“Its rivals are getting stronger, but Apple’s music management continues to be the leader. Indeed, it’s the real hero in iPod’s success,” Steve Rosenbush writes in his review (4.5 stars out of 5) for BusinessWeek. “In part, iTunes is basking in the glow of its famous sibling, the iPod. Apple’s best-selling portable digital music player was designed to work with iTunes. And even though you can manage your iPod with other programs like the RealPlayer, for many people iTunes and iPod are one and the same.”
Rosenbush writes, “iTunes stands up well on its own, though. The software shares all the iPod’s attributes. It has the same spare aesthetic, with a minimum number of buttons and windows set against a brushed-grey background. And like the iPod, each detail is extremely well thought-out.”
“iTunes converses freely with the rest of the computing world. It allows people to record their CDs using the ubiquitous MP3 standard. It also will convert unprotected Windows Media files into the AAC format that Apple favors. That means iTunes is compatible with a number of standard MP3 players, including a variety of models from Rio and Creative. And it allows people to transfer MP3-based music libraries on their computer into iTunes. iTunes scores more points in this contest than Windows Media, which doesn’t record in AAC,” Rosenbush writes. “With the world’s attention focused on the iPod, it’s easy to forget about iTunes. Apple’s music player has been on the cover of Newsweek and The New Yorker. But the iPod would just be a cool-looking gadget if it weren’t for its lesser-known sibling.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Report: Apple iTunes Music Store more popular than most peer-to-peer file sharing services – June 07, 2005
Apple’s iTunes Music Store passes 430 million downloads, market share increases to 82-percent in May – June 07, 2005
How Apple’s iTunes, iPod and the iTunes Music Store were born – May 24, 2005
Apple CEO Steve Jobs demos iTunes 4.9, due within 60 days, includes podcast support – May 23, 2005
Enjoying Apple’s iTunes and iTunes Music Store without owning an iPod – May 11, 2005
I just got an ipod shuffle and love it!
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Shame there wasn’t a hint that that was the way Apple designs ALL it’s stuff from Powermacs, to Powerbooks, to OS X.
I don’t get it. Where are the “iTunes, which only works with iPod, only offer protected AAC proprietary format by Apple” kind of nonsense FUDs?
ahh, this is a gem “For all the iPod’s popularity, plenty of people still prefer non-Apple MP3 players because they’re based on a near-universal standard.”
Since when less than 20% is ‘plenty of people’ ?
Is there a small message here? That despite the iPod being the phenom that it is, iTunes (and store) really is the driving force and core piece of brilliantly designed software that makes it all possible. I believe It’s one of the best programs I’ve ever used on a Mac. The only rival? OS X 10.4.1
Maybe it does not matter if it’s ‘Intel Inside’ if OS X stays light years ahead of it’s rivals.
“Maybe it does not matter if it’s ‘Intel Inside’ if OS X stays light years ahead of it’s rivals.” — jay
ahh, someone finally gets in
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On the article, amazing, a journalist that wrote a piece AFTER having actually used iTunes. Just amazing.
Sent him a note letting him know that there are plenty of little freeware programs that let you get tunes from the iPod back to iTunes library. Plenty for real, not ‘plenty of people prefer other MP3 players despite iPod success’. What does he want? 99% market penetration?
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iPodder,
I would probably consider million of people to be ‘plenty of people’. kind of like how ‘plenty of people’ wanted a flash iPod even though Jobs said nobody really wanted or used a flash mp3 player. kinda like how ‘plenty of people’ buy songs from iTMS even though it’s a lot less than 20% of the entire music industry. kind of like how ‘plenty of people’ buy a Mac even though Macs account for far less than 20% of computers purchased. Kind of like how ‘plenty of people’ use OS X…ok you get the idea.
camus, maybe your first name is “Albert” in that case you are excused.
“For all iPod popularity, PLENTY of people STILL prefer other because based on near-universal STANDARDS” with iPod having over 80% of the market and even saying you may use the iPod with MP3 is a fake note.
Unless you believe that WMA is the near-universal standard.
He says:
“The Bad: It’s hard to copy music from your music player onto your computer.”
I thought that was the whole purpose for legal reasons.. also why is this the bad.. That would fall under iPod not iTunes!
He says he has a computer at work and home.. why not just plug in the iPod to his computer at work and play the songs right off the iPod?… Oh wait that would actually mean he did some research…
Poddude,
You started off okay by giving a suggestion, but then your arrogance got in the way when you thought you were actually being smart by presuming to know what the author was trying to say.
1. you can get software to transfer songs from the iPod to the computer. Thus it’s a software issue and it would be nice if iTunes included that feature. It has nothing to do with the iPod as you seem to suggest.
2. Did you even try thinking about why someone might want to keep both computers updated with the same music instead of always using just his iPod? Come back when you’ve done some research.
not Poddude,
Actually I have done quite a lot of research. The reason they don’t and shouldn’t make it easy to do this is piracy. If you allow pulling songs off the iPod there is nothing stoping you from going to a friends house, plugging in your iPod, copy all his music, go home and dump into your iTunes – thus stealing music.
The author also says copy your music to an external hard drive to transfer it, why not just use the iPod for this purpose – no need to buy another hard drive.
Once again it is managing the whole widget that creates the magic of the Macintosh Experience. In this case it is the hat trick of iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Music Store – working seamlessly together. The sum of the whole is much more than the separate parts just added together. A beautiful example of synergy at work.
I don’t get it. Where are the “iTunes, which only works with iPod, only offer protected AAC proprietary format by Apple” kind of nonsense FUDs?
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WIth resounding marketshare the shmucks at BW decided that, in fact, iTunes is pretty damn good.
How perceptive of them.. a little late though..
The iTunes app. Yes indeed. Few people work it as hard as they might, but if and when they do … it’s versatility and excellence becomes apparent. iTunes is one of the coolest data management tools anywhere.
My own feeling is that the Store section bogs iTunes down a bit, but I do understand the marketing necessity to include the Store into the application. All in all, iTunes is a truly great app.
Poddude,
1. Pulling songs off an iPod for others is the same as creating CDs of purchased songs for others. The difference is that when you pull songs off the iPod, you still have to authorize your computer before they can be played. Making an unlimited number of CDs is actually more conducive to pirating and is allowed by iTunes. So according to your philosophy, they shouldn’t allow making unlimited CDs either because someone might actually steal a song.
2. A) The point the author was making was that some people want to keep multiple computers updated with the same music. He feels that iTunes should offer an easy way to do this since it is completely within his legal right to update both computers and because iTunes is about simplicity.
B) Having to find your music in different folders, manually transfer them to your iPod, copy them back off your iPod, and import them into iTunes on your second computer, and then repeat for every computer can hardly be considered ease-of-use when normally you just connect your iPod and iTunes automatically takes care of the synchronization.
C) Considering this is a review of iTunes, the author doesn’t assume every iTunes user has an iPod, thus the suggestion for using an external harddrive if you don’t have an iPod.
not Poddude –
The point about piracy is to not make it easy. If I want to take a whole library (say 5 to 10 GB) it isn’t easy. Yeah I could burn them all to cd’s but I don’t have the time, boy it shur would be easy if I could just put them on the iPod and pull them off – thats why they don’t allow that.
non Poddude – I think what Poddude is saying is that if the only negative is that you can’t easily copy songs back off the iPod, then it should have been 5 Stars.
Dude,
My issue is not with the legality issues regarding copying songs. My complaint is about the arrogance of this statement:
“Oh wait that would actually mean he did some research…”
– The author gave a very flattering review of iTunes. 4 1/2 stars out of 5 is still pretty good. There is no reason to berate the author for having a very legitimate disappointment.
And the statement:
“The reason they don’t and shouldn’t make it easy to do this is…”
– Poddude believes that iTunes SHOULD have these restrictions. Even though you can burn all of your music to a music DVD from iTunes, even though you can still copy all your songs onto your iPod and transfer them to another computer, iTunes will not let you do it easily. DRM was created to keep people honest. The DRM would still be on the songs and you still wouldn’t be able to play it on an unauthorized computer, so it really wouldn’t be making piracy easier.
– Either Poddude believes in having a lot of music restrictions, or he just believes everything Apple does is perfect and anyone that disagrees is stupid.
not Poddude –
I guess that makes you stupid..
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not Poddude –
I don’t blame Apple for any of this – as it all stems from the Jack A.. at at the record companies.