iTunes for Windows 9

No matter if your computer is powered by Apple’s Mac OS X or Microsoft’s Windows operating system, iTunes will work on it. This piece of software, which you can download and use free of charge, is meant to perform the task of a digital media player that will play all your audio and video files as well as let you organize them. With iTunes you can connect to Apple’s iTunes Store and download music (audio and video), TV shows, apps for your iPod Touch or iPhone, audiobooks, and even full length movies.

First introduced by Apple in 2001, iTunes has steadily grown in popularity over time. It is in fact one of the most popular music managers out there and the industry standard in its field. The fact that it is directly connected with two of Apple’s most popular products, the iPod and the iPhone, has given iTunes a considerable popularity push, of course. While there’s no denying the bond between iTunes and the iPhone/iPod, there’s no denying one simple fact: if it had been a lousy piece of software, Apple would have felt the user backlash. But iTunes is such a good application that this has never happened. On top of this, as the iTunes moves forward in time, Apple continues to improve it, thus making it an even more desirable piece of software.

One of the things that make iTunes so popular is its ease of use. No matter if you have never used the software before, no matter if your computer skills are not that great, you will pick up the basics of using iTunes in no time at all. Managing your iTunes library is equally easy. In this regard you are presented with extended info on each track in your library, you can edit the tags associated to it and give it a rating. For the times when you just want to browse through your collection of files, iTunes provides a simple grid view which is fast and convenient, or the more eye catchy Cover Flow, an animated, 3D graphical user interface.

Sometimes you will feel the urge to get a new music track or a new video (movie or TV show) but you’ll have a hard time deciding what you want to get. Apple comes to your aid; the Cupertino-based software developer has fitted iTunes with the Genius Bar (an optional sidebar presented in the right hand side of the screen). iTunes Store account holders that do not know what to get can take advantage of the Genius Bar’s functionality, which is to recommend songs and albums for purchase.

The Genius Bar is derived from the Genius Playlist. While playing a song, activate the Genius Playlist by clicking the icon to the bottom right and the Genius algorithm will create a playlist that encompasses songs in your library that are linked to the one you are listening to. The tracks included in the playlist are not based solely on the genre criteria; consequently you will discover the Genius Playlist came up with some interesting selections.

If you already have music on CDs or DVDs, you can use iTunes to rip the files from those physical storage devices. Alternatively you can use iTunes to burn data onto a CD or DVD. The funny thing is (and this reminds me of the competition between Apple and Microsoft) that amongst all the file formats that the rip feature provides support for, WMA is not included. WMA stands for Windows Media Audio.

Pros
Comes free of charge
Works with Mac OS X and Windows
Genius Bar and Genius Playlist
Plenty of useful features

Cons
The Mac version seems to work better than the Windows version

iTunes for Windows has been reviewed by George Norman on 15 Sep 2009. Based on the user interface, features and complexity, Findmysoft has rated iTunes for Windows 5 out of 5 stars, naming it Essential