When it comes to software to manage your music and video library, Apple’s iTunes has been an amazing success. It was derived from a commercial app, SoundJam, but remains free for Mac and Windows users.

Sure, iTunes isn’t perfect by any means. Some complain of software bloat and performance issues as Apple adds more and more features. Others complain about persistent bugs, or the lack of features that would seem to be expected of state of the art software. In fact, you cannot even select text in iTunes. There are, however, loads of places to click so you can check out and perhaps buy something. Remember, first and foremost, iTunes is the gateway to a huge online storefront.

Certainly, the success of iTunes is legendary, with Apple in possession of tens and tens of millions of customer credit cards numbers in iTunes accounts. But the way the system is organized only engenders confusion and, with the arrival of iCloud and iTunes Match, the system is only getting a whole lot worse.

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This article was posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 12:00 AM and is filed under News and tagged with: Apple Inc., iCloud, Itunes, iTunes Match, ITunes Store, Macintosh, SoundJam MP.