iTunes: The New Age Digital Media Player
By Max on Nov 18, 2007 in MP3 Players
Apple introduced their widely popular digital media player, iTunes, at the Macworld Expo on January 10, 2001. It has since revolutionized media players and the way we enjoy our media thanks to the iPod. It has the ability to play, view and organize digital music, video and picture files.
It is also an interface for the iPod (and now the iPhone as well) and is thus necessary if you own one of these widely popular digital media players that began their lives as simple mp3 players. It gives you access to the iTunes store from where you can legally purchase and download digital music, music videos, films, television shows, iPod games, free podcasts, ringtones and any such digital media that you may desire and is supported.
You need not buy the software. iTunes comes free bundled with Macs and some Dell and HP computers. It is available as a free download from the Apple website for Windows Vista and Windows XP as well as for Mac OS X. There are also older versions that are compatible with older operating systems like the Mac OS 9, OS X 10.0 - 10.2 and Windows 2000 and ME.
Here is a proper list of what iTunes is capable of:
- You can play music stored as mp3 files on your hard disk.
- Just like any regular CD player, iTunes acts as a CD playing software and plays your music CDs.
- iTunes gives you the ability to import music from your CDs as well. You can access these files from your hard disk without needing to use your CD anymore. The files can be stored in a variety of supported formats like AAC (for MP4), MP3, WAV, AIFF or Apple’s own Lossless Encoder Formats. Remember, it is illegal to import music from CDs you do not own as it is an infringement of copyright law.
- You can subscribe to podcasts online and listen to them as well. The latest episodes get downloaded automatically if you are running iTunes and are connected to the internet. You can then play them from you iTunes Library.
- Apart from free podcasts iTunes also gives you access to a vast range of music and visual content that you can purchase and download. Through the iTunes store you will have access to music, videos, films, audio books, television shows and much more.
- You can burn CDs and DVDs using iTunes. Just create a playlist and burn it onto a CD or DVD using a CD-RW or DVD-R drive. Some versions also support external drives and you can check you manufacturer’s documents or Apple’s list to see if your drive is supported.
- A great feature of iTunes is the ability to create playlists. This allows you to organize the media you have stored on your hard disk. You can create playlists to select your own preferences. The ability to create smart playlists is a highlight of iTunes. These can be automatically updated on the basis of customized selection criteria. Playlist can play files sequentially or randomly is ’shuffle’ mode. Shuffling can be entirely random or have a method to it. For example Party Shuffle shuffles between songs with higher star ratings. These ratings are decided upon by you. Like this songs that you do not rate are unlikely to be played during shuffle mode. This gives you a unique combination of randomness and pre-selection.
Finally iTunes is the software you must have to synchronize your PC with your iPod. Your iPod cannot function properly unless you use iTunes. What better reason do you need?
Download the latest version of iTunes here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/
