iTunes Monitor for Mac

User Reviews

• YES

  KHAISLUVApril 21, 2007

  Pros

  EVERYTHING

  Cons

  TAKES TO LONG

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• Great idea, poor implementation

  VersionTrackerUserOpinionJuly 18, 2006

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />This would be a nice little program, if only it did what it promises to do. I mainly use it to see who is leeching music off my iTunes, and it usually gets the number of connected users wrong. Very wrong. So all it does is sit on your dock and look pretty.

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• windows version?

  munni117November 8, 2005

  Pros

  Cons

  he should create a windows version.

  Summary

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• Does one simple thing very well

  May 11, 2004

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  Summary

  I've got iTunes sharing in my office and I always wondered who's listening to my music and what they're listening to. This simple app tells me just that. I have it running on a G5 as well as an old lime green iMac. Both run iTunes Monitor in OS 10.3 without any hitches. Great software! I wonder how long it will take before Apple pays this guy 10 grand and incorporates it into the next version of iTunes, because they certainly should.

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• exactly what i've been looking for

  January 27, 2004

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• January 23, 2004

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• One step forward, one step back...

  XapplimaticDecember 3, 2003

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />Well, the UI is cleaner. It now resizes and redraws everything ok under Jaguar and Panther. Plus one star from previous review. The cumbersome package installer is nolonger used (yeah!). Plus another star from previous review. The preferences for how much time it takes between updates however don't seem to work.. it seems to take as long as it feels like depending on which way the bitstream blows. It also frequently drops out the filenames being shared (as I could be sharing music both ways with another Mac and I see the red dot by its IP number, but the filename it was sharing suddenly disappears but the other Mac is still playing that shared file.. so its reliability is in question. Right now, it seems pretty flakey.. Minus one star gained. A very odd internet address (!) popped up in connected users labelled "XML.Amazon.com" for a few seconds while I was watching, then it turned into "unknown.level3.net" (earthlink?) while I was still watching wide-eyed.. Then it disappeared.. I'm wondering if iTunes Monitor uncovered internet hacking on my local Airport network or if it was some odd bug where it was watching http connections in Safari? Don't know.. This points back to the previous criticism that the program needs a history function (which as I understand the author is working on for the next release)... I'll give it 5 stars when it does exactly what it sets out to with stability and has a logging / history function.. :)

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• sweet, mostly

  *nixDecember 3, 2003

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />installs and boots great, simple to configure. very clean interface. nice job. couple of things: -elevators don't appear to work all that well with small windows -processor spikes a fair bit, so i don't leave it running, just launch it to take names and then shut it down

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• Needs work, but works ok.

  XapplimaticOctober 18, 2003

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />&lt;p&gt;This app shouldn't require use of Installer just to put the application file into applications. This just wastes download bandwidth and user time for all that unnecessaryness. As it doesn't list what it's installing, it leaves users who don't know about the installer logging function or don't know about Console wondering if it installed other hidden files somewhere. Also, normally if an installer is included for an application, good practice dictates that there should be an uninstaller, or the installer needs to be set to uninstall as well, but none was provided. In this case, neither are necessary and neither should be wasting space with the file download. Installing this App left 30 useless lines of unnecessary garbage in my console log. 2 lines about automounting the disk image (pet peave), 28 lines about Installer not being able to change owner permissions or file mod dates.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The program usefullness in terms of a "monitor" is crippled by possessing no functions for sharing history... If you're trying to tell if someone is a frequent user or abuser of your system, or wether or not so-and-so listened to something you told them about yet, etc.. How are you going to know who was connected before while you weren't actively watching the monitor? It's only nicety is a colored dot on the left that it identifies graphically which IPs are active playing (green) and which are paused (yellow), but nowhere is it defined what those colors mean even.. I had to figure that out by playing with multiple Macs. i.e. There is no documentation included and no help file.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The display lacks intelligent organization. A browse through Apple's HUI guidelines would find illuminate many problems with it. My number one complaint is how it simply clumps the songs all in one list at the bottom and another list for IPs at the top. So how do you know which IP is listening to which file? You can't. Also, who needs to see all that repetitive filepath info? Just put the artist and song title in their own columns (derived from that pathway info) to unclutter the output and make it more readable. It's fine for users who don't let iTunes manage their song collection to also list the pathway, but I'd throw that on as the last piece of info visible since most people should already know where their files are stored. In the very least it needs to be reworked to show which IPs are sharing which songs. Something like:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;10.0.2.5: GerryRafferty: Baker Street &lt;li&gt;10.0.2.3: HerbAlbert: Rise &lt;li&gt;Your IP*: Cyndi Lauper: True Colors &lt;/ul&gt; &lt;p&gt;An expanded view including history info should also include: Connected since: (time connected.. could be connected indefinitely in paused mode), and the total number of past connections from that IP.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Looking at this program also made me wish for a sharing controls list. If it was technically possible, it would be really usefull if it would extend some controls as well over the sharing situation that iTunes lacks. There are situations where you can have potentially many dozens of users trying to share your collection like campus and corporate environments. It would be nice if the program had a feature to block certain problematic IPs, limit total # of connections, and to turn sharing on and off from the monitoring program itself. That last item is possible via AppleScript I'm sure. No idea about the others unless the author could tweak the system firewall somehow to manipulate connections as iTunes has no sharing controls for those things.&lt;/p&gt;

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• Good start

  drumpoetJune 9, 2003

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  Summary

  This review was originally posted on VersionTracker.com.<br />I like it so far. This is definitely expandable. I've just been going in the the terminal.app from time to time to see who was sharing and what they were listening to by typing: lsof | grep iTunes But I like the graphical interface. So far so good, with some tweekage, this could be a hand monitoring program.

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