Product Reviews

Now in its sixth version, Apple's iTunes is no longer limited to music. Apple has teamed up with TV studios in the US to offer episodes of TV shows for download. Sadly, there is no similar agreement in the UK, so the video selection in the UK's iTunes music store is limited to several thousand music videos and a handful of short Pixar animations. These cost a reasonable £1.89 each, and any future TV shows are expected to cost a similar amount per episode.

The video download section fits snugly within the existing music store. Downloads are in MPEG4 format and detailed enough for playback up to 640x480. This is not as detail-rich

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as DVD, but it strikes a good balance between download time and price. Playback performance in iTunes isn't as smooth as we'd like, though, with glitchy and distracting frame loss. It can't convert unsupported video formats, either, unless you buy an upgrade to QuickTime Pro.

While the video function is a small step in an interesting direction, iTunes' main function is as a music player, and here it excels. The Apple Mac-influenced interface is a pleasure to use and enables you to build playlists, rip CDs and burn compilations to CD without having to read a manual. It's also a breeze to manage your music library and stream music to other computers or a stereo using Apple's wireless AirPort Express. File support in iTunes includes Apple's proprietary AAC as well as MP3, WAV and AIFF lossless. There is still no support for WMV files, although iTunes can covert them to a supported format.

You can synchronise your music with an iPod and copy video to the new iPod video, but for users of other players, iTunes isn't very useful.

While other players, such as Microsoft's Media player 10 offer a more comprehensive media package with better video support, iTunes 6.0.1 is the best desktop music player.