Ads free, setting up an account takes 5 seconds if you already have an ITMS account, sharing the huge ITMS database… Ping has everything to beat any music social community because it is fully integrated with the biggest music store in the world: the iTunes Music Store.

After you setup your account, you’ll need an additional 5 seconds (10 seconds) to become familiar to the super easy user interface.
Ping.com (famous golfing accessories) doesn’t belong to Apple of course, and the only way to connect to that social community is through the iTunes browser.
Main actions you can take through Ping are: follow (you might be familiar with that if you’re already on Twitter), post (you probably have at least posted a review on the ITMS, Ping enables you to discover them all in the “my reviews” page, and like (a feature Last.fm users are familiar with too).
Some of these actions have been integrated on albums page, you can see below (post and like):

A mix of Twitter and Last.fm that is very promising and that, of course, will boost the ITMS and iTunes users (which will boost the ITMS).

If Apple integrates stats system like Last.fm’s now playing and like-o-meter Ping’s follow features would be more interesting.

With an ugly icon that reminds me of some kind of $9.99 PC music converters shareware, the new iTunes comes with a brand new GUI.

Judge by yourself (page 1 of a Google Image search):

Very nice monochrome icons, new volume slider, new status bar icons and control buttons are now on top of each others (which inducts a nice space gain: hope to see that happen again on Safari and maybe become the new OS X standard).


A few curiosities that make you ask why?, like the new (very cool) borderless bottom buttons while the upper ones still have borders:

Albums artwork popup with the same fade effect in QuickTime Player X.

The UI is very refined (but the new icon is catastrophic), and this is a probable base for Mac OS 10.7 (since the previous iTunes UI revolution was the Mac OS 10.4 brushed metal successor and the actual UI for OS 10.5).

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.
• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.
• Play your favorites on the all new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.
• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.
• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.
• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.
• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec is not a recognized format by iTunes.
To listen to a FLAC file on your Mac there are (in theory) 2 solutions: convert the file, or add a plugin to iTunes.
Since I’m not the kind of person that likes to mess a lot with my Mac, I prefer the first solution.
To me, MacFLAC is the perfect deal: free, fast and easy to use.
The possible output formats are WAVE and AIFF as you can see in the screenshot below:

Three steps to use MacFLAC: drag, drop, convert.
You can get it free from here.

iTunes 9.0.1 provides a number of important bug fixes, including:

• Resolves issues browsing the iTunes Store.
• Addresses a performance issue where iTunes may become unresponsive.
• Fixes a problem where iTunes may unexpectedly quit.
• Fixes a problem syncing Podcasts in playlists to iPod or iPhone.
• Fixes a problem sorting albums with multiple discs.
• Addresses an issue with the Zoom button not switching to Mini Player.
• Improves application syncing for iPod touch and iPhone.
• Genius is now automatically updated to show Genius Mixes.
iTunes 9 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• An improved look and feel, including a new Column Browser for easily browsing your artists or albums, movies, TV shows, and more.

• iTunes Store has a brand new look, with improved navigation for quick and easy exploration.

• iTunes LP and iTunes Extras create unique experiences that feature exclusive interviews, videos, photos, and more — available with select album and movie purchases on the iTunes Store.

• Home Sharing helps you manage your family’s iTunes collection between computers in your home. iTunes can automatically transfer new purchases, or you can choose just the items you want.

• Genius Mixes are created for you by iTunes and play songs from your library that go great together.

• iPod and iPhone syncing now allows you to organize your iPhone and iPod touch home screens directly in iTunes. Syncing is now also more flexible, allowing you to sync individual artists, genres, or TV show and Podcast episodes.

• iTunes U items are now organized into their own section in your iTunes library.

• Sync with iPod nano (5th generation), iPod classic (Fall 2009), and iPod touch (Fall 2009).

• iTunes 9 also includes many other improvements, such as HE-AAC encoding and playback, more flexibility with Smart Playlists rules, simpler organization of your media files inside an iTunes Media folder, and more.

What a great day for an iTunes 9 update: 09/09/09!
New interface, new icons, new buttons, iTunes 9 comes with a fresh skin (NB: the missing part of the iTunes window is probably a bug in SL’s screen captures).
The main new features of iTunes 9 are:

1. iTunes LP FINALLY: The visual experience of the record album returns with iTunes LP. Download select albums and experience a beautifully designed, interactive world right in your iTunes library on a Mac or PC — many are created by the artists. While you listen to your favorite songs, you can dive into animated lyrics and liner notes, watch performance videos, view artist and band photos, and enjoy other bonus materials. And become an even bigger fan.
2. Home Sharing FINALLY: Enabling you to share (transfer) music, movies and other iTunes content between your computers at home.
3. iTunes U comes as an independent module just like podcasts, TV shows… and… I have to say FINALLY too for this one!
   
4. Column Browsing: Just like in my favorite OS X’s Finder’s view, Apple FINALLY added a smarter way to browse music through a column browsing
   
5. iTunes Extra: Get an inside look at your favorite movies with new special features.
   
6. Genius Mixes: This new feature searches your iTunes library, finds songs that go great together, and creates multiple mixes you’ll love. These mixes are like channels programmed entirely with your music.

“One of the new additions to iTunes is said to include Blu-ray support which lines up nicely with a recent AppleInsider report about Apple integrating Blu-ray into their new iMac line-up,” the report states.
“Something else that will most likely make a bunch of people happy is that we’ve been told iTunes 9 will finally include the ability to visually organize and arrange your iPhone and iPod touch applications.

Something that wasn’t so clearly described was some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm integration. Maybe broadcasting what song you’re playing to your friends?”
BGR says the Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm stuff from its tip was more vague, but you can imagine that if such features were integrated it would involve tweeting out or updating your Facebook status with what song you are listening to. It’s possible that for Last.fm, iTunes would build-in support for logging what songs you are playing, something which Last.fm currently does through its own software.
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Apple Scripts are actions (or sets of actions) that can be launched from almost all of your Mac’s (bundled) Apple applications.

These scripts are time saving solutions especially for repetitive actions.
And here’s an example with iTunes and some of the best Apple Scripts (to me).

First thing to do, check if you do have the scripts folders for iTunes, the best way to make sure you do have it is to run iTunes and take a look at the menu bar, it should looks like this:

The Apple Scripts logo is the one you see before “help”.

If you don’t see it, just go to your Home Folder:Library:iTunes and create a folder and name it “Scripts”:

To find my Top 3 iTunes Scripts, please make the jump.
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