2 Thumbs up, 4 out of 5 stars
OK a report. I got to download this about
.. Im guessing 20 minutes after Jobs was done with his announcement. I installed it on my work computer immediately. Installation was a breeze. Curiously it also installs Quicktime which I suppose could erk some people as it appears more like bundleware rather then a necessity for iTunes. *shrugs* Once installed it required a reboot, something that erks me. I really dont think any program should require a reboot to install but with iTunes installing the capabilities to burn to a CD its understandable. Alas I couldnt try out the store until I got home. Corp firewall in place. Massive restrictions. So far Im impressed. Apple did a good job with a few exceptions.
1. The speed of resizing the apps is sluggish beyond words. If you grab the corner and expand the view it creeps along, and DONT tell me its windows or my computer. I have iTunes installed on 4 computers now. Work computer 2Ghz, home desktop 1.7Ghz, Toshiba Laptop 855Mhz, Dell Laptop 2 533Mhz. Sluggish on all of them.
2. Scrolling down the iTMS page is somewhat sluggish as well. It doesnt scroll smoothly like a web page. It lurches along. Not good.
2. It took me at least 10 minutes to figure out how to turn on the miniplayer mode. I was digging around the menus looking for it. Windows has 3 buttons on the title bar. Minimize, maximize and restore. In this case Apple decided to use the restore button to activate the miniplayer. Not very intuitive IMHO.
3. I hate having crap running in the background. iTunes has something called iPodService running that is chewing on just under 5MB of RAM. Somewhat pointless if I dont have an iPod dont you think? To Apples credit they created the TSR as a service so you can disable it if you want, which I did, but honestly most Windows users dont know jack squat about services and wont know where to look. In addition to that there is another process called iTunesHelper running along with the main app called, no prizes for guessing, iTunes.exe. What I cant figure out is when you first start up iTunes it takes a honking 30MB of RAM to run and hovers in the 30-37MB range until you minimize the application at which time it drops to 7MB. From there it stick in the 7-9MB range no matter how many times you minimize, maximize or miniplayer it. I think this may be tied to the GUI slowness mentioned above. It doesnt speed things up by minimizing it but I think its an indication of a potential problem.

3. You can share up to only 3 systems total. This blows but Im guessing this is on both the Mac and PC side of things so its irrelevant as a complaint.
4. Its a nitpick but all the popup dialog boxes are windows standard. It would have been nice if Apple could have standardized the type of popups from the app but Im well aware of the amount of additional codework that would have had to go into such an endeavor thus its relegated to a nitpick.
5. MORE MUSIC ON ITUNES DANG IT!!!
but isn't that a given?
As for the iTunes Music Store. Its more then a little addicting. Does anyone know if there is a applet for the Mac that keeps track of iTMS purchases? Im just curious if anyone has whipped up such a thing. It wouldnt be all that hard to run up a major bill on iTunes. Ive already downloaded 30 songs tonight.

There is really only one feature I would like Apple to add to iTMS.
Rated wish lists. So lets say I find something Im mildly curious about. I can right click on it and tag it as a wish list item and have the option of rating (1-5) how interested I am in it Example: 1 star(Red) 3 stars(orange)5 stars(green). So when I go to my wish list I can see that hmmm I was particularly interested in that one. Lets preview it.
Other then that the app is great. I love Sting and picked up a few tracks of his that I have on 256kb/s MP3s. Oh my god. I just about dumped myself after hearing the quality. Screw MP3. Ill live with what I have in MP3 but for my favorite tracks I am so getting them off the store. I have yet to load my MP3 collection since the tags are still a freaking mess so I have no way of telling how well it handles large MP3 lists. I was hoping iTunes would have a slick way of auto tagging music but I guess Im going to end up shelling out 20 on Music Match for that feature.

Ive played around with Music Match a while now and am starting to play with iTunes. Both are nice players and to be honest both would work out fine for any PC users. iTunes IMHO has 2 things going for it. A slick easy to use playlist and library interface and iTMS. I do believe that these 2 features alone makes iTunes worthwhile and will allow it to becomes a major piece of software on Windows with the exception for those who have audio players that dont support ACC or PDAs that dont support ACC. They will most likely go with a Windows service. Unfortunately this means my Jornada Pocket PC is effectively neutered to my MP3s that I already own. This IMHO blows.
Summery: The speed of the GUI\Browser needs to be tweaked, few things need to be clarified for Windows users such as the miniplayer, and a few features need to be added to the iTMS but other then that its a sweet music jukebox and something Im going to be using day in/out until I get a Mac.