Ok, so I’ve read and heard about all the hoopla with iTunes vs. Media Player. There have been many voiced opinions about this situation, and I thought I’d throw my own in. Here’s just a few things I thought I’d voice.

1. iTunes is still (imho) the best player for music. I can catalogue all my music, do Really fast searches, create and burn playlists to CD. You also get the “smartlist” feature which I thought was one of the greatest things. You can create a playlist that matches certain criteria. For instance, in my case a bulk of the music I listen to is JPop (Japanese POP). I create a smart playlist that shows only those songs that have a genre of Jpop, and voila, I have a playlist that updates automatically any Jpop song in my library. I just love that!

2. iTunes Music Store. It’s new, it doesn’t have every single song. It’s not the cheapest. You download the song in the AAC format (which btw, is not “only” for iTunes or iPod). It’s protected. Yeah, you can only play the song in either your iPod or in iTunes, or another persons iTunes. You are licensed to play the song on up to 3 different machines at one time. I think a few people are bummed about that. But one thing I believe some people are confused about is the fact that you can still de-authorize a computer and authorize it to play another computer. It’s possible. As for being able to play on an iPod only, who cares? Microsoft boasts that Media Player imports to about 40 portable music players. While this is true, what they neglect to tell you is that there are still music services that only support up to 6 or so of these music players. It’s still young. While you can upload them to a music device, it may not be authorized to play a song downloaded from a pay music service. I think MS is just about even with Apple on that score Really. (Although in portable player wise, I will admit that MS is a bit ahead of Apple. It’s compatibility with music services that is an issue.)

3. Which comes to this. iTunes only works with iTunes Music Store. I admit, this is a fault. However, go look at any other service. What choice do Mac Users have? Hmm… I’m thinking none besides the iTunes Music Store. I won’t mention the music services, but you know which ones they are. They only service to Windows. Which is cool, I don’t have a problem with that. I usually end up buying CD’s from Japan anyways. They don’t have too many JPop stores in the states. ;)

4. iTunes Radio vs. Media Player Radio. They are both pretty good. I will admit I never tried the Media Player Radio before today. It’s not bad at all. I still use iTunes Radio more often however. iTunes Radio does play Shoutcast broadcasts, which is good, as pointed out by a friend. There are way more options in shoutcast than there are in either iTunes or Media Player. But, to my dismay, Media Player couldn’t play back the shoutcast broadcast. That was kinda disappointing.

5. Media Player rocks in the respect of watching video however. That is one thing that I could never live without, as I watch many Japanese Drama VCD’s (purchased from various sources on the internet by the way!). I love my VCD’s.

In conclusion, in my eyes, iTunes=superior music player; Media Player=Video Player. And yes, I do own a Powerbook and a Windows PC. I use both equally, and can’t live without either one. Even my linux box. :)