how does iTunes work?

[Delirium-Zer0]

I use iTunes on my Windows machine and I've been using it on my dad's Mac and to be honest it's EXACTLY the same. It's a good enough player for my taste that it's just what I use, even though I'm not an iTunes Music Store shopper. I like how it handles playlists better than any other program, but its Random setting isn't very good, and the Party Shuffle option just complicates things in my opinion. But aside from that, the files are easily organized (especially since I'm a NUT for having accurate id3 tags) and easy to find, all your music ends up in one place so it's easy to find on the hard drive too (it organizes the files for you if you have it set to). Just a good program.

skal, the short & sweet is that iTunes is first & foremost an mp3 player, ripper, & burner. That's it really. The rest is really just bonus extras.

The Store part of the program is kinda secondary, you don't need to use it really. Any Audio CD you put in there can either just be played or you can rip it as an mp3 or mac m4a file, and iTunes gets its data from CDDB like any other audio player. iTunes store files do require that you play them in iTunes or burn them to CD or play them in your iPod; you can't play them in wmp or winamp or anything, but iTunes is a good enough program that if you migrate to it completely, that's not much of an issue anyway. Even if you never use the store, iTunes is great for playing & organizing all your mp3s in one feld swoop, on top of ripping & burning cds.

But if you're running Linux, use amaroK.

[nmskalmn]

I already have what I consider to be the best media player: J. River Media Center. If I can't play the iTunes mp3s with that player then the iTunes service isn't for me.