iTunes 8: My Thoughts

Sep 14th, 2008 by Los Havros

I just felt compelled to write this piece as I’ve directly had issues with iTunes and now, all my issues have just melted away, like ice in the spring you might say.

Let’s rewind to 2006, shall we? Windows Media Player 11 was released and it debuted with a new visual look, which was nice. Anyhow, the most important feature that made its debut was being able to view album art when looking for music: by album, by artist.. etc. A very useful and handy feature indeed. I had occasionally dabbled with iTunes here and there, but I hated its sluggish behaviour in Windows, and I didn’t particularly like viewing lists. Windows Media Player 11 was truly the hub of my music experience. That, and the fact I was using a Creative Zen Micro 6Gb MP3 player. It all worked really well.

The same iTunes we all know and love

For some reason I thought I wouldn’t go with the rest of the herd (being a non-conformist), and I’d hold off on getting an iPod, especially as they used to be a bit expensive. Yet as the years went by, I grew increasinly envious of people who had iPods. They looked so cool, and everything just worked! So I took the plunge and bought a black 8Gb iPod Nano (3rd generation) for my 20th birthday. I haven’t looked back since. What I still hated though, were the lists in iTunes. I wasn’t a big fan of coverflow either as it always slowed my pc down!

The new grid view for album artwork

Now comes iTunes 8, with the same album art feature that debuted in Media player 11 two years ago. That’s no bad thing, maybe, but I’m surprised it’s taken Apple this long to implement it. I digress though, iTunes now works exactly as I want it; I’ve got my albums arranged by artist and it looks sweet. iTunes itself feels faster in Windows, which is good. To top it all off, intelligent playlists are a stroke of Genius, pardon the pun!

A Genius playlist

So, to conclude this article of sorts I suppose I feel that the iTunes program is starting to mature with mostly spit and polish to add. Then again, who knows what the future may hold?