iTunes 7
Sunday, Sep 17, 2006
I don’t care whether you use a PC or a Mac; chances are you’re managing your music library with Apple’s iTunes. Just this past week, they released version 7 of the application, and my first impressions of its performance and new functionality are pretty favorable.
First, let me get the bad news out of the way. In buzzing through a few early reviews, it appears that some PC users are having issues with corrupted files (or at the very least distorted playback) after upgrading. So far, most blame for this seems to lie with a new feature that improves the transitioning between tracks that were ripped from the same CD (you know what I’m referring to... that dreaded iTunes pause). To make this possible, iTunes needs to index the user’s entire library. My guess is that most of the severe problems are the result of users trying to rush this process, and thus corrupting their files. Still, I’m no expert, and am really just talking out my ass here. I haven’t had any problems so far (yay Mac).
Now, on to the new features. I’ve already mentioned the improved transitioning between tracks (aka ‘Gapless Playback’). Another great feature is the ability to have multiple libraries on multiple disk volumes-- simply add more storage space, and you’re good to go without the need to transfer your whole library to the larger volume (or, God forbid, delete tracks just because you don’t have enough storage).
Though I’m excited about the iTunes Music Store adding feature films to their menu (at full 640x480 resolution to boot), I’m most excited about the changes to the iTunes interface. Two new list views give the user a lot more power when organizing and playing back tracks. The more dramatic of these is called ‘Cover Flow’, which displays a cascading visual of cover art that the user can scroll through. Select a cover, and all tracks from that album are indexed in a list below (you can kind of see this in the crappy screen capture I included above). Though entertaining in its own right, this view really becomes powerful when an iTunes-enabled Mac or PC is integrated into a home theater or audio server. Imagine having a SAN in your house (i.e. a wall-mounted iMac in a bedroom or kitchen) linked to your entire music library and displaying it in this manner. I don’t care how much of a technophobe your houseguests are-- they’d be able to find what they’re looking for if they could navigate it like this.
All in all, I’m really impressed with this newest build of iTunes. Though PC users may want to research the problems I mentioned earlier before upgrading, the rest of us should download iTunes 7 and never look back. Till Next Time--