I really wanted to like iTunes... really I did, but I guess I "just don't get it."

The thing I really don't understand is besides the integration of iTMS, there is nothing here that other players I've tried cannot do.

The library is nice, but both WinAmp and WMP9 have this ability. Both have a version of "smart playlists" that work great. However, with iTunes I can find no way of going to the "Now Playing" playlist... I select songs, start them playing and then where are they? I can make a special "Now Playing" playlist and jump to that, but then it opens an identical window and plays from there... Not wanting two giant windows open, I close the one I'm not using and everything closes!? There is no way of telling which is the master window.

It's a real shame... I won't nit pick the complete disregard of the XP UI guidelines other than to say the competition does this too, but not to the extent Apple seems to. iTunes looks the best out of the box. The layout of the library is better than WMP9's but doesn't automatically find the album covers I have carefully set up like WMP9 does. So far the best feature of iTunes has been to lead me to discover WMP9's auto tagging feature! Very cool...

I was also surprised to find the visualization for iTunes ain't all that... first of all, it's only "G-Force" that has been available for WinAmp forever. And it's twice as slow!? And still not as nice looking as "MilkDrop"?! No thanks...

It's a very nice simple player, but I don't get why some seem to rave over iTunes. It works and looks nice, yes... but that's it really.

Maybe I'll wait for version 5, but for now I'm sticking to WinAmp...