iTunes for Windows

[Caustic Saint]

Anybody on the PC side loaded this up yet? I've heard good-to-mixed reviews from people over at Slashdot.

I don't have an iPod, but I really like some of the new accessories, specifically the Belkin Media Reader.

The innovative Belkin Media Reader for iPod lets you store more than tunes. It gives you a great way to transfer images from your digital camera to your iPod. Now you can take more pictures and not worry about running out of space in your digital camera.

Supports Compact Flash, (Type 1 and 2), Smart Media, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, or Multi Media Card (MMC).

I still can't see spending $399 for the 20GB iPod, but the new kit for it is tempting me...

[Caustic Saint]

The "buy a Beetle, get an iPod" deal is cool, but horribly flawed. You connect the iPod to the car's stereo through a friggin' cassette adapter. How lame is that? If they want to go for maximum style, they should put a dock connector on the dashboard, that way the iPod won't run down its battery and the whole systemm gets a nice, clean look.

[Caustic Saint]

The image is a link.

Yes, the RIAA has been largely responsible for the downfall of music. P2P and MP3 are the consumers' revenge against overpriced CDs by crap "artists" with maybe one or two good songs on them.

I don't really even buy CDs anymore. I've bought 4 in the last year, and one of those went to a used music store after I got the only two worthwhile songs off it. I like the idea of the iTunes Music Store. Does it help the artists? Not really. It's giving the record execs one last gasp before their business model completely collapses. I've never bought any music off it, but I think it's cool that they've started offering audiobooks, NPR interviews, and other non-music stuff - in addition to the large catalog of music they've already got.

iTunes for Windows is going to make them a ton of money and sell a buttload of iPods. Is that good for music in general? Who knows that? I don't.

[gomichild]

I almost wet myself when I say that "hell froze over" slogan...someone at Apple has a sense of humour...

[Caustic Saint]

I almost wet myself when I say that "hell froze over" slogan...someone at Apple has a sense of humour...

The accompanying picture is just as good:



Seeing iTunes on an XP desktop just looks weird.

[AlbertSiegel]

I downloaded it and I uninstalled it in a matter of minutes. It is slow and buggy. I dont like the interface and I totally fail to see how this can be claimed to be the best windows app ever. I like WinAmp much better. WinAmp lauches much more quickly and is just as easy to navigate. Still though... iTunes beats the hell out of that crap SonicStage I got with my MiniDisc recorder.

[Ptyx]

itunes is not supposed to be a winamp like. It's a do-it-all mp3 app (encode, burn, play, manage etc..) therefore it's pretty understandable that it uses more ressources.
But i agree with you, it uses quite a lot of ressources, there other little issues.
For example it took every media file in the folder i pointed at as my mp3 folder, meaning that all avi, all wav and all mpeg went into the list.
I haven't find the feature that permit to exclude some file extensions yet and the visual feature is very ressource consuming making it almost unusable on my comp.
So, imho it probably isn't the definitive mp3 app for windows but it's still a pretty good one.

[thepumpkinclock]

The cataloging options are pretty great; it doesn't seem to run too slowly on my computer, everything is about fine, until I begin to try to run it in the background of games or I fire up WMP to watch an episode of Family Guy while it imports songs off of a CD. The radio feature is pretty great though, like Caustic Saint said, the addition of Nation Public Radio and all stations cataloged by genre makes things a lot easier and more available.

Does Motorola still make the Apple processors?

[GridReaper]

Everyone in our office installed it and started sharing our mp3 libraries. It was interesting to see what kind of music we have all collected.

[WarlocK]

I've played with it a little bit since it came out, and I like it. The main reason I use it is because I have two iPods. I've tried several programs that are supposed to be good for working with mp3 and iPods, and most have not been good enough. Some are just crap (MusicMatch Jukebox, *gag*), and some are almost good enough (XPlay, from Mediafour). But there really wasn't an all-in-one program that I liked to use.

I really like the Smart Playlist creation. I never like to listen to the same songs in the same order all the time, but I'm also too lazy to manually change playlists all the time, so up until now, I just haven't used them. But now I'm making all kinds of dynamic playlists. It's also easier to make them in iTunes than in WMP, IMO.

Compared to WinAmp, I'm still not sure about, though. I used to like WinAmp alot, but recently it seems I've fallen out of love with it. I like iTunes, but I'm not in love with it, either. Both have cool features the other doesn't (I like skins and miniturizable components for making WinAmp tiny).

[Caustic Saint]

Playlistism

On college campuses, for example, a new form of bigotry called "playlistism" is emerging.

Playlistism, Aubrey explained, is discrimination based not on race, sex or religion, but on someone's terrible taste in music, as revealed by their iTunes music library.

Students are starting to realize they must manage their music collections, or at least prune them, to maintain their image, Aubrey said. He confessed to deleting a lot of stuff himself.

"I had a lot of show tunes I had to get rid of," he said. "And a lot of punk pop from my earlier days like Green Day and Blink-182."

They must manage their music collections?

How fucking retarded. "Gee, I can't listen to the music I really like anymore - because if people don't like my taste in music they won't think I'm cool. And I'd just die if that happened!"

Fuck that. Listen to what you like and everybody else be damned. The article title was spot-on "ITunes Undermines Social Security." These kids (college or not, if they're this dumb, they're kids) are insecure and that's the problem. What's in their iTunes playlist isn't going to change their social status. If it does, I'm never going back to America, for this is surely a sign of the beginning of the end. (Or was that Matrix: Revolutions?)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to Blink 182 just out of spite for this little twit.

[Andocrates]

Well, music is a better determiner of a person then what clothes they wear. I know we shouldn't label people but that's an inescapable fact of life. I will tell you a secret about Andocrates the techno fanatic, house head, Ibiza anthem collector.

I have a hidden folder on my PC with Abba, Spice Girls and Japanese pop tunes, really sappy music. I don't want my real life friends to know I like Dancing Queen! :P