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ITunes

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The title given to this article is incorrect due to technical limitations. The correct title is iTunes.
iTunes (version 4.7.1)

iTunes is an application programme made by Apple Computer intended to play, organize and buy music files (it is also a common name for iTunes Music Store). It is compatible with computers running Mac OS X, Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating systems. Earlier versions of iTunes also run on Mac OS 9. The player has gained a reputation of ease of use and good organization, and has been positioned by Apple as the preferred music player for users using the iPod music player (succeeding Musicmatch Jukebox on Windows). It is freely downloadable from Apple's website and supplied with Mac OS X.

Contents

[edit] History

iTunes was developed from SoundJam MP, a popular commercial MP3 application distributed by the Macintosh software company Casady & Greene. Apple purchased the rights to the SoundJam MP software, as it already employed the programmers who created the program. Although the first release of iTunes was very similar to SoundJam MP (some features were removed such as the ability to use interface skins and broadcast audio over the Internet), Apple have added a number of significant features in subsequent versions.

[edit] Version history

Mac OS 9

Mac OS 9 & Mac OS X

iTunes 2 for Mac OS 9
  • 2.0 - November 2, 2001
    • iPod support.
    • Equaliser.
    • MP3 CD-burning.
    • Crossfader.
    • Sound enhancer.
    • Burns CDs 2x faster than before.
  • 2.0.2 - November 16, 2001
  • 2.0.3 - December 13, 2001
    • Only checked songs are synchronized with iPod.
    • Rio One MP3 player support.
  • 2.0.4 - March 20, 2002
    • Expanded AppleScript support.
    • Improved stability and performance.

Mac OS X

  • 3.0 - July 17, 2002
    • Smart playlists.
    • Audible.com audio books support.
    • Sound check.
    • Ratings.
    • New ID3 tags, which have play counts etc.
    • Join tracks.
    • Playlist importing and exporting.
  • 3.0.1 - September 18, 2002
  • 4.0 - April 28, 2003
    • Music Store support.
    • Music sharing.
    • AAC encoding.
    • Album artworks.
    • DVD support.
    • Improved searching.
    • Track categorization with beats per minute.
  • 4.0.1 - May 27, 2003
    • Music sharing only in subnet.
    • Performance improvements.

Mac OS X & Windows

  • 4.1 - October 16, 2003
    • Voice notes and On-The-Go playlists synchronization with iPod.
    • Support for large library to be burned on multiple CDs.
    • Music Store link drag & dropping.
    • Music Store now features Audiobooks.
    • Music Store has more advanced Power Seach.
    • Music Store supports allowance.
    • Music Store supports gift certificates.
  • 4.2 - December 18, 2003
    • AOL account support in Music Store.
    • Performance improvements.
  • 4.5 - April 28, 2004
    • iMix.
    • Party Shuffle.
    • CD insert printing.
    • Music Store Quick Links.
    • Automatic WMA to AAC conversion (Windows only).
    • Apple Lossless. Lossless audio-codec.
  • 4.6 - June 9, 2004
  • 4.7 - October 27, 2004
    • Support for copying photos to an iPod photo.
    • Ability to show duplicate songs in your library.
    • Performance improvements.
    • iPod preferences now part of the Preferences window.
    • Ability to search iMixes by name on the iTunes Music Store.
  • 4.7.1 - January 11, 2005
  • 4.8 - May 9, 2005
  • 4.9 - July 15, 2005
    • Support for podcasts via iTunes Music Store.

Mac OS X & Windows

  • 5.0 - September 7, 2005
    • Refined look (more compact)
    • 'LCD' display at top now displays artist and song together
    • Ability to group playlists in folders
    • Search now has Search Bar for refining search results. It duplicates the Spotlight bar in Mac OS X 10.4 Finder:
      • Search all music, audiobooks, podcasts, and videos, etc.
      • Search all artists, albums, and songs
    • Automatically sync calendars and contacts with Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express (contacts only)
    • Smart shuffle (with adjustable 'randomness')
    • Support for the playback and creation of Variable Bitrate AAC files
    • Parental Controls to limit children's access to podcasts, the iTunes Music Store, and sharing features
    • Lyrics tab in track info box
    • Each song has the option to remember playback position and to skip it in shuffle mode
  • 5.0.1 - September 20, 2005
    • Bug fixes
    • Bonjour for Windows removed from installer bundle after DNS conflict problems

Mac OS X & Windows

  • 6.0 - October 12, 2005
    • "Videos" added to Sources list
    • Supports purchase of video content through the iTunes Music Store
    • Supports video podcasting
    • Can transfer video files to fifth-generation iPods
  • 6.0.1 - October 20, 2005
    • Bug fixes
  • 6.0.2 - January 10, 2006
    • First Universal binary version
    • MiniStore
    • Multiple speaker streaming
    • Preferred user language (Windows version)
    • Stability and performance improvements
    • Fixed Windows shutdown/reboot interrupt while in "Toolbar" mode.
  • 6.0.3 - February 15, 2006
    • Bug fixes
    • Performance improvements
  • 6.0.4 - March 1, 2006
    • Improvements for FrontRow (Mac)

[edit] Features

Users are able to organise their music into playlists, edit file information, record compact discs, copy files to a digital music player, purchase music on the Internet through its built-in music store, run a visualiser to display graphical effects in time to the music as well as encode music into a number of different audio formats.

[edit] File formats supported

iTunes can currently encode to MP3, AIFF, WAV, AAC, and Apple Lossless, and can play anything QuickTime can play (even video formats, as long as they have audio), including Protected AAC files from iTunes Music Store, plus Audible.com audio books. It can be extended to play other formats such as the free Ogg Vorbis audio format through the addition of QuickTime components.

The Windows version of iTunes can automatically convert unprotected WMA files to other audio formats, but it does not support direct playback or encoding of WMA format.

[edit] Spoken content

[edit] Smart Playlists

Smart Playlists are playlists that are automatically updated (like a database query) based on a customised list of selection criteria.

[edit] Album art

[edit] Visuals

iTunes Visuals (iTunes 2 on Mac OS 9)
Eyephedrine

The visualizer feature in iTunes is called G-Force and is provieded by WhiteCap Technologies. It is a graphics engine that reacts to the music, which creates a sensation of "seeing" the music. Other third party developers have also developed their own visualizer plug-in for iTunes. Such are: Eyephedrine [aka DiscoBrick at www.discobrick.com] by GioFX and NastyFFT by Pan40s.info.

[edit] File sharing

iTunes Library songs can be shared over a local network using Rendezvous - Apple's name for the Zeroconf open network standard - which allows shared lists of songs within the same subnet to be automatically detected. When a song is shared, iTunes can stream the song but won't save a copy on the local hard drive, in order to prevent piracy. Songs in Protected AAC format can also be accessed but authentication is required.

In the past with iTunes 4.0, users could access shared lists anywhere over the internet, in addition to one's own subnet, by specifying IP addresses of remote shared song libraries. This feature was soon removed permanently by Apple with version 4.0.1, claiming that users were violating the EULA.

Music sharing uses the Digital Audio Access Protocol (DAAP), created by Apple for this purpose.

[edit] Integration into iLife '05

[edit] Synchronisation

iTunes can automatically synchronise your music library with your iPod every time you connect it to your computer. New songs and playlists are automatically copied to the iPod and songs you deleted from your library are also deleted from your iPod. Ratings awarded to songs on the iPod will sync back to the iTunes library and audiobooks will remember the current playback position.

Automatic synchronization can be turned off in favour of manually copying individual songs or complete playlists; however, iTunes supports only copying music to the iPod and not from it, which has inspired third party tools for that purpose.

iTunes supports a number of other popular portable music players with some limitations including the inability to play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Supported players include a number of Nomad players from Creative Labs, some Rio players, music players from Nike and the SoundSpace 2 device. Other manufacturers may also offer integration by way of a plugin.

[edit] Data management

iTunes stores metadata about the audio files in two files which are equal in content, though not in format. The first is a binary file called iTunes 4 Music Library that uses its own music library format, independent of the audio format's tag capabilities (for example the ID3 tag). The second file, called iTunes Music Library.xml, uses XML format, allowing developers to easily write applications that can access the information (e.g. Apple's own iMovie or Freshly Squeezed Software's Rock Star).

[edit] iTunes Music Store

Version 4 of iTunes introduced the iTunes Music Store from which iTunes users can legally buy and download songs for use on a limited number of computers and iPods. Songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store are copy protected with Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) scheme.

[edit] Sources and References

(See also WikiMac's Notes for Wikipedians for information on the GFDL, WikiMac, and the Wikipedia.)

[edit] External links

  • Apple - iTunes
  • Features lost in iTunes upgrades - Notes some of the feature downgrades in iTunes updates, including tighter restrictions on streaming/sharing and the number of times playlists can be burned to CD. Also discusses some workarounds.
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