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September 18, 2006

itunes_store

Cnet review of iTunes 7

Posted Sep. 18, ’06, 6:40 AM PT by Derik DeLong
Category | iTunes » iTunes Store

Cnet Reviews Before I summarize Cnet’s review of iTunes 7, I’d like to rant about iTunes the application and the iTunes store. Now, iTunes is used as the front end for an online media store. It’s also the only way to access that media. However, iTunes is not that store. When you review the application, review that. Some of you may disagree with me, but I see the application and the service as two disjoint things. That said, here’s Cnet’s summary:

The good: Apple iTunes 7 shines with a refined but still-intuitive interface; fabulous and useful Cover Flow album view adds dimension to music; iTunes Store now features movies and games; movie pricing is consistent and competitive; supports gapless audio playback; can find missing album art; has new features such as Download Manager.

The bad: iTunes 7, along with Cover Flow, is more processor-intensive than version 6; underdeveloped Radio section; no built-in recording features; movies have a resolution of only 640x480; most major studio films not available; can’t burn to watchable DVD; some bugs reported by users; album art retrieval feature needs work.

The bottom line: Apple iTunes 7 is a required upgrade for movie buyers and new iPod owners. Its refined interface, particularly Cover Flow, and useful new features trump the fact that the application is processor intensive.

Now, it’s worthy to note that Cover Flow relies on the graphics card more than the CPU. It’s also worth noting that 5 of the attributes in the good and bad sections are comments about the iTunes Store. My problem with faulting iTunes 7 for it is that iTunes doesn’t have to play just that media. Should all MP3 players be penalized because some files are encoded at a lower bitrate? No, and as such, I think the new iTunes Store and the movie portion of the store should be reviewed separately from the application. Well, at least it ended up with a respectable 7.8.


3 Comments

Jesse Hogue said:

I would have to agree with you on this. Reviewing iTunes 7 should have NOTHING to do with the store. The actual application itself should be reviewed, how it handles media, how it handles your iPod. CNET said NOTHING about the new iPod interface and that is a HUGE addition in my opinion.

September 18, 2006 7:43 AM
Wes said:

The problem with your thesis is that Apple rolled everything into one app. Evaluating one part of the app and not the other is like trying to have your cake and eat it too. As an example, what if a competitor came out with a player that has excellent controls, UI, etc but terrible FM transmitter (assume this player also has FM transmitter). Would you review the product and go "What an excellent portable player, superb, rivals the ipod in ease of use" and then in a completely seperate review (maybe not even the same day) state "Terrible radio device, bad controls, controls seems to be for portable music player rather than portable radio, recommend buying a dedicated radio".

Your reviewers upon realizing you are reviewing the same product would be scratching their heads going "huh?".

If you prefer only the music management portion of itunes reviewed, then apple should seperate the features into different products. Itunes, ItunesMusic (to buy music online), ItunesVideo (for video). A company that shoehorns multpile funtions into one product cannot expect when that product is reviewed that the functions would be reviewed seperately. Itunes is not just about managing your music, it's also about buying music and videos online.

September 18, 2006 7:53 AM
Michael Long said:

Actually, as long as we're ranting about iTunes and movies/TV shows, my biggest beef is that there's no way to make the movie playback window "float" on top of all of the other windows.

This, in my mind, dramatically reduces the usefulness of those types of media, as it's EXTREMELY difficult to watch a TV show or movie and engage in other work at the same time. This is especially true if you're on a smaller screen system like a MacBook, and doubly so when working with full-screen applications like Excel or Dreamweaver.

C'mon Apple it's not that hard. Provide an option to float the window.

September 18, 2006 9:26 AM

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