iTunes 5 is out, with support for Motorola phones with iTunes and the new iPod nano (replacement for the mini), new “smart shuffle” to control the repetition of artists, QuickTime 7, but best of all, a new interface.
The new interface is great, because it gets rid of almost all unused space with all the same functionality. Weirdest change is that the menubar, title bar, and corner buttons are all on the same level.
Also from what I can see it doesn’t put more limitations on shit or tell me that I can’t do something I used to be able to. So yeah give it a try!
I’m one of the lucky people who has Winamp, which does everything iTunes does, except better, and tons more. Without hogging all your RAM, too.
Can it display Unicode and create argument-based playlists? What about sharing music libraries over a campus network?
Winamp can create argument based playlists, too. Try playing around with the media library. I miss some of the playlist features of the otherwise crappy Winamp 3, though. I wonder why Winamp 5 doesn’t have that.
And sharing music libraries is that Windows file sharing services and FTP servers are for.
Also, I’m really sick of Apple, but I’d still dislike iTunes regardless of that.
Also Winamp has been exiting with constant memory pointer errors after taking up 100% CPU and eating up kilobytes of memory by the second recently. Maybe you could help me out with that.
I never had that problem. My Winamp is problem free.
Also it can do everything iTunes can do with a buttload of plugins, inflating the memory usage beyond that of iTunes. But really, is memory usage much of a problem nowadays?
My Winamp is stock full of plugins, and it uses 8 mb of ram. I’m not sure how much iTunes wastes, but running it makes my computer choke, and it’s a 1.3 gHz with 512 mb ram.
Also, I’m not really sure what useful things iTunes does that requires plugins of Winamp. But Winamp plugins allow me to play every file type in existance, process my LP player through the Winamp equalizer and broadcast to internet stations. I’m pretty happy with all that.
And of course, like I’ve been saying, I use Winamp. But not for managing a media library, just playing solitary files and closing it afterwards.
But really, this is all like the Windows/Linux argument. Linux or Winamp are much more powerful and flexible but I need to do mass configuration/plugin installing for them to work. Windows or iTunes are simple as pie to use, require very little configuration, but despite flexibility or lightweightness I really just have to use them due to market saturation.
So it’s really a case-by-case basis and in my case with my powerful computer and iPod, I just end using iTunes.
…and Unicode support is pretty important to me!
Can I plug my ipod into my computer and have it update it based on specific playlist criteria?
oh wait that’s itunes sorry
(And yes, Auto-Sync does work on non-iPod players.)
Itunez verzus winzamp war
yay!
so that’s why they where giving away free iPod mini to college students with a purchase of a computer…. hmm.
I believe you can still use the same offer with the iPod nano. it’s a $200 rebate, so instead of getting a free 4GB iPod mini, you can get a free 2GB iPod nano. A tad ridiculous, but whatever, I’m not and will probably never be in the market for either product line.