Apple iTunes 9

By Jamie Lendino

Apple's free iTunes app is the default music software choice for just about anyone with an Apple-branded iPod or iPhone. It turns out that also goes for buying music; the iTunes Store is now responsible for one-quarter of all music sales in the U.S. But Apple isn't known for letting the competition catch up. Along with new iPod nano, touch, and shuffle models, the company has just unveiled iTunes 9, a significant update that includes a thoroughly revamped iTunes Store, proper library synchronization across multiple computers (finally), more sophisticated Genius recommendations, and more flexible app management for iPhone and iPod touch users. It's a solid update that cements its status as our Editors' Choice for music software.

Apple's free iTunes app is the default music software choice for just about anyone with an Apple-branded iPod or iPhone. It turns out that also goes for buying music; the iTunes Store is now responsible for one-quarter of all music sales in the U.S. But Apple isn't known for letting the competition catch up. Along with new iPod nano, touch, and shuffle models, the company has just unveiled iTunes 9, a significant update that includes a thoroughly revamped iTunes Store, proper library synchronization across multiple computers (finally), more sophisticated Genius recommendations, and more flexible app management for iPhone and iPod touch users. It's a solid update that cements its status as our Editors' Choice for music software.

Because iTunes 9 is a huge app, I'll focus this review on the new features. (For more on the app's main capabilities, check out my review of iTunes 8.) To begin, I installed iTunes 9 on a 24-inch Core 2 Duo aluminum iMac with 4GB RAM and OS X 10.5.8. Compared with its predecessor, iTunes 9 doesn't look all that different on first boot-up. The one obvious new feature is a pop-up welcome screen that offers a selection of videos explaining how the app works; useful if you're new to the iTunes universe. The top part of the main window shows a little more reflection, and, in a minor bit of graphical polish, the title of the song currently playing is now in a stronger bold type.

Psyched for Sync
As with Apple OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), most of the big improvements in iTunes 9 are under the hood. One of the best is Home Sharing, which finally fixes the media synchronization process across different computers. For years, you could share an iTunes library across a home network and access it from different computers. The problem was in trying to keep actual copies of the same media files in sync on multiple machines, which was essential if you owned a laptop—and essentially impossible with iTunes. Most people gave up and just dealt with having different libraries on different machines. The new Home Sharing feature fixes that by letting you sync all music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, and apps between different machines. You can authorize up to five computers, and set them to automatically sync new purchases.

In my tests, I set up the 24-inch iMac with a master library, a second MacBook Pro with 4GB RAM and iTunes 9, and a third install on the PC side under Windows XP SP3. I launched the app and logged into Home Sharing on the iMac and MacBook Pro using my iTunes account. I then configured the app to automatically transfer new purchases to the laptop (using the Settings button at the bottom right when viewing the shared library). Finally, I selected some music and clicked Import; the app immediately began copying the files to the laptop.

I didn't want to sync the entire 60GB master library, as my MacBook only had 49GB of free space. That proved to be no problem; by changing the "Show" option to read "Items not in my library," I could see which songs and videos were missing, and then only select and import the ones I wanted. It also worked exactly as expected in the other direction, letting me see the (smaller) library on the laptop and move any files it had over to the main machine. The same went for the XP laptop; I was able to transfer music back and forth, synchronize the two libraries, and even sync and play DRM'ed iTunes Store M4P files from the iMac on the XP machine. This is a huge improvement.

One downside: There's no way to just set and forget the three machines to automatically sync everything; that only works for new iTunes purchases. So if you import a CD on one machine, you'll have to view that library on another machine, select the tracks, and click Import to move them over. (You'll be able to see them right away by choosing the "Items not in my library" option from the other machines.) There's also no easy way to make your music collection available online from a Web browser, a feature Napster and Lala both offer. Still, home sharing is something I've wanted for years; I almost felt like cheering.

The Genius of iTunes
The app's new Genius Mixes create miniature radio stations out of your library. When I first clicked the Genius Mixes option in the left pane, 12 new mixes appeared in an attractive icon-based interface separated into genres, with examples of artists for each one showing whenever I highlighted them with the mouse cursor. For example, the Alternative Rock Mix was "based on The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, Foo Fighters, & others." Clicking the Play button cued up the first track of an unlimited playlist. Over the course of several hours, it cycled through lots of other relevant artists, including interesting but less-often-heard tracks from specific albums I owned. Automatic playlists are by no means a huge innovation, but Genius Mixes is still a solid addition to Apple's app.

App management is also improved. Hook up an iPhone or iPod touch updated with OS 3.1 and you'll be able to manage your software collection much more easily from within iTunes. Apple iTunes 9 now displays each of your device's home screens, and it lets you drag around apps to arrange as you see fit. You can also change the order in which the different home screens appear by sliding around the menu icons on the right.

On the device side, iTunes 9 continues to sync with all manner of iPods and iPhone models. But Apple has once again broken the Palm Pre's ability to sync directly with the app—a cat-and-mouse game that's likely to continue for some time. You can buy new music over Wi-Fi or 3G from an iPhone, but you can't choose from millions of new tracks to listen to without buying some first, the way you could with a Zune Marketplace subscription, Rhapsody's new iPhone app (stay tuned for our full review) or Napster To Go.

The iTunes Store Remodels
The most visible improvement in iTunes 9 appears when you fire up the iTunes Store (which, incidentally, requires Safari 4.0.3 to be installed on the Mac, but not on the PC). Apple has completely revamped the store's main view. A new navigation bar sits permanently on the right side of the screen. Several animated highlights featuring new content are front and center. There's plenty of extra white space all around, giving the store a fresh, organic look. Across the top, you can drop down several main categories for music, movies, audiobooks, and other content. To compensate for the lost real estate, the home page scrolls down further. You can still browse by individual media subcategory (such as alternative music). To do so, you now click and hold the mouse button over the main category buttons. Overall, it all looks good, and—I can't believe I'm about to write this—seems as if Apple took a cue from the minimalist Zune Marketplace to simplify the iTunes Store's design.

Previewing and buying tracks is also easier. Pass the cursor over a given track and several things happen. A blue preview icon appears to the left—useful for hearing multiple tracks without having to navigate down to each one anymore. In addition, a Buy button containing the price appears on the right, along with a down arrow that contains a hidden drop-down menu for gifting a track, adding it to a wish list, or sharing it on Facebook or Twitter. The social networking features worked fine in testing. In Facebook, a song showed up with an album cover graphic and a link to the iTunes Store item, and a Twitter share just showed the artist and title, plus a bit.ly link to the store. Again it's not a shocking innovation, but it lets iTunes catch up with social networking trends a bit.
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Individual artist, track, and album pages are also different, with simpler designs, larger graphics, and larger fonts in music track lists. The latter take up much more of the screen now, and are no longer crammed into a tiny frame at the bottom of the iTunes window. As before, 256-Kbps DRM-free AAC tracks cost anywhere from 69 cents to $1.29, with most at 99 cents and many new releases at $1.29. This is still more expensive than Amazon MP3, which trails iTunes in other features (particularly music discovery and online video) but remains a killer destination for bargain-priced music in the ubiquitous MP3 format. Movies, TV shows, and audiobooks are also very well represented, along with the nifty, upgraded iTunes U section for taking free classes. I'd still like to see more movie rentals and HD content in the store, but at this point it's up to the studios and Apple to negotiate the right deals.

A Few Disappointments
Other new features in the iTunes Store include iTunes Extras, which show up as additional content for certain movies (14 at the time of this writing). The content can range from exclusive video clips to behind-the-scenes footage, interviews with cast members, commentaries, "making of" videos, and photo galleries. You get a quick summary in the beginning, but you can also click "More" several times and see additional text and credits when available. Unfortunately, iTunes 9 doesn't tell you what the extras actually are before you make a purchase, however.

Another gripe is that many movies—including prominently featured Pixar favorites like Wall-E—still aren't available in HD. (Note: I also tried viewing an iTunes Extra movie on a computer that still had iTunes 8.2.1 installed; it displayed a message at that top that said "Some items on this page may require an upgrade to the latest version of iTunes.") The same goes for the new iTunes LPs. The idea is nice, as it features animated lyrics and liner notes along with videos and interviews. But the selection is currently sparse (just 11 albums), and you don't know exactly what each LP includes.

One perennial con to iTunes is the lack of a subscription option for unlimited music listening. That's for a narrower but loyal market that Rhapsody and Napster still serve well—particularly Napster, with its revamped UI and blowout $5-per-month price that includes five downloaded MP3s. And there's still no easy way to manage recorded video content with iTunes 9. Apple knows its game and sticks to it; it would rather you bought lots of high-profit individual pieces of media a la carte in the iTunes Store than record your own. (That said, Cupertino just shoehorned an FM radio into the iPod nano, after dozens of competitors so equipped came and went over the years, so anything is possible.)

With iTunes 9, Apple is pulling further and further away from the pack. Even as standalone iPod sales crest and begin to stabilize as the music-playing cell phone market grows, Apple's ecosystem remains the most sophisticated and well integrated for organizing and managing your media.

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