iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library,

mobile device A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physica ...

management utility, and the client app for the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

. Developed by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

, it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital multimedia, on personal computers running the

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

operating systems, and can be used to rip songs from CDs, as well as play content with the use of dynamic, smart playlists. Options for sound optimizations exist, as well as ways to wirelessly share the iTunes library. Originally announced by Apple CEO Steve Jobs on January 9, 2001, iTunes' original and main focus was music, with a library offering organization and storage of Mac users' music collections. With the 2003 addition of the iTunes Store for purchasing and downloading digital music, and a version of the program for Windows, it became a ubiquitous tool for managing music and configuring other features on Apple's line of iPod media players, which extended to the iPhone and

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...

upon their introduction. Starting in 2005, Apple expanded on the core music features of iTunes with support for digital video, podcasts,

e-books An ebook (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Alt ...

, and

mobile apps A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on des ...

purchased from the iOS App Store. Since the release of

iOS 5 iOS 5 is the fifth major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 4. It was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 6, 2011, and was released on October 12, 201 ...

in 2011, these devices have become less dependent on iTunes, though it can still be used to back up their contents. Though well received in its early years, iTunes received increasing criticism for a bloated user experience, which incorporated features beyond its original focus on music. Beginning with Macs running

macOS Catalina macOS Catalina (version 10.15) is the sixteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. It is the successor to macOS Mojave and was announced at WWDC 2019 on June 3, 2019 and released to the publ ...

, iTunes was replaced by separate apps, namely

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

, Podcasts, and TV, with Finder taking over the device management capabilities. (This change would not affect iTunes running on Windows or older macOS versions).

History

SoundJam MP SoundJam MP is a discontinued MP3 player for classic Mac OS-compatible computers and Rio-compatible hardware synchronization manager that was released in July 1999 and was available until June 2001. Jeff Robbin and Bill Kincaid developed SoundJa ...

, released by

Casady & Greene Casady & Greene (sometimes abbreviated to C&G) was a software publisher and developer active from 1988 to 2003. The company primarily released software for Macintosh, but also released software for Windows and Newton. Casady & Greene was formed ...

in 1998, was renamed "iTunes" when

Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancestor, ' ...

purchased it in 2000. The primary developers of the software moved to Apple as part of the acquisition, and simplified SoundJam's user interface, added the ability to burn CDs, and removed its recording feature and

skin Skin is the layer of usually soft, flexible outer tissue covering the body of a vertebrate animal, with three main functions: protection, regulation, and sensation. Other animal coverings, such as the arthropod exoskeleton, have different de ...

support. The first version of iTunes, promotionally dubbed "World’s Best and Easiest To Use Jukebox Software," was announced on January 9, 2001. Subsequent releases of iTunes often coincided with new hardware devices, and gradually included support for new features, including "smart playlists", the

, and new audio formats.

Platform availability

Apple released iTunes for Windows in 2003. On April 26, 2018, iTunes was released on

Microsoft Store Microsoft Store (formerly known as Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It started as an app store for Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform app ...

for

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It is the direct successor to Windows 8.1, which was released nearly two years earlier. It was released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on J ...

, primarily to allow it to be installed on Windows 10 devices configured to only allow installation of software from Microsoft Store. Unlike Windows versions for other platforms, it is more self-contained due to technical requirements for distribution on the store (not installing background helper services such as

Bonjour Bonjour is a French word meaning (literally translated) "good day", and is commonly used as a greeting. Bonjour may also refer to: People * Laurence BonJour (born 1943), epistemologist and professor of philosophy at the University of Washington ...

), and is updated automatically through the store rather than using

Apple Software Update This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components. Applications App Store The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...

Music library

iTunes features a music library. Each track has attributes, called metadata, that can be edited by the user, including changing the name of the artist, album, and genre, year of release, artwork, among other additional settings. The software supports importing digital audio tracks that can then be transferred to

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

devices, as well as supporting

ripping Ripping is extracting all or parts of digital content from a container. Originally, it meant to rip music out of Commodore 64 games. Later, the term was used to extract WAV or MP3 format files from digital audio CDs, but got applied as well to e ...

content from CDs. iTunes supports

WAV Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wind ...

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File ...

Apple Lossless The Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC), also known as Apple Lossless, or Apple Lossless Encoder (ALE), is an audio coding format, and its reference audio codec implementation, developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music ...

, AAC, and

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Origin ...

audio formats. It uses the

Gracenote Gracenote, Inc. is a company owned by Nielsen Holdings that provides music, video and sports metadata and automatic content recognition (ACR) technologies to entertainment services and companies, worldwide. Formerly CDDB ("Compact Disc Data Ba ...

music database to provide track name listings for audio CDs. When users rip content from a CD, iTunes attempts to match songs to the Gracenote service. For self-published CDs, or those from obscure

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s, iTunes would normally only list tracks as numbered entries ("Track 1" and "Track 2") on an unnamed album by an unknown artist, requiring manual input of data. File metadata is displayed in users' libraries in columns, including album, artist, genre, composer, and more. Users can enable or disable different columns, as well as change view settings.

Special playlists

Introduced in 2004, "Party Shuffle" selected tracks to play randomly from the library, though users could press a button to skip a song and go to the next in the list. The feature was later renamed "iTunes DJ", before being discontinued altogether, replaced by a simpler "Up Next" feature that notably lost some of "iTunes DJ"'s functionality. Introduced in iTunes 8 in 2008, "" can automatically generate a playlist of songs from the user's library that "go great together". "Genius" transmits information about the user's library to Apple anonymously, and evolves over time to enhance its recommendation system. It can also suggest purchases to fill out "holes" in the library. The feature was updated with iTunes 9 in 2009 to offer "Genius Mixes", which generated playlists based on specific music genres. "Smart playlists" are a set of playlists that can be set to automatically filter the library based on a customized list of selection criteria, much like a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

query. Multiple criteria can be entered to manage the smart playlist. Selection criteria examples include a genre like Christmas music, songs that haven't been played recently, or songs the user has listened to the most in a time period.

Library sharing

Through a "Home Sharing" feature, users can share their iTunes library wirelessly. Computer firewalls must allow network traffic, and users must specifically enable sharing in the iTunes preferences menu.

applications also exist that can transfer content without Internet. Additionally, users can set up a

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the tech ...

system, and connect to that storage system through an app.

Sound processing

iTunes includes sound processing features, such as equalization, "sound enhancement" and crossfade. There is also a feature called , which normalizes the playback volume of all songs in the library to the same level.

Online music functionality

iTunes Store

Introduced on April 28, 2003, The iTunes Music Store allows users to buy and download songs, with 200,000 tracks available at launch. In its first week, customers bought more than one million songs. Music purchased was protected by

FairPlay FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology developed by Apple Inc. It is built into the MP4 multimedia file format as an encrypted AAC audio layer, and was used until April 2009 by the company to protect copyrighted works sold ...

, an

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can de ...

layer referred to as digital rights management (DRM). The use of DRM, which limited devices capable of playing purchased files, sparked efforts to remove the protection mechanism. Eventually, after an open letter to the music industry by CEO Steve Jobs in February 2007, Apple introduced a selection of DRM-free music in the iTunes Store in April 2007, followed by its entire music catalog without DRM in January 2009.

iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match

In June 2011, Apple announced "iTunes in the Cloud", in which music purchases were stored on Apple's servers and made available for automatic downloading on new devices. For music the user owns, such as content ripped from CDs, the company introduced "iTunes Match", a feature that can upload content to Apple's servers, match it to its catalog, change the quality to 256kbit/s AAC format, and make it available to other devices.

Internet radio, iTunes Radio and Apple Music

When iTunes was first released, it came with support for the

Kerbango Kerbango was both a company acquired by 3Com and its lead product. Kerbango was founded in 1998 in Silicon Valley by former executives from Apple Computer and Power Computing Corporation. On June 27, 2000, 3Com announced it was acquiring the Kerb ...

Internet radio Online radio (also web radio, net radio, streaming radio, e-radio, IP radio, Internet radio) is a digital audio service transmitted via the Internet. Broadcasting on the Internet is usually referred to as webcasting since it is not transmitted ...

tuner service. In June 2013, the company announced iTunes Radio, a free music streaming service. In June 2015, Apple announced Apple Music, a subscription-based music streaming service, and subsequently integrated iTunes Radio functionality. Music tracks provided by Apple Music via iTunes are available at up to 256 kbps AAC fidelity. The Apple Music app also integrates

Apple Music 1 Apple Music 1, previously branded as Beats 1, is a 24/7 music radio station owned and operated by Apple Inc. It is accessible through iTunes or the Apple Music app on a computer, smartphone or tablet, smart speaker (such as the Apple HomePod) ...

, a live

music radio Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio. M ...

station.

Other features

Video

In May 2005, video support was introduced to iTunes with the release of iTunes 4.8, though it was limited to bonus features part of album purchases. The following October, Apple introduced iTunes 6, enabling support for purchasing and viewing video content purchased from the

. At launch, the store offered popular shows from the

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

network, including '' Desperate Housewives'' and ''

Lost Lost may refer to getting lost, or to: Geography *Lost, Aberdeenshire, a hamlet in Scotland * Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail, or LOST, a hiking and cycling trail in Florida, US History *Abbreviation of lost work, any work which is known to have bee ...

'', along with Disney Channel series ''

That's So Raven ''That's So Raven'' is an American television teen sitcom that was created by Michael Poryes and Susan Sherman, and aired on Disney Channel for four seasons between January 2003 and November 2007. The series centers on Raven Baxter (Raven-S ...

'' and ''

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody ''The Suite Life of Zack & Cody'' is an American sitcom created by Danny Kallis and Jim Geoghan. The series aired on Disney Channel from March 18, 2005, to September 1, 2008. The series was nominated for an Emmy Award three times and was al ...

''. CEO Steve Jobs told the press that "We’re doing for video what we’ve done for music — we’re making it easy and affordable to purchase and download, play on your computer, and take with you on your iPod." In 2008, Apple and select film studios introduced "iTunes Digital Copy", a feature on select DVDs and Blu-ray discs allowing a digital copy in iTunes and associated media players.

Podcasts

In June 2005, Apple updated iTunes with support for

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

s. Users can subscribe to podcasts, change update frequency, define how many episodes to download and how many to delete. Similar to

songs A song is a musical composition intended to be performed by the human voice. This is often done at distinct and fixed pitches (melodies) using patterns of sound and silence. Songs contain various forms, such as those including the repetition ...

, "Smart playlists" can be used to control podcasts in a playlist, setting criteria such as date and number of times listened to.

is credited for being the major catalyst behind the early growth of podcasting.

Apps

On July 10, 2008, Apple introduced native

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

s for its

operating system. On iOS, a dedicated App Store application served as the storefront for browsing, downloading, updating, and otherwise managing applications, whereas iTunes on computers had a dedicated section for apps rather than a separate app. In September 2017, Apple updated iTunes to version 12.7, removing the App Store section in the process. iTunes 12.6.3 was released the following month, retaining App Store functionality, with ''9to5Mac'' noting that the secondary release was positioned by Apple as "necessary for some businesses performing internal app deployments".

iTunes U

In May 2007, Apple announced the launch of "iTunes U" via the

, which delivers university lectures from top U.S. colleges. With iTunes version 12.7 in August 2017, iTunes U collections became a part of the Podcasts app. On June 10, 2020, Apple formally announced that iTunes U would be discontinued at the end of 2021.

Apple mobile device connectivity

iTunes was required to activate early iPhone and

devices. Beginning with the

iPhone 3G The iPhone 3G (also known as iPhone 2) is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc.; it is the second generation of iPhone, successor to the original iPhone, and was introduced on June 9, 2008, at the WWDC 2008 at the Mosco ...

in June 2008, activation did not require iTunes, making use of activation at point of sale. Later iPhone models are able to be activated and set-up on their own, without requiring the use of iTunes. iTunes also allows users to backup and restore the content of their Apple mobile devices, such as music, photos, videos, ringtones and device settings, and restore the firmware of their devices. However, as of iTunes 12.7, apps can no longer be purchased and installed using iTunes.

Ping

With the release of iTunes 10 in September 2010, Apple announced iTunes Ping, which CEO Steve Jobs described as "social music discovery". It had features reminiscent of

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Mosk ...

, including profiles and the ability to follow other users. Ping was discontinued in September 2012.

Criticism

Security

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' reported in November 2011 that Apple had been aware of a

security vulnerability Vulnerabilities are flaws in a computer system that weaken the overall security of the device/system. Vulnerabilities can be weaknesses in either the hardware itself, or the software that runs on the hardware. Vulnerabilities can be exploited by ...

since 2008 that would let unauthorized third parties install "updates" to users' iTunes software. Apple fixed the issue before the ''Telegraph''s report and told the media that "The security and privacy of our users is extremely important", though this was questioned by security researcher

Brian Krebs Brian Krebs (born 1972) is an American journalist and investigative reporter. He is best known for his coverage of profit-seeking cybercriminals.Perlroth, Nicole.Reporting From the Web's Underbelly. ''The New York Times''. Retrieved February 28, ...

, who told the publication that "A prominent security researcher warned Apple about this dangerous vulnerability in mid-2008, yet the company waited more than 1,200 days to fix the flaw."

Software bloat

iTunes has been repeatedly accused of being bloated as part of Apple's efforts to turn it from a music player to an all-encompassing multimedia platform. Former ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'' editor

Ed Bott Ed Bott is an American technology journalist and author, known for his books and articles on Microsoft Windows. While he has over twenty years of experience writing about a variety of tech-related topics and has written for some well-known medi ...

accused the company of hypocrisy in its advertising attacks on

for similar practices. The role of iTunes has been replaced with independent apps for Apple Music, Apple TV, as well as iPhone, iPod, and iPad management being put into Finder, starting with macOS 10.15 Catalina.

References

External links

* – official site {{navboxes , title=iTunes , list1= {{Podcast distribution platforms {{Media player (application software) {{Apple software {{macOS {{Aggregators {{Apple Inc. Apple Inc. services Online music database clients Computer-related introductions in 2001 Products and services discontinued in 2019 2001 software Apple Inc. software IOS software IPod software Mobile device management software MacOS CD ripping software Podcasting software Internet properties established in 2001 Internet properties disestablished in 2019 Jukebox-style media players Macintosh media players MacOS media players Music streaming services Tag editors Transactional video on demand Windows CD ripping software Windows CD/DVD writing software Windows media players