Music maestros
- Article 59 of 89
- MacFormat, June 2008
Is iTunes really the best music player, or are there better options? MacFormat puts it to the test
Apple iTunes is the most popular music player software in the world. Almost everyone has it now. It organises and plays music, video, audiobooks and podcasts, runs iPods, iPhones and Apple TVs, lets you buy musk from the Apple Store, tunes into internet radio stations and more.
But is it the best at everything? RealPlayer was number one until iTunes overtook it last month, so maybe it has something going for it. And despite the demise of the likes of Audion and MusicMotch, there are still plenty of competitors to iTunes that are thriving.
To see whether iTunes was top just because it's free and you need it to buy from the Apple Store, or because it genuinely is the best, we pitted it against five other media players: RealPlayer, the former champ; Jajuk ,the king of the cross-platform, high-end players; MediaCentrol, the does-everything media hub; Siiverjuke, the jukebox for your Desktop; and Songbird, the open-source movement's attempt to do to iTunes what Firefox has done to Internet Explorer. Who will win in the battle of the bands? Tum the page to find out.