Simplify your laptop buying
July 22, 2008 11:03 AM PDT
First Look video: iTunes (Mac)
iTunes needs little in the way of an introduction--especially for Mac users. Apple's popular media player comes equipped with the capability to play your music, rip CDs, help you buy music from the iTunes Store, and much more. Those with new iPhones (or the latest firmware update) should definitely download this latest version to gain access to Apple's iPhone App Store.
Check out this First Look video with Download.com's Jason Parker to find out a little more about iTunes, along with some features and hot-keys experienced users may not already know.
Jason Parker writes software reviews and features for Windows, Mac, and iPhone. If he learned to dance, it would make him a fabled "quadruple threat," but we can't get him to do it. 
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I've sworn off iTunes for many reasons:
I had to move my music files because of some hard drive troubles, when I moved them back iTunes could not find them again nor did it provide a simple dialog to say "Where are your music files?" While I blame Windows for some of this, the lack of that simple dialog made me wonder about Apple and their software. "It just works" should really be "It just works, and if it doesn't, you're screwed".
the music you buy will only play on an iPod
when I owned an iPod, I was annoyed that while I could drag and drop content easily to the iPod, I could not just as easily drag and drop *from* the iPod to iTunes. The interface implies that this should work, but it does not. To get music off an iPod in an orderly fashion required third-party tools that Apple purposely disabled with every update.
the CD ripper adds information to the files created that I cannot identify and Apple reps on the forums would not explain. Probably harmless, but who knows that it isn't a scheme to track all mp3 files created with iTunes back to their original users.
iTunes puts all your music in the main window and puts the playlists off to the left. I believe this is backwards from how it should be. Check out Amarok for the method I prefer.
Extracting music from the iPod to the Mac/PC has been disabled when the iTunes Store launched. Go figure out why...
The iTunes Store is slowly adding DRM-Free content (iTunes +)
iTunes can't track your music library, for best results you can make that every file you add to iTunes is copied to the iTunes Music folder when added. Then you can delete the original file or move it around without worrying. I've set up my "My Music" folder to be the iTunes Music folder and set iTunes to auto-organize everything on that folder: it works great!
The CD ripper.... don't be paranoid! Apples is NOT the RIAA
You probably had the "hard drive troubles" because you tried to install a KDE-flavored Linux distro on it, didn't you? Just a guess..