iTunes (OS X) for Mac

3.0 stars

"Great features but with some terrible flaws"

January 22, 2012  |   By waldstille

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.5.3

Pros

Allows you to manage an enormous audio library.
Allows you to get information on songs.

Cons

1. No option to put pauses between tracks in playing (extremely annoying with classical music). To make it even worse, music bought from iTunes store sometimes cuts the pauses built into the CD version.

2. No convenient way to batch change names. And when you use another app to do this (such as A Better Finder Rename) iTunes refuses to recognize the changes, so you have worked in vain!

3. Not enough options in display (when editing the library): for instance, the "album" name is by "artist" and "date", which is fine in general, but it would be very useful to be able to choose NOT this link with artist and just have an alphabetical list of albums. The fact is that I often cannot get a complete view of my albums because different tracts have different artists.

4. No way to have two or more entirely different libraries. I have no wish to have my music together with spoken material. Playlists are useful but insufficient, especially with the 25,000 song iCloud limit.

Summary

One thing more that pertains not to the app itself but which I wish to mention is the extraordinarily poor direction of the classic music section of iTunes store and iTunes database. One would think that whoever is in charge knows nothing about classical music. Info from the database systematically capitalizes foreign words both in performance indications and in phrases drawn from texts (Lieder, opera tracts), a sub-standard practice that is incomprehensible since you never find it on CD jackets and notes (everything is invariably printed correctly). I have spent literally dozens of hours correcting these annoying capitalized words. Of course this is still better than having to type in everything myself as in the old days, but it is truly mind-boggling why iTunes would CHOOSE to systematically write things in an incorrect way.

Something else I would recommend is to add a secondary artist rubric. It would be very useful to be able to have, say, Rubinstein, as the artist, with Krips and the Chicago Symphony as secondary artists. It is not practical to have all this info together in the artist rubric, because one might have Rubinstein in twenty concertos with different conductors, in which case it would be impossible to search Rubinstein on the iPod or iPhone and have a list of the concertos he plays, since instead of one artist, Rubinstein, you have twenty different names each composed of Rubinstein and various other names. It would thus be very useful to have Artist-1, Artist-2, Artist-3.

Problems like these become more serious as libraries get bigger. I have more than 30,000 tracks, and this only represents part of my present CD collection, not to mention all that I plan to purchase (probably several thousand a year). Also they concern mainly classical music, where more complex information is associated with each track, and one would like to have as much of this info immediately visible on the iPhone or iPod (and not hidden in the info page in iTunes).

It would also be helpful to have a manual that explains the subtleties of juggling various elements so as to get the maximum info on the iPhone screen. After searching for different solutions, I finally realized that the easiest way for me to listen to my iTunes music is through my iPhone connected to a speaker system such as B&W. In doing this, I realized my iTunes library was organized wrongly. In fact, to get the benefits of the iPhone (such as being able to play all the versions one has of a piece one after another for comparison), I had to completely change the database and invent a system that allows me to do what I want. This is far from self-evident, and it would save a lot of time for some people if they had some instructions and advice. Also let it be said that the iTunes database provides info that does not correspond in any way with my needs. The info from that database is not organized to optimize display on the iPhone, nor is it easy to change. I would be happy to share my system with iTunes or others interested.

Finally, it would be great if iTunes could incorporate additional editing capacities (some are now available through externally imported scripts that ought to be part of iTunes). The following, in particular, would be most helpful:

1° the capacity to change information by batch (for instance, choose a number of tracks and give them all a common name, such as " ii. Allegro non troppo. G Major": this is something I can't do even with the very useful search-and-replace script I have, which allows me only to change one name to another, but not replace different names with a single one.

2° The capacity to replace all the track names of a CD with those I have already given to another CD of the same piece. I have many performances of music I like, and I would like them all to have the same names (that I have spend a lot of time adjusting). So I would like a new acquisition to have exactly the same names. As it is, I have to copy and paste each title individually, which takes a lot of time especially if the piece contains, say, 24 tracks (e.g. Schubert's Winterreise). It would be great to replace all 24 track names with the 24 adjusted names that are in the versions of Winterreise already in iTune.

3° It would be useful to have for each rubric at least one optional secondary rubric: the "artist" rubric most of all, but also others such as "album". In fact, what is far more important than the actual album is the piece. Once imported into iTunes, it is of relatively little interest to know if a recording comes from this or that CD. Thus, if a CD contains a quartet by Schubert and one by Mozart, I list the two quartets as separate albums in iTunes. But it would be a bonus to be able to retain the information that the two comes from one CD. Ideally in this case, I would have as album: "Schubert Quartet 13" and as secondary-album "X quartet plays Schubert and Mozart". You might think that one could simply combine the two pieces of info, but doing that seriously complicates searching, be if you are looking for Schubert Quartet 13, suddenly you've got the Mozart quartet also on your screen. As a result, I eliminated all info regarding the original CD and just stuck with the essentials. But I no longer know which pieces are coupled on the CDs.

To summarize, the needs of classical music listeners are very different from those who listen to pop. Especially for large collections. It would be good if iTunes were to pay some serious attention to the different aspects problem.

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2.0 stars

"Apple controls too much of your experience"

January 19, 2012  |   By sonicraft

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.5.3

Pros

It doesn't crash. It does a good job of batch editing mp3 header info. Good conversion, Access to lots of media. Lots of options and "user guidance"

Cons

iTunes will take over your machine, make unnecessary copies of audio you play, forces you into their store, iOS devices have confusing way of either syncing or pushing media. It is more confusing to manage your own media because it is tightly locked down.

Summary

For some passive computer and iOS users, iTunes makes the process of purchasing music from Apple easy. iTunes makes it easy to play your files (and copy them to the iTunes folder). Yes, they are in some ways, doing it right. But in other ways, they are making it so file management is out of your hands. I don't have a love hate relationship with iTunes. It just bugs me that you are forced into their store again and again and again.

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5.0 stars

"I love my iTunes and my iPhone"

January 5, 2012  |   By Micka_B

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.5.2

Pros

Never had any trouble with it - it syncs my iPhone, it backs it up. It's cool!

Cons

None found.

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1.0 stars

"Beware: Malware"

December 10, 2011  |   By Fargone_Beauty

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.5.1

Pros

Nothing at all

Cons

If you have an older computer, your music files might sound absolutely terrible if you have installed this, even if you are using another player

Summary

I won an Apple Ipad and plugged it in to my computer but nothing happens unless you have Itunes installed. After a previous bad experience with an earlier version of this malware I refused to have it on my main computer. Fortunately I had an old laptop, and installed Itunes on that and got the Ipad going. But the Itunes made all my music files sound distorted, even though I was playing them in media monkey. I soon identified the culprit and uninstalled all the Apple software on the machine. But it took two reboots before the sound returned to normal. The problem apparently affects computers with Pentium 3, Pentium M and some AMD processors.

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1.0 stars

"Worse program ever"

September 12, 2011  |   By dgrjazz1

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.4.1

Pros

I am required to write more then 10 characters. So here they are....

There are no pros

Cons

Hard to use, stupid ways of doing things, esp sync function with iPhone and iPad.

Summary

Would give it minus 5 stars if I could. As a music player it's no better that Windows Media Player (which is awful), but for the ONLY program that can sync to the IOS products it could not be worse. They must I spent hours and hours thinking of how to make it really bad.

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4.0 stars

"No support for itunes store"

September 11, 2011  |   By PaulC37943

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.4.1

Pros

Better than previous versions

Cons

It would have been nice for Apple to continue support for iTunes store.

Summary

Decent media player for an old Mac.

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1.0 stars

"iTunes 10.4 not ready for prime time"

August 3, 2011  |   By ed_matlock

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.4

Pros

If it would run, I might have one.

Cons

can not sync with my iPhone 4, can not import from a CD, can not access the iTunes Store. There are probably more issues to be found later

Summary

Do not install this app without a backup.

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2.0 stars

"Keeps going downhill"

July 24, 2011  |   By riegelbaum

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.4

Pros

Plays common music types
Keeps music organized
Smart playlists

Cons

Doesn't play all music files
Auto-complete in list view removed
Bloated
Ugly

Summary

The latest version of iTunes is not an improvement. It took away a feature I actually use: auto-completion in list view. Apple need to restore this feature and give users the option of having it Preferences.

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4.0 stars

"Works just fine!"

June 16, 2011  |   By Tord555

Version: iTunes (OS X) 10.3.1

Pros

Maybe a little faster than before!

Cons

Maybe just as before :-(!

Summary

No major upgrade!

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