I'm Not Sure How Much I Like the New iTunes

I think the thing that you are referring to about the "show more" is talking about your recently added items. I turned that off, but I don't remember how. I actually like the new iTunes, it's a lot faster for me, and things just work better. I don't miss the sidebar, largely because I haven't used it in a very long time.

I actually did a complete restore on my computer. Used a Time Machine backup to get iTunes 11 back. I wont say 12 is inaccessible, but the new way is extremely tedious without sidebar.
I have a feeling 12 will see return of sidebar. If you look at the support forums, sighted people are screaming about the loss of sidebar.

I'm certainly not resistant to change. With that being said; Jonny Ive is paying too much attention to making UI pretty. The UI needs to be functional too. I agree with Chris, iTunes 12 seems clunky with a lot of extra keystrokes to navigate. Thank god im not new to it.
They are moving away from something people loved about Apple, (It just works).

Regarding your first point, about the album view being a scroll area, this is because there are now two views present by default. At the top is a recently added area, and below that is a separate view with your full library. The scroll area contains both of these grid views. Where you're seeing, "Show xx more," that expands the number of items shown in the recently added area, showing items added further back in time.

I personally don't like the recently added area, so I disabled it. To do this, go into the popup button with sorting options, then look for a checkbox called show recently added, or something like that. Uncheck that, and you will be back to a simple grid view with all your albums. The scroll area should be gone, so you will only need to do one interaction, as in the past. At least that's what happens on my system.

You also mentioned the fact that the popup button is non-standard. That is certainly true, and it is certainly nothing new. Apple has been doing things like that for years now, and this is just one more example of it. It actually more closely resembles the iOS interface, where buttons bring up popovers that are like smaller windows, which may contain all sorts of different kinds of controls, not just a simple menu of items. When you open up the popup button, VoiceOver is focused on the table you mentioned by default, though it doesn't always announce it. In my testing, I sometimes heard it mention the table up front, but other times it didn't. This is par for the course with VoiceOver, and I've observed similar behavior in plenty of other places, on both the Mac and on iOS.

I did not have the issue you described with VoiceOver focus automatically ending up within the iTunes Store HTML content. I did notice, however, what you mentioned about the table of search items when focus lands on the search box. This is caused by the keyboard focus being automatically placed in the search field, assuming you have cursor tracking enabled, which in turn causes the search table to appear on screen. This is normal, and you can simply press Escape to clear the popover.

Having said all of the above, I do agree that Apple didn't need to change the interface as much as they have. Plenty of people, including myself, find it annoying to have to relearn something every time it gets an update. I don't think the new interface is bad, by any means, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with the old interface either. I sometimes feel like Apple changes things for the sake of change, not necessarily to make functional improvements.

I think it is workable,, but very confusing. I hope I can get the sidebar back somehow.

Well I am using it with window seven home 64, jaws 16 beta and it working well. I like the short key that it has such as control 1 for music and so on. Is fast and easy to move if you know the short key.

I am still on Mavericks, and have decided not to upgrade to Yosemite at least until most bugs are squashed. Plus, this is my first Mac computer and I've not quite had it for a year. The one-year mark is coming up though and will be here before I know it. That said, I just went into the new iTunes and at first glance it looks to be more accessible with VoiceOver. I honestly can't say much more than that though, as I have only downloaded a few things and they are all podcast episodes. I also don't have much time right now, as I've gotta do apartment chores. But hopefully I can come back and devote more time to iTunes later on tonight or another day this week. I guess Janet Ingber's section in her book won't really be of much use anymore. Someone will probably update theirs if she doesn't though. Hint hint Awesome AppleVis Editorial Team? I must say though, I'm glad Apple saw fit to let Mavericks customers update to this latest version of iTunes.

hey all, this issue have ben hapened for awhile.
my I Tunes can not connect with my IPhone even I using my usb cord to connect it and check the checkbox to make it work.
but, it just working from time to time. most of the time can not work.
how can I solved this issue?

to get the side bar back simply click playlists. I have tested this and it works.

Good luck and the new itunes rocks!

just press command O, and you can select your music folder in that window.

Hi. That does not make sense to say not going through iTunes then, because you are still using iTunes.

Hi. I would say using the term virus is a tad strong. New users may be confused by this statement, lets be extremely careful here. It simply runs slow on your machine but that doesn't mean it'll run slow on other people's and it's most certainly not a virus as such. I guess I'm just really lucky, I don't mind the new iTunes at all, it's not bad.

Hey ToonHead. I appreciate your support for the new iTunes upgrade, but calling my PC slow is an insult I cannot get over. I am running an intel i5 processor with 4GB RAM, I think the only country this config of my PC would be called slow is Japan.

Agreed, calling iTunes a virus was a tad too much and it would mislead the readers here. I sincerely apologize for that not. Because I expect a lot more from apple, in my country, the price I paid for the iPhone, I could have a downpayment done for a car.

Now let me not get started with the IOS 8.2 software upgrade. Clunky yes, but hanging was not expected with VO on applications like Safari. If you feel that I am all about complaints, here is something I appreciate post the upgrade: predictive text. It sure is a blessing, even for the sighted folks.

Hey all. A couple days ago as I was waiting for my life-skills tutor, I read through the chapter about iTunes in Janet Ingber's book. Granted she only discusses previous versions, namely version 11. However, here's the good news. When navigating the iTunes 12.01 interface on my Mac, I found it almost identical to her description of version 11. I didn't do much with it though due to time constraints, and also due to the fact I've not yet got much to play in iTunes. But I'm going to see about getting one of those zip drives, since I'm using a MacBook Air and it doesn't have a CD drive or anything. Or perhaps someone can take me to the Apple store here and I can meet with the trainer who has been working with a sister of mine. After all, my mom and I had one session with him just after I acquired my Mac. He's very good. I think the only difference was that there's no way to switch between iTunes versions.

I think I'm in the minority here, but I agree with Marrie. At first, I didn't like the new version. however, after playing with it for a while, I don't find it any more difficult to use than the previous versions.

I have a lot of music, and I find it best to sort by songs instead of albums. I can still enable the column browser, which I find to be the most efficient way to locate specific songs. I am running iTunes 12 with Yosemite.

I do agree there is room for improvement, but I always felt that iTunes was a bit of a bloated program anyway.

1. Connect the hard drive to your computer.
2. Insure your computer is showing desktop.
3. Press the tab button once and the name of the hard drive should display

4. Press The VO keys that is control option together with the letter m.
5. Press the right arrow key 3 times you should hear file menu then press down arrow until you hear open and press enter this opens the hard drive
6. In the open drive find the folder you wish to import and open this repeating the step above.
7. Once in the folder there should be songs or albums or artists there so bring up the menu again press right arrow 4 times until you hear edit menu then press down arrow to select all option press enter then press command c to copy items to clipboard.
8. Now bring up menu again with VO and M find the file menu and select open with option here it should say iTunes is the default program for music files so press enter. Everything should start going into iTunes immediately that is unless of course you don't already have a library for which you need to create one this is really easy just follow the dialogue and yes you can choose a default name such as iTunes 1 or simply delete that and call it what you like.

HTH