According to Steve Jobs, Apple has developed the best Windows app ever.

Apple unveiled iTunes for Windows today. It's a full version, with all the features of the Mac version, along with many added in this latest release. It's available to download for free at iTunes.com.

Here's a few tidbits from the press event:

- Very cute ad campaign: "Hell Froze Over"
Go to Apple.com to see it on the main page.
- iPod holds 31% of the MP3 player market, 50% of the revenue in that market, 1.4M sold to date, 2.5 sold every minute
- Over 13 million iTunes downloads in 4 months
- iTunes currently has 70% of music download market share (and this is while the service has only been available to Mac users)
- Catalogue will be 400,000 songs by the end of the month
- 5,000 spoken word/audiobooks added (partnership with Audible.com)
- 200 independent labels have signed on
- Gift certificates and monthly Allowance (for kids, so they don't have to use your credit card) functionality now available
- Exclusive provider of Grateful Dead music (8 albums so far), among others
- Partnership with AOL's music pages (a button next to all content will take you to the relevant song/artist/album on the iTunes Music Store)
- Partnership with Pepsi for 100 million song giveaway launching on Superbowl Sunday (300M yellow-capped bottles, 1 in 3 will be a winner, type in the code under the cap to redeem a song)
- Comments from Bono, Dr Dre and Mick Jagger live via iChat AV... Bono talked about how this was like the Pope getting together with the Dali Lama, and how he was doing his part to "kiss the corporate ...," and that he desn't just go and kiss every corporate ... out there... Mick Jagger sipped what looked like vodka as he declared himself the archbishop of canterbury getting together with the Pope and the Dali Lama. It was significant that they had him on, as the Rolling Stones resisted pay-per-song downloads until recently.
- Sara McLachlan sang two songs live at the end

Headlines related to the announcement...

MacSurfer.com

[This message has been edited by swise (edited 10-16-2003).]

[This message has been edited by swise (edited 10-16-2003).]

Downloading as I type this... We'll see if it's "the best Windows app ever"...

Well, Steve Jobs has some explaining to do.

1) It's pretty slow, I have over 15000 songs in it (all off MY OWN CD's).

2) When importing my own files it lacks a progress indicator, even the most basic shareware crap has a progress indicator

3) In true Apple style you CAN NOT maximise the application, I'm left with a window in the middle of my screen and can't utilize my desktop the way I want to.

4) Visualizations are VERY SLOW, even on my Dual Xeon workstation it stutters a lot, I also don't seem able to select different visualizations...

In it's defence, the search option is very fast compared to WMP9.

I'll try it out a few more days but my first impressions are just that it's a nice try but is far behind what WMP9 and Musicmatch can do.

iTunes and an iPod are the coolest. It's great that Apple ported it over. . .

"2) When importing my own files it lacks a progress indicator, even the most basic shareware crap has a progress indicator"

In the top-center status pane/LCD looking little window thing, it should show import status. You have several views there. To toggle between, click the little circle with a triangle inside. Perhaps if you happened to be listening to a song while importing the default output was the track progression. Try flipping to see what other views you've got.

"3) In true Apple style you CAN NOT maximise the application, I'm left with a window in the middle of my screen and can't utilize my desktop the way I want to."

You can on the Mac by dragging the bottom-right corner. Don't know if this works the same on Windows. The section to click on is ribbed.

Don't know if you have the same buttons that we've got on the Mac, but here's the way they work for me anyway... in the top-left corner, you've got three little circles. Left-most little circle (either a red light or an X, depending on your preferences settings) closes the window. Center little circle puts the window in your dock equivalent, whatever you call that place at the bottom. The right little circle toggles between "big" and "small," big being however big you last made the window, and small being just the button bar, however long you last dragged it out.

Mac users also have a "window" menu, on the menu bar that toggles between "big" and "small." The official word for this is Zoom.

So for window sizing options Mac users have four choices, two of which are customizable:

1. Close Window (left/red/X button)
2. Minimize to dock (middle/yellow/- button)
3. Zoom Small (however small you tell it to make it)(right/green/+ button)
4. Zoom Big (however big you tell it to make it) (right/green/+ button)

Hope this helps. Be sure to mess with the store. Some of the exclusive stuff is pretty neat. My favorite is the June Carter Cash video. Very special, the whole Cash family together recording her last album in the living room.

[This message has been edited by swise (edited 10-16-2003).]

I agree that it is a little strange that they do not follow the windows standards for the Maximize button. You can however, move the window to the upper left and use the lower right corner to drag the window larger. It should retain the size for when you launch the application again.

On Macs you can only resize the window using the lower right corner, where on Windows you can resize using any of the edges.

Silly question, but please indulge me...

Is there a way to take files downloaded from MusicMatch and transfer them over to my iTunes application on a Windows computer?

I don't have the iPod yet, but when I do, can I sync music from both MusicMatch and music downloaded from the iTunes store and have them sync on to the device, or is there a conflict with the applications.

I apologize in advance if these are rudimentary questions.

You should check out the sharing capabilities. Or the iTunes Store. You may not like iTunes, but it's absolutely hysterical to suggest it's far behind what Musicmatch can do.

"Is there a way to take files downloaded from MusicMatch and transfer them over to my iTunes application on a Windows computer?"

You should be able to import them. Don't know if the new version of iTunes has WMP support, but if all your songs are MP3s, you should have no problem. I think it'll work best if you have all your music consolidated in one directory, since you'll have to point iTunes to the folder of stuff you want to import.

Oh- actually, now that I think of it, when you first launch iTunes, it asks you if you'd like for it to skim over your hard drive and look for all of your music and put it in the library.

So, you should have two ways of doing it: autopilot or manual.

Note that this is how it works on the Mac. Steve said that the Windows version is exactly the same, but I don't know if that's totally exactly or mostly exactly.

[This message has been edited by swise (edited 10-16-2003).]

actually I just re-read your question, and if you're talking about music downloaded through MusicMatch's service, I don't think you'll be able to import those.

You can't sync them onto an iPod either.

With importing I meant importing existing tracks to my music library, I had 15000 track to import an no way to know how long it would take...

As for maximizing the app, any decent windows app will have a maximize button in the top right, this one doesn't

I've been using it all afternoon and to be honest I'm not dissapointed yet. For version one it is actually pretty **** good.

I've been using it off and on all afternoon (well, it's been on all afternoon, but I haven't paid too much attention to the computer).

Overall, I like it, my only complaints have been echoed here already:

1) Can't maximize very effectively.
2) The visualizations are horribly painful on decent slightly old 1 gig machine. And not only oes it look horrible, but it slows everything else down.
3) Later tonight I'll try it on a few newer 2.6 and 1.8 Dell machines and see how it does.

Scott, do you have your mp3's in directories? I've got mine in this format: Drive:\Artist\Album\Artist - Album - Track Number - Track Name.mp3

Itunes imported just over 4600 files (~18gb) in less than 5 min on a dual cpu 500 P3 box, across a 100mbit network link.

Visulaizations are painful to watch on my boxes too (athlon, the dual cpu P3, and a 2.4g P4).

I wonder if the visualization thing capitalizes on Altivec and/or Quartz Extreme.

Perhaps this could be the reason for the crummy performance on Wintel systems.

I know my G4 450 (altivec) can handle the visualization dealie as good or better than my G3 iBook 700 (no altivec) -- and the G4 doesn't even take advantage of Quartz Extreme.

One thing you can do to make the visualization smoother is play around with the settings. You can adjust it so that it's not so choppy. of course, the pretty pictures won't be quite as pretty...

I actually rarely use the visualization anyway.

However, when I do, it sucks me in like a deadhead in front of a barbershop pole.


[This message has been edited by swise (edited 10-16-2003).]

All are sorted by artist/album and have full IDv3 tags filled in. 15000 tracks took over 30 minutes to import off a Firwire800 drive. I don't mind the time, I do dislike not seeing how long it will take to import though.

The maximize thing is a major bummer and the visualizations are simply pathetic, I know it's not my machine so looks like crummy coding to me.

All in all I'm still pretty content, it seems to handle the large music database quite well.