Update July 28, 2007. The following review is based on iTunes 6. The latest release is iTunes 7, which includes downloadable Hollywood movies and a number of design improvements. You’ll also find that iTunes 7 is a better multimedia management program for music,movies,podcasts,audiobooks and more then it ever was. You can find it on www.apple.com

For this week’s Freeware Frenzy I will be examining iTunes 6. This is the latest edition of Apple’s popular music program, unveiled only one week ago along with the video Ipod. Now I realize that this is PC Mechanic, not Apple Mechanic but the popularity of this program is undeniable. With everyone getting caught up in the iPod frenzy, I can’t help but be curious about Apple’s products. Luckily I do not need an iPod to use iTunes, it is a free download. So let’s see how iTunes stacks up against all of the other media programs on the Net.
Installation
Installation of iTunes is straightforward. I downloaded it from Apples website bundled with QuickTime 7. After the program was installed it asked me where my music was stored, so it could build my library. It defaults to your My Music folder. After scanning over the files, iTunes told me that some of my files are .wma and it would have to convert them to .AAC. iTunes does not natively support Windows Media files, (wonder why?) but it does support .mp3. Luckily though, iTunes will convert all of my .WMA files to AAC with a built in converter. Your newly converted AAC files are stored in the iTunes folder inside My Music. The original WMA stays where it was, unharmed.
Use
I chose to wait to convert all of my WMAs, as I had a few dozen, just to save time. iTunes has a familiar look to it, with “Sources” for content on the left hand menu, the player at the top and your main window in the center. The bottom left square (not in screenshot) shows album art and the very bottom of the window contains controls for visualizations and shuffle/repeat.

For Sources, you have Library, Podcasts, Videos, Party Shuffle, Radio, Music Store and various categories of your tunes. Podcasts can be found in the Music store but they are Free to download. Radio stations are free and come in a variety of genres and bit rates. Of course, Videos and Music are also available but they cost money. I won’t go into the Store as it is not “Freeware” but there is a great variety of content available for any tastes for those interested in legal downloading. Party Shuffle is merely a function of iTunes that will pick random mixes from your library that you can listen to during all of the swingin’ parties you throw.
Features
 Lately I’ve grown somewhat tired of my library of music and I have been turning to Internet Radio. ITunes does not disappoint with choices. Anything from down home bluegrass to thumping techno can be found. I did notice that loading times were a tad long both for refreshing the list of radio servers and for connecting to them. I am comparing this to my experience with Winamp, which loads all stations at once, rather then iTunes loading just what genre you click on. I like to be able to jump around quickly.

I also had a glitch with the visualizations. If I went to full-screen, it would cause my Konfabulator widgets to scatter. Even locking them didn’t help. This is a minor issue sure, but I don’t see why iTunes has to interfere.
I did like the inclusion of a search function at the top of the player. For anyone with very large music collections, it can be tough to nail down just the tune you need, but searching finds it in no time. It even works as you type, narrowing down results to ‘A’s, ‘Aerosmith,’ and finally to ‘Aerosmith – Dream On’.
Conclusion
In conclusion, iTunes is a great all-in-one media center. It acts as a hub for all of your own content, while making it easy to find new content, both free and paid. For now, since I don’t need the iTunes Store, I will be staying with Winamp as my primary player. However, when I feel the need to download an album, I will definitely give iTunes store a try.

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