Apple iTunes 6  

Now at version 6, Apple's iTunes is a model of ease and functionality, and it's been pleasure to watch it grow over the years. While the interface has become subtly more intuitive and flexible, especially with version 5's interface tweaks and nested playlist ability, this free app has picked up impressive new features without compromising ease of use.

This version's improvements are mostly in the iTunes Music Store, the successful online store recently launched in Australia that users can reach only through iTunes. As well as music, the iTunes Music Store offers video for purchase in the form of music videos and short films (no TV shows as yet in Australia). The store also gains an important community feature with a new ratings option, and it lets you send particular songs or playlists as gifts, instead of simply sending a gift certificate.

As a music organiser and player, iTunes compares extremely well to its serious competition: Windows Media Player 10, Musicmatch, and JetAudio. It's far easier to use and offers nearly identical feature sets for basic music tasks. Plus, it and the iTunes Music Store have shown great innovation in adding audiobooks from Audible.com and podcasts. If you're using any portable player except the iPod, then iTunes probably isn't for you, since it autosyncs with only the iPod. But if you haven't bought a player yet, consider iTunes one more reason why the iPod is a solid choice.

Getting started with iTunes is a simple matter of downloading and installing the latest version; it's always free, so unlike Musicmatch, it will never badger you with pop-ups asking you to upgrade. Once the program is installed, you can start ripping your CDs and browsing the iTunes Music Store for digital downloads.

The interface is clean, friendly and intuitive, even for beginners, though the Mac interface is a bit more polished than the Windows version. The left-hand Source column is a directory to the app's major areas, including your library of music tracks, podcasts and video. This column also allows access to the online streaming radio stations (non-Apple content organised into genres), the iTunes Music Store and any playlists or smart lists you create. The larger area to the right shows your files or the Music Store. While in the Library view, you can easily add and arrange columns. Choose a song and select Get Info from the File menu to edit its ID3 tags.

Providing you have an online connection -- broadband recommended -- you can click the green Music Store icon on the left to access the iTunes Music Store, which is organised in much the same way as the player itself. The store's major areas are listed on the left (Browse, Power Search, Podcasts, Audiobooks and so on), while content is highlighted in the middle. To quickly find a particular artist or song, use the search box in the upper right. Changes in version 5 help you find search results faster. After a search, you'll see a grey bar running across the top of the screen; with a click, you can narrow down the type of results you see, such as music, audiobooks or podcasts. Also, preview 30-second song samples in the store, or watch 20-second previews of the video content. The store currently contains more than 1 million music tracks from the major labels (excluding Sony BMG in Australia); 20,000 podcasts; 11,000 audiobooks; and 1,000 music videos.

The grey search bar, introduced in version 5, lets you quickly narrow down the results of your search. Click Music, Audiobooks, Podcasts or Video to see results in only that area.

Features
The iTunes Music Store hits a major milestone with the ability to purchase and download video, including music videos and Pixar animated shorts. All video purchases cost a reasonable AU$3.39 and download quickly, which might convince many people to choose the ease of iTunes over the wait of BitTorrent when local television content is made available. Video content can be synced to a video-enabled iPod (5G or later) or watched on the computer. Apple's digital rights management (DRM) rules for video are similar to those for purchased music -- it can be used on up to five computers -- but video content can never be burned to a viewable CD or DVD. However, data backup is possible. iTunes video has 320x240-pixel resolution, so while you can watch it in full-screen mode, the picture won't be sharp. Downloads are H.264 video files, but iTunes supports all MPEG-4 video; you'll need to have QuickTime 7.0.3 or later installed to view the store's video content.

The store gains an important community feature in this version with the introduction of a ratings system. Now, any user with an iTunes account can rate an album or comment on the usefulness of another user's rating, similar to the system Amazon.com has offered for many years. We're thrilled that Apple added this because previously iTunes' only community feature was the ho-hum iMix, which allows you to post a song mix and rate other people's mixes -- boring!

Use the new review system to tell other shoppers how much you love or hate a particular album.

Another improvement in version 6 is its gifting feature. You can now send a friend a particular song, album, playlist, video or audiobook with the gifting service instead of sending an impersonal gift certificate. If you really want a friend to hear a particular song, find the album within the iTunes Music Store and click the Gift This option from the top of the screen. You'll then get a nearly identical screen with a green background, from which you can select the song. Recipients get an e-mail notification and, in order to download the song, need to have an iTunes account -- which is free but might be challenging to set up for less tech-savvy users.

Apple iTunes now lets you send someone a particular song or album as a gift, instead of an impersonal gift certificate.

The iTunes application can play MP3s, AACs, Apple Lossless, and Audible music files, as well as H.264 and MPEG-4 video files. It also lets Windows users convert unprotected WMA files ripped with other programs into unprotected AAC files so that iTunes (and the iPod, if you have one) can play them. The program offers an equally healthy set of options for ripping CDs; you can choose between MP3, AAC, and the Apple Lossless codec, which compresses files in half without losing any CD information. Additionally, Mac users can set iTunes to automatically synchronise Address Book contacts and iCal calendars with their iPod, while Windows users can sync calendar and contact info from Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express.

iTunes shines in the area of organisation. You can create a playlist and manually add songs or create a self-updating smart list that lets you specify certain parameters. The Party Shuffle feature creates an instant playlist from your music library or from any playlist, and it's a useful way to play DJ as you can add songs on the fly by right-clicking. If the shuffle list doesn't have what you want to hear, you can reorder the songs and add more tunes from your library via drag and drop. Nested playlists, new in version 5, let you organise your collection any way you want; for example, you can create genre folders that hold individual artist folders.

While the feature set nearly matches that of other music organisers, Apple has chosen to omit some features that are standard elsewhere. To print a CD cover, don't look for a cover-printing command. Instead, create a playlist of the songs on the CD and choose Print from the File menu. You'll have the option of printing a plain text cover or a mosaic of album art, but you won't have the option of designing a cover yourself.

We'd still like to see a line-in recording feature that would allow users to capture external audio sources into AAC, MP3, or any other supported format. Also, while applications such as Musicmatch Jukebox have a built-in album art retrieval service, you have to find your own with iTunes if you haven't purchased your songs from the Music Store. Likewise, iTunes can't automatically correct song tags. Radio streams are decent in iTunes, though they are not advanced. For example, you cannot skip to the next track or purchase a song from the radio interface. Personalised radio would be a nice next step for iTunes.

Performance
Years of reliable use have convinced us that iTunes is a solid performer. It's quick, too, but that mostly depends on your hardware. Ripping a 66-minute CD took us 24 minutes flat on our 933MHz PowerPC G4 test system with a 24X (read CD) drive. Syncing an iPod is far faster, with songs whizzing by at the rate of about 1 second per track. Be careful with the current iPods, though -- the Shuffle, Nano and 5G iPod sync with only USB 2.0 cables. If you have an older computer that doesn't have a USB 2.0 port, you'll get far slower syncing speeds over a USB 1.1 port. If that's the case, you'll want to invest in a USB 2.0 PCI card.

Downloading purchases from the iTunes Music Store takes only about 45 seconds for a 6-minute song over a broadband connection. We're impressed that video downloads are quick, provided you have broadband. We bought a 17MB (3 minutes, 21 seconds) Pixar short and downloaded it in 1 minute, 15 seconds.

In terms of software stability, we've heard several reports of both Windows and Mac version of iTunes 5 and 6 as either crashing or performing oddly, though we haven't experienced any problems in our many hours with the program on both platforms.

If you're having trouble with iTunes, you'll find plenty of answers in the program's electronic help files and the support area of Apple's site. Don't miss the user forums, which are often more helpful than the official documents. If you've purchased another Apple product such as an iPod and its phone help is still valid, you can call for free iTunes-related support. If you're having trouble with a store purchase, though, getting help can be a little trickier. Apple's e-mail form is at the bottom of each topic page, and you can use it to send an e-mail to the company but only after viewing a help topic on the site. Apple promises a response within 72 hours, which is two days too slow for our tastes. In fact, one of our e-mails regarding corrupted AAC files that we purchased still hasn't been answered.

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