Open Radar

 
Summary:

I'm sharing my (large) iTunes library with two Apple TVs. When browsing through TV shows shared in this manner, the Apple TV has three sorting and grouping modes: By Date, By Show and Unwatched.

Prior to today's update to iTunes, when I would browse through my shared TV shows on an ATV, the By Show and Unwatched modes would display the shared shows grouped by season (where applicable) and in alphabetical order. By Date would display all shows, ungrouped, and in descending order by date added to the iTunes library.

Now, with iTunes 10.6, these modes display their contents sorted by the date they were added to the iTunes library in ascending order. By Date is (seemingly) unchanged.

I have observed this on two Apple TVs, one with the new iOS 5, one with iOS 4.x. (This is why I'm filing this under iTunes.)

This makes browsing medium-to-large libraries by show incredibly tedious. In my use case, with hundreds of shows purchased through iTunes alone, it makes using this feature almost useless unless I use Remote.app on my iPad.

Steps to Reproduce:

- Use Home Sharing to share an iTunes library that contains TV shows on a local network via a Mac running iTunes 10.6.
- Connect to this shared library with an Apple TV. (ATV can be running iOS 4.x or 5.0, possibly other versions as well.)
- Browse the Mac's shared library. Choose TV Shows.
- Observe the options to sort "By Date," "By Show" and "Unwatched."
- Sort the TV shows "By Show."

Expected Results:

- That the TV shows are grouped by season (where applicable) and sorted in alphabetical order so that the user can easily find a show they were looking for.

Actual Results:

- The TV shows are grouped by season (where applicable) and sorted in ascending order based on when the show was added to the iTunes library, so a user has to slowly scroll through potentially the entire library of shows to find what they were looking for.

Regression:

This worked as expected when libraries where shared with versions of iTunes prior to 10.6.

Notes:

I'd ideally like "Unwatched" to behave as before - it was the same as "By Show" but only displayed items that hadn't been completely watched yet. I can only assume that a benefit to sorting in this new manner was determined. While I stand by the idea that this is a poor sort order for "By Show," I guess "Unwatched" could behave either way. "Unwatched" seems more appropriate for use as a filter that could be applied to either (or more) sorting and grouping options.