Many of us have heard of iTunes. What is this program and what is it for? This is the brainchild of Apple. And for what purpose it is used, we will analyze in this article.
Background
ITunes is considered the year of birth in 2003, two years after Apple released the legendary iPod player with a fantastic memory capacity at that time - as much as 5 GB. There was one problem that did not please Steve Jobs. Owners of the iPod downloaded content from pirated sites in order to block their players with it. Jobs, an ardent opponent of piracy, categorically did not like this approach. And in 2003, he created his own online media content store, where users could buy their favorite songs.
This shows Apple's ideology: as much profit as possible at all costs. Of course, Jobs’s strategy works great in “respectable” countries, such as the United States. There you can get into jail for downloading pirated content, and there are plenty of cases. But as for Russia, then Apple crashed. The Russians both used pirated content and will use it. The absence of working laws in the field of pirated music or films, as well as the high cost of legal content do their job. Few people pay for what you can take for free.
The evolution of iTunes
Since then, a lot of water has flowed. iTunes has changed a lot. From a service for buying songs, he grew into a full-fledged online store with the ability to purchase applications, films, books and music. There is also a separate program iTunes. What kind of program is this? This is a multimedia player that can play almost all music and video files. The player is the default default player on MacOS installed on Apple computers. Everything would be much simpler if iTunes were just a player, but no. This is a symbiosis of the Apple online store and multimedia player. That is, the user can make purchases without departing from the cash register.
This is what iTunes is all about. Assemblies for Windows are also available for the computer. They are easy to find on the official Apple website. This can be considered an achievement, since Apple is not particularly willing to share its best practices with competitors. True, iTunes did not find much popularity on Windows. And there are reasons for this, but more on that later.
iTunes and AppStore
When Jobs faced the issue of selling applications on the network, I had to reconsider the functions of iTunes. After all, initially the service was positioned as a media portal. Selling applications through it would be ugly. Apple specialists did not have to rack their brains for a short time, and soon they introduced the AppStore - an analogue of iTunes, but with the ability to purchase only applications and games for MacOS.
Windows users can install iTunes in conjunction with the AppStore, although it is not entirely clear why this should be done. MacOS apps cannot be installed on Microsoft OS. Perhaps this is how Apple wants to attract more people to its ranks.
iTunes on mobile platforms
With the release of the first iPhone, Apple was faced with the issue of releasing a mobile version of iTunes. The launch was made as soon as possible. I must say that now it is the most popular program for iPhones. iTunes is the prototype of the well-known Android Market. Therefore, it is not necessary to be surprised at its popularity among users of "apple" smartphones. Without iTunes, almost nothing can be done on a smartphone. Application installation, data synchronization, the work of the AppStore - all this is iTunes.
After the iOS update (iPhone mobile platform) was released, older versions of iTunes refuse to work on devices running the previous version OS. For example, problems are observed on the iPhone 4S. If you can’t access your account, it means iTunes for iPhone 4S needs to be updated. Moreover, updating it simply does not work: you have to download the installation file from the Apple server and install it manually.
ITunes is also available on Apple tablets. The specialists of this company tried to make all their equipment dependent on the online store, and they did it very well. Now, Apple device users are required to pay for almost everything. Even updating the operating system can cost a pretty penny, not to mention third-party applications. In contrast to the same Android Market, free applications in iTunes and the AppStore - one-two and miscalculated. Now the life of the modern user of the "apple" is unthinkable without iTunes. What is this program that pumps money out of a user?
ITunes player
However, we were distracted. There is also an iTunes player for Mac and Windows. What is he like? This is a multimedia processor that can burn discs and play music files. Unfortunately, iTunes “eats” too much RAM, which is especially noticeable on laptops. If on MacOS with its ideal optimization this attracts attention, then Windows starts to terribly slow down.
In addition, the player does not reproduce all sound formats. For example, he cannot read lossless formats such as APE (Monkey's Audio) and FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec), which even ordinary Winamp can handle. From lossless, it is able to pull only ALAC. And that's just because it is Apple's proprietary format. Like all players, it supports equalizer settings and even has a number of presets. But when playing music on Windows, the sound is ugly. Perhaps the player’s libraries do not have a script for working correctly with Windows sound drivers.
It makes no sense to install iTunes on Windows. What kind of program this is is clear from the description. A waste of RAM and hard disk space. You can download it out of curiosity to see what it is.
Apple users may say that the player does not work well because of Windows itself, and on iOS it is supposedly perfect. It could even be.
Conclusion
Apple's policy is understandable: get as much profit as possible. Given the high quality of apple products, companies can forgive literally everything. Both the AppStore and the paid OS and iTunes update. True, not everyone thinks so. Users of the Android mobile operating system sincerely do not understand what makes people overpay for Apple products.
What kind of program is this, we finally figured out. Everything would be fine, even the player has its advantages, but the miscalculation of the company consists in the release of the Windows version of iTunes. Probably, Apple specialists simply did not take into account poor OS optimization and the availability of more convenient and functional counterparts.
In any case, we figured out what iTunes is, examined the areas of application, and found out why it was created.