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October 17, 2003
Review: (Music Players) I-Tunes.
I have a friend. Every now and then, I'll go over to his house and screw around with his computer. Prankish things like setting his homepage to my blog, or setting his screensaver to read "all your base are belong to us". I do it because every now and again it is fun to annoy one's friends. This may explain why he doesn't return my phone calls...
I found out today that I-Tunes is now available for Windows. I am something of a utilities junky, so I thought it would be neat to find out what Brian Tiemann has been raving about for years. Besides, I wondered how it would stack up against the other players I've been trying...
It took about five minutes to figure things out; the problem is that Mac people just don't think like PC people, so the buttons are labeled different things and are in different places. Nary an "option" tag to be seen, but most of what I wanted was under "edit". "Edit" is used for other things in Windows, and, well you get the idea...
First thing I wanted to do was test Apple's much-touted M4A codec. So I popped in Beggar's Banquette (one of my favorite albums) and proceeded to rip...
Now, both Mp3 and M4A are what are called "lossy", that is, they loose some sound quality when being created. The higher the bit rate, the higher the quality of sound. Of course, the higher the bit rate, the bigger the file. But hell! What else am I going to do with a 40 gig partition? So I rip Mp3s at 320 kbps (kilobits per second). Most Mp3s are ripped at what is called "CD Quality", or 128 kbps. Believe me, the difference is easy to hear. To make it a fair test, I ripped the M4A file at the same 320 kbps...
There was a slight difference in Apple's favor. Not a big one, but a noticeable one. The Apple file was 14 Megs compared to the Mp3's 10 Megs. I'm not sure if the M4A file is worth a 28% file size increase. And definitely not for a codec that no one else's software can read...
The big thing, though, the one thing that turns me off I-Tunes completely is this: Apple re-named all my music files and changed my organizational structure! Remember that friend I mentioned in the earlier paragraph, the one whose files I change as a prank? Well, Apple changed mine as a "convenience". It did have (buried in the bowels of the program) a check-box for "keep the I-Tunes music folder organized", and didn't tell me that the I-Tunes folder would be wherever I store my music. It also doesn't let me set how it is organized. So all the CDs I have by with multiple artists are now scattered all over my music folder, organized by the artist responsible for each track. A sampler CD with 30 artists will now be under 30 different folders. And there is no half way with this thing...
The other big knock against the I-Tunes is the lack of automatic ID Tag look up. I should clarify; there is a manual look-up, but one so dumb it couldn't find the Who's Pinball Wizard. As this is not an obscure song, I can only presume some difficulty on Apple's end...
A more minor knock (but still worth mentioning) is that the player lacks as "pause" button. Seriously. I have to turn the song off if I want to have a moment of silence...
A more minor knock (but still worth mentioning) is that the player's "pause" button is not always present, even when a song is playing. Seriously. If I'm not on the "library" screen while listening to a song, I can't pause it. It's a minor thing, but anything that makes me do more steps is a pain...
Other than that, I-tunes really is a nice piece of software. It is free (a big plus), fast, small, and has a decent (though non windows-friendly) interface. It is way, way better than Microsoft's offering (though that isn't saying much).
Ultimately I'd recommend it for anyone who is unsure of what they want. It's a nice piece of beginner's software that doesn't need much tweaking...
Pros:
Free!
Small
Fast
M4A codec is exclusive to this product, better sound quality.
Cons:
Reorganizes my files by default
No-or-dumb ID tag creator
Lack of pause button
Rating: 3.99 delicious reds out of 5 delicious reds. It would be a 4, but that whole pause button thing is just inexcusable...
Update:
One other minor issue; real minor in that a lot of other programs don't do it either: Autodock.
Some programs (winamp, musicmatch) will sense the edges of your screen and automatically try and "rest" there. It is possible to push it further with a good "shove". This is a nice feature in that it allows a program to be as out of the way as possible and yet still be fully on the screen. I hope that in the next few years, all programs will have this feature...
Posted by Andrew at October 17, 2003 04:53 PM
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Comments
I don't know if the Windows version of iTunes has some minor differences, but all of the thing you mention in your "cons" section, work on my verison -- which is the latest for Mac.
The Play/Pause feature is there at the top of the screen, and works just fine.
The library directory also works better than the version you are using. For example, I wanted to hear Sister Disco by The Who, and I just typed in the first three letter and iTunes located the song.
RE: Your problem with sampler CDs and having those songs together in your library (or not having them together). There is a feature at the top of the library screen that says "Album." If you click that, it will organize your library by album title and all those individual artists will be in one section of your library.
You can also create folders of albums or mixes that you want. Just select "New Playlist" in the File option and then highlight, drag, and drop the files you want into the folder. So, when you want to hear a particular album or mix, just go to that folder.
If you want to rename individual files, you can do that too. Just highlight a song, and then click "Get Info" and it will let you classify the song in the genre you want, rename the file, and put in other info if you want.
Just play around some more and you'll find that it's a really great player.
Does the Windows verison come with a one click CD burning option?
Posted by: Ted at October 18, 2003 12:57 PM