Apple Remote - gone backwards?

[SteveS1]

I pulled an old iTouch back into service as a remote control this week. It has one of the early versions of Apple's Remote for controlling iTunes. I wondered if it would work with the latest iTunes and OSX.

 

Not only does it work very responsively, it also lists all Artists including those on compilations - something that doesn't happen with the current version accessing exactly the same library. I find this quite handy, I wonder why the newer Remote can't do this?

[Audio_ELF]

I pulled an old iTouch back into service as a remote control this week. It has one of the early versions of Apple's Remote for controlling iTunes. I wondered if it would work with the latest iTunes and OSX.

 

Not only does it work very responsively, it also lists all Artists including those on compilations - something that doesn't happen with the current version accessing exactly the same library. I find this quite handy, I wonder why the newer Remote can't do this?

I have the latests version of the Remote App ... and that shows every artist including those only on compilations.

 

 

The top four artists shown are all "Compilation" only artists.

 

Eloise

[SteveS1]

Interesting, mine doesn't. Artists just lists 'artists' that have complete albums. Compilation albums just come up under 'various artists' - artists on those compilations don't appear in the artist list.

 

To use your example - A-ha should be top of the artist list for me as they have a track on an eighties compilation. But they don't appear under artists. I can only get to the track by searching the track name or opening the album or opening 'various artists' and locating the particular album then track.

[Audio_ELF]

Ironically Steve I wish I could get Remote app to work that way for me :-)

[goldsdad]

Ironically Steve I wish I could get Remote app to work that way for me :-)

 

I guess Remote has a setting like the "Use Album Artists" option of iTunes Column Browser, and you have it disabled, whereas Steve has it enabled.

[SteveS1]

I guess Remote has a setting like the "Use Album Artists" option of iTunes Column Browser, and you have it disabled, whereas Steve has it enabled.

 

Yes, that was occurring to me but I can't find anything. The fact that both my old version and new version of Remote are accessing the same (latest OSX / iTunes) library, suggests a difference in the Remote somewhere.

[goldsdad]

Yes, that was occurring to me but I can't find anything. The fact that both my old version and new version of Remote are accessing the same (latest OSX / iTunes) library, suggests a difference in the Remote somewhere.

 

I wouldn’t be surprised if the behaviour of Remote with regard to compilation albums has changed over the years.

 

I’ll assume current Remote app in Artists mode behaves like iTunes 12.0.1 on OS X in Artists mode, which I’m looking at right now. The Album Artist tag, when not empty, has precedence over the Artist tag. So, if you have the Album Artist tag of your compilations filled with, for example, Various Artists, then delete the tag content to make the tag empty.

 

(In Artists mode of iTunes, there’s a toggle for the grouping of compilations. That switches between the two behaviours you're seeing in your different versions of Remote. It works as expected when the compilation flag is set, and Album Artist is empty, and Artist actually does vary in the tracks of a compilation album.)

[SteveS1]

Thanks. I will experiment. I probably don't want to mess with a generic method for fear of messing up my classical and opera recordings but I may be able to achieve something beyond 'various' for the tracks on pop and rock compilations.