaming cloud-based movies to their TVs.

As for the Cover Flow carousel, it’s not returning as Apple apparently told Mossberg “too few users” deemed the feature useful. The company also has no plans to provide biographical information on an artist in the main library view.

For that, you have to go to the store.

There you have it.

Pundits believe that the addition of a Radio option in the horizontal bar in iTunes 11 indicates a future streaming service from Apple, but sources quoted in a Cnet story insist that “a deal with all the majors is nowhere near to being completed”.

Are you sad that Cover Flow was removed from the new iTunes?