RENZAmusings » iTunes 7

iTunes 7

September 18th, 2006

iTunes 7 is now available. I loaded this up over the weekend and am pretty pleased with some of the new features. I wasn’t really interested in upgrading until I learned that a whole new batch of (real) games are now available for the (fifth-generation only) iPod–one of my favorites, being Zuma by PopCap.

In able to use games, you also need to upgrade your iPod firmware to 1.2. This has been made much easier since iTunes 7 now has an iPod manager section which allows control of a number of iPod settings and functions.

Probably the biggest news is the addition of movies to iTunes. A library of Disney films can be purchased with a resolution higher than previous video downloads making them friendlier for large screen viewing.

Movies cost between $9.99 and $14.99. Games cost $4.99.

Other games include:
Bejeweled, Tetris, PAC-MAN, Vortex, Zuma, Texas Hold ‘Em, Mini Golf, Mahjong, and Cubis 2.

New features that don’t cost anything are:

Automatic Album Art which reviews your song library and provides the album artwork to be viewed within iTunes or on your iPod. This feature does seem a bit scary–you can only get this missing art if you have an iTunes account, and now you are sharing a list of all your music with them. They of course tell you not to worry–so I do.

Cover Flow allows you to browse your music collection by flipping through the cover art. It is reminiscent of an old album collection. Now we can once again judge a book by its cover.

Gapless Playback is a must for anyone listening to live albums or tracks that are meant to flow from one song right into another. Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon is a great example of this. Prior to this feature, there was a noticeable and offensive gap between songs. This can take place retroactively as again, your music collection is scanned and fixed. I tried it and it works well.

If any of these features seems compelling to you, I would recommend upgrading to iTunes 7.