iTunes is a computer program made by Apple Computer intended to play, organize and buy music files (it is also a common name for iTunes Music Store). It is compatible with computers running Mac OS X, Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating systems. Earlier versions of iTunes also run on Mac OS 9. The player has gained a reputation of ease of use and good organization, and has been positioned by Apple as the preferred music player for users using the iPod music player (succeeding Musicmatch Jukebox on Windows). It is freely downloadable from Apple's website and supplied with Mac OS X. iTunes was developed from SoundJam MP, a popular commercial MP3 application distributed by the Macintosh software company Casady & Greene. Apple purchased the rights to the SoundJam MP software and hired the three programmers who created SoundJam. The first release of iTunes was very similar to SoundJam MP with the addition of CD burning, and a makeover of the user interface. Apple has added a number of significant features in subsequent versions.
Users are able to organize their music into playlists, edit file information, record compact discs, copy files to a digital music player, purchase music on the Internet through its built-in music store, run a visualizer to display graphical effects in time to the music as well as encode music into a number of different audio formats.
'Smart playlists' are playlists that are automatically updated (like a database query) based on a customized list of selection criteria.
iTunes can automatically synchronize your music library with your iPod every time you connect it to your computer. New songs and playlists are automatically copied to the iPod and songs you deleted from your library are also deleted from your iPod. Ratings awarded to songs on the iPod will sync back to the iTunes library and audiobooks will remember the current playback position.
Automatic synchronization can be turned off in favor of manually copying individual songs or complete playlists; however, iTunes supports only copying music to the iPod and not from it, which has inspired third party tools for that purpose.
iTunes supports a number of other popular portable music players with some limitations including the inability to play music purchased from the iTunes Music Store. Supported players include a number of Nomad players from Creative Labs, some Rio players, music players from Nike and the SoundSpace 2 device. Other manufacturers may also offer integration by way of a device plugin.
