Apple iTunes Review

I use iTunes, because I have an iPod. I don't know if there are other alternatives and if there are, I am sure it's a pain to set up. The original iTunes I had when I got the iPod was fine, but it seems like all the upgrades since have made the program slow and cumbersome.

First of all, I hate the addition of the "Genius," a sales tool. It takes inventory of your songs and suggests new ones for you to buy. At first, Genius evaluated your purchases, but now it evaluates all songs and movies in your library. It makes this thing a slow memory hog. It takes forever to open the iTunes store because it's trying to decide what to sell you. UPDATE! You can turn the Genius off. It's much better now.

My computer has a 1.37 gHz processor which is slow by today's standards. I can't upgrade iTunes past version 8.0 because it requires a faster processor. The upgrade promises to fix bugs, but I am stuck.

iTunes is also slowly raising the price of its songs. More popular ones are now $1.29, not $.99. This is not for top 40 hits only as you might expect. They're also doing it on the more popular downloaded older songs. It's only a matter of time until most songs creep up to the new price. They have songs that are $.69, but they are few and far between. They also now have "iTunes Plus," which is a pay service which allows you to download better quality songs, upgrade your song quality and enables you to download your Plus songs more than once.

I buy my songs on amazon.com now because the iTunes version I am stuck with is painfully slow at downloading the songs. Amazon has a quick little tool that downloads into the iTunes library.

I wish I just had a library. Amazon has a huge inventory of songs also and you can usually download iTunes' $1.29 songs there for $.99.

If I find a better alternative to iTunes 8.0 for iPod or slower computer, I will be editing my review to not recommend this software. I am mostly unhappy with the iTunes software, not the quality or selection in the iTunes store. The music library and the store are part-and-parcel, however. The iTunes store is only accessible through the iTunes program which is slow and buggy for me. Not just for me... if you search "itunes alternative" on the net, you will find many Windows users who are unhappy with this software.

My huge problem (and a common one) is getting the message that I can't eject my iPod because the files are in use by another program. I have to switch off of my profile, go over to my husband's and eject it from his. If he's not logged on, I have to log him on to eject my iPod and he doesn't even have iTunes installed. I have since found a way in Vista to force an ejection without compromising the files, but what a pain! I have had this problem since Day One with this thing.

Then there's the old "No disk found in Drive (pick a letter). Cancel, Try Again, or Continue." You have to click one of the options over and over until the message disappears. I bought this iPod Nano 3rd Generation when it, and my computer were brand new and this has been a constant also (and it's also common). Sometimes assigning a drive works, but not all of the time.

It's been years, and Apple has had plenty of time to write the software for Windows. When Vista and XP 64-bit came out, iTunes users were left high and dry. There was no iTunes for these and I do believe 64-bit XP users are still up the creek on this one. Now with Windows 7 on the horizon, I wonder what is coming next.

When I wanted an MP3 player, I went with the iPod under the mistaken notion that the most popular player would have the best supported software across the platforms it is sold for. Also, if something happens to your computer and you don't back up (seriously, people, please back up!) you CANNOT load the songs off of your iPod back onto your computer. Yes, there are programs that do allow this, but it is not a functionality of iTunes. Why?

Apple has made enough money with the iPod to pay people to write decent software for its users.