Apple iTunes 8
Editors' rating: 3.5
The good: Apple iTunes 8 includes new features such as crowd-sourced Genius playlists and sidebar, an album art Grid view, and a new visualizer engine. Fan-fave features such as Cover Flow, support for gapless audio playback, and automatic album art retrieval are still in the mix; as is its link to the iTunes Store, which offers movies, games, music, podcasts, and mobile applications.
The bad: iTunes 8 continues its unwelcome tradition of hogging RAM; the Genius sidebar feels slapped on when a full redesign would've been more than appreciated; the Genius features require an iTunes Store account; iTunes Store links can't be toggled away; support is still spotty for podcasts and album art retrieval; movies still have a resolution of only 640x480 and cannot be burned to a watchable DVD.
The bottom line: Apple iTunes 8 is the industry standard for multimedia jukebox software and despite the need for a UI overhaul and some liposuction to remove the bloat, iTunes is a solid choice that most users will enjoy.
Read CNET's full review
Price: Free
Photo by Apple
