iTunes Harmony

Ian Fogg | October 31, 2003, 05:58 PM

Windows iTunes is a great offering. It just works. There's not a great deal more to be said. The iTunes interface mimics the iPod, it syncs seamlessly, and browsing the iTunes store in Europe is a great teaser to drive demand for when online music sales will be possible.

Sure, it uses lots of memory (over 70Mb on my XP Pro desktop when syncing and playing music simultaneously), but PC memory capacities continue to increase so that problem will vanish. Do install the 4.1.1. patch/update if you installed 4.1 soon after its release.

Now, as I can't gripe any more about problems, it's time to think of wish list items for future releases:

- Better genre management. Having a single code to identify a track type is not flexible enough. Look at the Moodlogic service for a great way to manage music with major and several minor genre types per track. Moodlogic now offer a fully working 5 day trial, rather than a crippled evaluation, so well worth a look. It supports the iPod and a variety of other portable players.

- Better mini interface. The mini iTunes UI takes up too much screen space for my liking. Winamp classic is still best in class with a UI that offers play/pause/volume/track name in a tiny strip that sits within a window title bar.