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The Updated iTunes

Apple announced their enhancements to the iPod and iTunes yesterday (Sept. 12) (read more), sparking a flood of online buzz from tech-minded music fans. iTunes 7 is of particular interest, as it’s got tons of new features and has become a bigger consumer portal. Users can now chose from 75 movies distributed by Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar, Touchstone Pictures, and Miramax Films to buy (prices vary by purchase date) and download to their computers, ipods, and television (via forthcoming iTV application), and they can also load up on popular video games ($4.99) like “Pac-Man,” “Tetris,” “Mahjong, “Texas Hold’em,” and more. Other updates include free album art for imported CDs, CoverFlow view, which allows users to visually browse an entire collection by cover artwork, and gapless playback, which removes the pause between songs. Additionally, account-holders can now sync an iPod with multiple computers.

Does iTunes 7 live up to expectations? Here’s what the people are saying:

“I absolutely love the new iTunes. Browsing my cds is now like flipping through old LPs and I can enjoy the artwork again. Previous versions were good for organising etc but now this thing is FUN as well.” — keith Waddington, engadget.com

“Nice new interface??? Are you kidding? Why are the interface elements not aqua? What are these hideous new scroll bars? Why do they not respect my preferences to have double scroll arrows at both ends? What happened to the visualiser? What’s happened to the search bar? Apple seems to have gone all-out to make iTunes look completely unlike any other OS X application. It just doesn’t feel right.” — Mr. H, forums.appleinsider.com

“I had HIGH hopes for iTunes 7 after seeing the new album views. But I hate the new album view. It just sucks so hardcore. I have TONS and TONS of Various Artist albums and it’s just no good when they’re grouped by both the album name and artist when every single track on a 30-track CD has a different artist. I hope Apple’s coming up with an update in the next few days ‘cos I hate iTunes more than I did before.” — Neko Tsukimi, engadget.com

“I think its fantastic, I like how it looks, I love the CoverFlow, and the ability to get the covers, and it gets the whole album, not just the one song. The movies/videos Ive got in my library now play flawlessly.” — StokeLee, forums.macrumors.com

Talk: What should Apple add to the next version of iTunes? COMMENT

On the Web:
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