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Review : Apple iTunes 5

Like all good nerds today I upgraded to Apple iTunes 5. I like it.

They unveiled a flash memory based bastard child of the iPod Shuffle and the iPod Mini called the iPod Nano and the long rumored iTunes phone that came as a shock to noone. I am still not going to buy a cell phone regardless of who makes it. It is because I was beaten repeatedly as a child with a big 80s style cell phone by a yuppie with a bow tie back in 1986. Also I think cell phone use in public increases your chance of looking like an ass by ten fold but enough about my feelings about cell phone users.

The EFF came out with a good 411 document ( The Customer Is Always Wrong: A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music ) of why they think all digital music stores that have DRM suck but I can live with iTunes DRM since it gets along with normal MP3 and I can always convert DRMed iTunes to MP3s by burning and ripping a CD-RW.

One other thing. When Apple Released iTunes 4.9 it broke automatic iCal Calendars and Address Book syncing with my 6-Gig iPod Mini and click wheel iPods. This is still broken in iTunes 5 and I have the latest version of the iPod updater and I updated my iPod mini to version 1.4. Apple what the hell! This crap is bellow you! Let me get this straight I can automatically update my contacts and calendar in iTunes 5 if I was an MS Outbreak user on Windows but since I am running OS X Tiger with my 6-gig iPod Mini I am stuck manually updating my iCal calendar and adress book contacts like I was some savage Linux user hacking things manually. For shame! I am very very disappointed with you Apple.

What was I writing about.. Oh yeah iTunes 5.

I first installed it on Windows XP and saw that they took away the menu bar and moved it to the top of the iTunes window so it looks almost like the OS X version that is not a bad thing in my book. That looks like it is always floating like it's a widget. Also it comes with the latest version of Quicktime 7.2 for Windows.

Now iTunes 5 has that brushed metal look that i like and overall it looks quite shiny like a piece of stereo equipment.

For the new stuff they added folders to playlists and that is a reason right there to upgrade. There is a new search bar that breaks down your searches by music, audiobook, podcasts and booklets. The inclusion additional video support is sort of like an endorsement of including PDF and Quicktime files in podcasts or they sort of admitting that they are working on a video iPod. There is also parental controls that I will never use and a actually random "random play" feature.

iTunes 5 is a pretty slick upgrade and I fully endorse it for digital music management on Mac and Windows. It won't sync my calendar with my God-damn iPod Mini anymore but it is still nice.

Jake at September 7, 2005 Reviews

Comments

Posted by: Shawn L at September 8, 2005 3:55 PM

Posted by: Shawn L at September 8, 2005 3:57 PM

Posted by: Marco Raaphorst at September 15, 2005 11:21 PM

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