How to restore the horizontal red/yellow/green buttons in iTunes 10

Since its release, iTunes 10 has drawn the ire of users, graphic designers or otherwise, because of its peculiar interface. Though iTunes has sometimes sported unusual design characteristics, it has also proven to be Apple’s testing ground for future UI decisions. This time around, Apple has chosen to move the standard red, yellow and green buttons from their normal horizontal arrangement into a vertical arrangement in iTunes 10—an odd decision, to say the least.

If the button placement is bothering you, however, there is a simple process to fix it in OS X. Simply launch Terminal and paste this:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES

and hit enter. Restart iTunes and the buttons should be back to normal, as they are in the image above. Finally, breathe easy—the human interface guidelines are no longer in violation.