Release Date: 18th Sep 2009

keyword: Apple iTunes 9 review

Apple's iTunes program is one of the most popular software products in the world. The company says hundreds of millions of copies of iTunes have been downloaded, far exceeding the 220 million iPod music players it has sold. That's because many people use iTunes to organize, play and buy music and videos on their computers, or to burn music CDs, check out this article if you wish: "How to import DVD to iTunes for iPod iPhone?" Ironically, the vast majority of iTunes copies are on Windows PCs, not Apple's own Macintosh computers, because Windows machines are much more numerous.

If you still haven't used iTunes 9, you should download iTunes 9 at http://www.apple.com/itunes/ and next, let us experience iTunes 9 infinite charm...

In my tests, performed on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, iTunes 9 worked as advertised, and I found it to be less cluttered, more intelligent and easier to use than the prior version. It synced music and videos properly for me using both an iPod Nano and an iPhone.

To me, the two biggest new features in iTunes 9 are something called Home Sharing and a new, easier way to organize the apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Simple sharing

You've been able to share playlists in iTunes for ages over your network, but the new Home Sharing feature takes things up a notch: it enables you to share some or all of your library with up to five computers on your home network and copy files - including purchases - from one machine to another.

Home Sharing makes it simple to share everything with up to five PCs or Macs - although you'll need to use the same iTunes account for all five.

ORGANISED:
At last, an easier way to organise your iPhone/iPod apps. The file sizes make it easy to see whether specific apps are storage hogs

That's not all that's changed in iTunes' device management. Synchronisation options are vastly improved: for music you can choose to sync not just playlists, but specific artists and/or genres of music.

In a nice touch there's also an "Automatically Fill Free Space With Songs" option, which brings a bit of serendipity to song skipping, and if you're syncing iPhoto images you can sync specific places or faces.

SYNC: iTunes 9 gives you much more control over synchronisation, so for example you can now mix playlists, genres and specific artists

Tip: If you want to transfer music/video file(s) from iPod/iPhone to computer, you could try Daniusoft iTransfer which is an expert at doing this...

There are also a number of small visual improvements throughout the program. In the jukebox, for instance, you can now locate all songs by a particular artist using a Column Browser -- an optional left-hand column that lists the artists.

In the store, categories like music, movies and TV shows are now arrayed across the top, with drop-down menus for genres. The store also is generally better organized, with richer graphics, more white space and easier navigation.

A small touch of social networking, not exactly Apple's historic strength, has been added to iTunes. From inside the store, you can post a link to a favorite title to either Facebook or Twitter, though this of course serves Apple by encouraging others to buy the title.

You can now buy special albums, called "iTunes LPs," that attempt to replicate the experience of old vinyl albums by including lots of extra material. For instance, for one such title by the Doors, iTunes delivered to me liner notes, digital scans of old posters and set lists, plus photos and video interviews. Another, called Mayhem, by the singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, includes just one song, but also a vivid digital comic book with voiced dialogue.

However, these iTunes LPs take up a lot of space on your hard disk -- about half a gigabyte each for the ones I tried.

Overall, iTunes 9 is a nice improvement on a much-used program.