Scan & Fix 50 registry issues FREECNET Editors' review
When we tested aTunes, the fast installation was followed by shockingly sluggish tree navigation, required to add our song library. Fortunately, the subsequent scan was flawless, handling 7,500 tracks in about 10 minutes. So in music terms, the show started off with some bad feedback, but then aTunes really got rockin'.
The tabbed interface keeps the various panes from getting too cluttered, managing both primary and secondary information elegantly. Icons just below the Menubar let users hide the AudioScrobbler, the Navigator, and the Song properties windows, which makes the UI far more customizable than it might seem. The impressively useful AudioScrobbler pane surfaces nearly all secondary song information, making it easier to discover an artist's biographical details, using tabs to prevent clutter and keep track lists and song lyrics organized. Built-in links encourage discovery of similar songs and related videos on YouTube.
aTunes comes with 27 skins, has built-in Last.fm and various other Internet radio station support, and has decent podcast-catching abilities. Customization via Preferences can change the layout to multiple windows, and Tooltips, Smart Sorting, and even the tabs themselves can be deactivated. Metatag editing and autotagging work well, and we liked the Favorites feature, which creates an automatic playlist of your songs, albums, and artists tagged as such.
There is room for improvement. MP3 player support exists, but only on portable devices that behave like external hard drives. Those that utilize fancy firmware--like the iPod--get ignored. Also, Linux and Mac users might find the installation to be too much work, with various components not bundled into the executable. aTunes would benefit from search-as-you-type, too. Even with those problems, though, aTunes doesn't miss a beat and is easily one of the best jukeboxes around.
Publisher's Description
From aTunes:
aTunes is a fully-featured audio player and manager, with ripping and encoding tools included. aTunes is coded in Java programming language (Java 5), using Swing, making it a highly portable piece of software.
What's new in this version: Version 3.0.5 has fixed cast errors when reading preferences with kryo fails and error retrieving titles from CD when CD has more tracks than the album information.
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All versions:
3.2 starsout of 16 votes
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Current version:
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My rating:
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"Awesome Media Jukebox"
Version: aTunes 2.0.1
Pros
Seems good to me. The feature that made me like this jukebox more then others is showing the lyrics of the song being played... thats awesome idea. also plays much more formats then some ******* piece of **** software that it looks alike...
Cons
you would always want something more
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"May be great for Apples, not my Vista machine"
Version: aTunes 2.0.1
Pros
It allows you to use your iPod and iPhone
Cons
When I UPGRADE, I have a mess to clean up. I wish there were an alternative to this piece of junk. It finally upgrades iTunes, then QT must be uninstalled-reinstalled. It is a resource hog, it syncs stuff already on, it doesn't delete from my iPhone
Summary
Impossible
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"Sounds better in theory than in practice."
Version: aTunes 1.13.4
Pros
Sounds great in two ways (a) seems to get the best out of your audio card, and (b) by focusing only on audio features, this player/tagger sounds like it can concentrate on doing a handful of things well.
Cons
Hard to tell after just a few hours working with it. Lots of online info, but much of it reads less like a tutorial than a sales pitch -- telling you what it can do rather than how to do it the easiest way. Java-basics also need better explanation.
Summary
I love its audio-only focus but never having mastered a Java-based program before, I will only make this my primary music app if the time needed to learn it turns out to be worth it. The architecture behind aTunes will fascinate programmers. But as a person just interested in organizing my music in a faster manner, this may or may not be a dazzler for me. I am hopeful but not convinced.
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"Very good music manager-player"
Version: aTunes 1.13.1
Pros
An impressively useful and friendly audio player and music organizer.Those who used Real Player,iTunes or Songbird will find lots of plus-points in aTunes(new vn.1.13.2).The main attraction is its very ease to use UI.Its "Magma" skin is spectacular.
Cons
Nothing found so far,except that it takes around 70000K of memory,but it is normal for a variety entertainment software with many features to run.
Summary
It is a very good, free GPL entertainment software.aTunes has better easy-to-understand and user-manageable features ,when compared to the open-source Songbird and other similar ones.Sound output is also found normal when compared with other such Players.
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"Disappointing"
Version: aTunes 1.13.1
Pros
Looks good, compiles the library quickly and efficiently.
Cons
Sounds awful...the graphic equaliser is a complete waste of time.
Summary
If it wasn't for the lack of quality when playing music this would be worthy of the 5 stars this site's editors gave it!
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"cannot download"
Version: aTunes 1.11.0
Pros
Well it is likely this is a great product, but when you cannot download the program it is very hard to test or evaluate it value or merits. When attempting to download the program it comes up as a 3 with no extension of any kind.
Cons
unknown - other than unable to test
Summary
cannot download a "3"
once i managed to download and install this program it makes for a good replacement of the itunes. It is unfortunate that when i originally tried to download this file it did not work. Now, it downloads, installs, and works well as designed. Not sure if i like the Java requirement, but otherwise seems to be a good tool. I have not used this with an ipod and not likely will any time soon. If you are looking for an apple itunes alternative, give it a try.
Updated on Nov 21, 2009
randy -
"Great Player"
Version: aTunes 1.11.0
Pros
Catalogued 9,000 songs quickly. Love the window with lyrics, albums and similar music. Easy to find duplicate songs and delete them. Lyric grabbing was fast and good to see. Works well on Windows 2000.
Cons
Editing song titles and info leaves a bit to be desired, iTunes does this much better. The ability to copy lyrics and paste into the lyric box when tagging would be good.
Summary
Best open source/freeware program that I have tried so far, doesn't lock up and seems cleaner than iTunes. Ability to use with iPod would be great. Will be interesting to see improvements to editing and also a mini player would be good.
Very happy. -
"Great program"
Version: aTunes 1.11.0
Pros
Does what it is suppose to do. Handles media and plays back. Works well with my mp3 player.
Cons
Nothing. its sweet.
Summary
I like it because it gives me a cheap, simple alternative to itunes. itunes has become a little bloated.
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"Excellent player"
Version: aTunes 1.11.0
Pros
It has everything. I've especially like the window with lyrics and radio stations.
Cons
California radio station is buggy.
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"Great iTunes Alternative. But remember - this is GPL!!"
Version: aTunes 1.9
Pros
Great *free* iTunes alternative. Nice interface. Displays album art, lyrics, etc.
Easily managed song lists. Connects with my ipod with little or no problems.Cons
A bit of a resource hog. Limited "right-click" options.
Summary
This program does not deserve the rep some users have given it. I was looking for a program that does not possess my system such as iTunes does and this one works rather well.
But remember people: **This is open source software**!! aka- GPL. If you don't know what that means it means that it is first and foremost *FREE*. But also it is created and maintained by a user database and therefore may still not be as slick as some commerical applications that you are used to. This also means though that it is always under development, open for improvement, and is able to be watched and maintained by the actual users and not some faceless corporate enterprise.
If you are looking for a decent iTunes alternative, give it a try. There is also a good user manual on their website at: http://www.atunes.org/
