iTunes

iTunes is a digital media player application, introduced by Apple in 2000 for playing and organizing digital music and video files and has been changing ever since. Originally users were able to openly share any downloaded music file throughout the Internet. However, the free music was harming record sales, and iTunes implemented a Digital Audio AccessProtocol (DAAP) system in their 7.0 upgrade. The DAAP system allows sharing or streaming of music and other files between up to five users yet blocks those files from being saved to other users hard drives and from being burnt onto CDs.

With the invention of the iPod and iPhone, iTunes is the software that can sycronize a hard drive’s video and audio library to the iPod or iPhone everytime it is connected. Today, other affordances of iTunes include: podcasting, and buying music, television shows, music videos, iPod games, audiobooks, feature length films, and ringtones at the iTunes store. iTunes also automatically uses the Internet to find the name of the record and artist in order to organize downloaded files using the interactive audio CD database called Gracenote. The playlist feature also allows users to organize their music any way they choose. ITunes is able to read the songs frequently played by the user and has a Most Played list for easy access to favorite music.

A disadvantage of iTunes is that many people are able find a way to access free music and video files which can then be converted to their iTunes library and synconized with iPods or iPhones.

iTunes is free to download for many computer systems including Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Windows XP from Apple's website.

I would rate iTunes a 5 for it's ease of access, and overall availability and usefulness.