Itunes

Since iTunes was launched in January 2001, it has been one of the most used applications to download music, television shows, applications, audio-books, and many other forms of digital media from the internet. It was launched as a closed systems digital store, to supply music to the Apple iPod. unfortunately for Apple(and the music industry in general.) many people found ways around this and downloaded free music via file sharing programs. The iTunes application has been highly successful regardless, and is one of the most convenient ways to access digital media, with millions upon millions of files available.

iTunes was first introduced on January 9, 2001 by Apple Inc. at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco. It was based on a programmed named SoundJam MP distributed by a company named Casady and Greene. Apple purchased this platform in 2000 and added a few key components. Out of this iTunes was born. up to now there have been 13 versions of iTunes released over the last decade, each one bringing new features to the application. The original iTunes was designed specifically for the MAC OS 9.1 operating system, but that ended with the third edition. Later additions would contain new features such as the Itunes store, smart playlists, a ratings system, and the new "home share" feature which allows enables automatic updating of purchased albums.

iTunes has developed much since it first came out. I remember when I first purchased an iPod several years ago. It came with a disk that contained the iTunes application. this was version 4 where the iTunes store was first introduced. I remember it being so crude, compared to the new version that I was able to download when I purchased my newest iPod. In fact a disk version of iTunes was not even neccessary as now the iTunes application can be downloaded from the companies website. It is also significantly more difficult to put non copyrighted music onto an iPod. With my old 4 gigabyte nano it was simple to bypass the Itunes application and put uncopyrighted music directly onto an iPod. Now you have to go to far greater lengths to accomplish this feat.