Popular media player software from Apple for Mac and Windows. iTunes is widely used by millions of people to organize the music they play on the computer as well as all the content they download to their iPods, iPhones and iPads. It integrates Apple's online store for purchasing songs, videos and applications, and it administers the copy protection that was formerly applied to purchased songs.
Introduced in 2001 for the Mac, a Windows version was added in 2003. Due to Windows' dominance, more people use iTunes on Windows than they do on Mac computers.
Designed for Sharing
A feature of iTunes is that users can open their playlists to any other iTunes user on the network, and titles can be streamed from one user's computer to another for playing. Over the years, hackers found ways to circumvent this "share-but-not-save" feature, and in 2009, the Home Sharing function in iTunes 9 finally enabled users to copy files across the network, not just play them. See Ping, iPod, media player and playlist.
People love iTunes for setting up playlists, burning CDs and organizing their music collection whether they have iDevices or not. The equalizer dialog (bottom) lets users adjust the sound to their liking.
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