aTunes 1.9

Publisher's description of aTunes

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aTunes is a fully-featured audio player and manager, with ripping and encoding tools included. aTunes is coded in Java programming language (Java 5), using Swing, making it a highly portable piece of software.

Version 1.9 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

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Editor's review of aTunes

When we tested aTunes, the fast installation was followed by shockingly sluggish tree navigation, required to add our song library. Fortunately, the subsequent scan was flawless, handling 7,500 tracks in about 10 minutes. So in music terms, the show started off with some bad feedback, but then aTunes really got rockin'.

The tabbed interface keeps the various panes from getting too cluttered, managing both primary and secondary information elegantly. Icons just below the Menubar let users hide the AudioScrobbler, the Navigator, and the Song properties windows, which makes the UI far more customizable than it might seem. The impressively useful AudioScrobbler pane surfaces nearly all secondary song information, making it easier to discover an artist's biographical details, using tabs to prevent clutter and keep track lists and song lyrics organized. Built-in links encourage discovery of similar songs and related videos on YouTube.

aTunes comes with 27 skins, has built-in Last.fm and various other Internet radio station support, and has decent podcast-catching abilities. Customization via Preferences can change the layout to multiple windows, and Tooltips, Smart Sorting, and even the tabs themselves can be deactivated. Metatag editing and autotagging work well, and we liked the Favorites feature, which creates an automatic playlist of your songs, albums, and artists tagged as such.

There is room for improvement. MP3 player support exists, but only on portable devices that behave like external hard drives. Those that utilize fancy firmware--like the iPod--get ignored. Also, Linux and Mac users might find the installation to be too much work, with various components not bundled into the executable. aTunes would benefit from search-as-you-type, too. Even with those problems, though, aTunes doesn't miss a beat and is easily one of the best jukeboxes around.

User reviews of aTunes

• Average user rating: out of 4 votes
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  aTunes

  Hey there black hole....

  by: chonkers on 05-Aug-2008 10:39:05 AM

  Pros: always keen to try a new jukebox, but am I doing something wrong....HPSP1, Java6 R7...yup....so let's go...er no.

  for some odd reason it does not load, recognise or scan music files at all, ogg, mp3, wma you name it...tried left & right clicking to add but no go here.

  tried the forums for a solution, cos the interface is cool & the gang & was really keen to give it a shot, not a lot to go on there...Soooo....I'l stick to me usual players thanks dudes but perhaps in a few months when it's less buggy I guess..

  good luck no!

  Cons: See above...

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  aTunes

  Free iTunes clone.

  by: chris_sundown13 on 25-Jul-2008 12:09:22 PM

  Pros: Pull's album art, lyrics, singers info all from the internet and if not already on the songs ID tag it can add it. It eaven will give lyrics for streaming video. Has pre-loaded radio stations and can ad your own. Have not yet tried ripping music or playing CD's with it. Is multi platformed was created useing java.

  Cons: Needs to be able to stream useing Pandora and AOL Music videos and music.

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  aTunes

  not good

  by: shamsali0216 on 07-Aug-2008 12:31:36 PM

  Pros: it has great designs and lots of features

  Cons: other stuff is better...when getting songs it takes forever...and it it doubled almost all of my music when being added and when uninstalling it wudnt wouldnt work...

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  aTunes

  Best jukebox I've ever used

  by: netmasterjohn on 10-Aug-2008 03:37:25 PM

  Pros: I'm not sure what's up with all of the negative reviews - this is the best jukebox I've ever used - simple installation, easy tag editing, easy sorting and organizing of playlists, automatic lyric display, one click video finding plus loads more...

  Cons: None that I have found yet

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  aTunes

  Doesn't play + unable to uninstall = wasted resources

  by: jabberwockgee on 05-Aug-2008 11:40:49 AM

  Pros: Nothing. Couldn't figure out how to add music, and now I can't get rid of it.

  Cons: When I try to uninstall, for some reason, there's a box you have to click that says something to the effect of "Yes, I really do want to uninstall this," as if double clicking and verifying doesn't really count... But it doesn't uninstall anyway....

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