So I have been using itunes for around 24 hours now. I have come to the conclusion that we in the PC world are lucky. We have a plethora of software made by a very diverse set of vendors - all of who struggle.. so each product ends up having its own variation on the solution.. they each have unique features.. and eventually one or two products win. The PC software world seems to be based a bit more on the evolution of the solution. So this is how it goes in the world of the IPOD.. one product comes out that solves the problem(xplay) and then another product comes out that solves the problem better but is plagued with bloat(musicmatch). From here, an independent software vendor comes out with a more elegant but amature solution(ephpod) and survives to be bought out by another vendor(moodlogic). Then with tech. success of the independents a bunch of smaller vendors start coming out with products(anapod). So the products all work on what was previously done to solve the problem better and better - until a clear industry leader is evident.
so recently apple released itunes.. which is an awesome jukebox/mediaplayer and also(of course) syncs with the ipod. Yesterday after the release a bunch of really negative comments started appearing on forums around the internet. most of them were critical of the lack of features and the lack of windows integration. Some were complaints about how itunes didn’t conform to the windows standard in reagrds to UI and such. but as the night wore on..most people seemed pretty happy about the whole deal.. witnessing this I started to think about what was happening.. and then I remembered that in the mac world there is one vendor that creates pretty good applications(unlike the pc world :)). but in the mac world - it seems that design and evolution of products is done inside apple(the corp) and that all of the innovation comes for their uncanny ability to identify good design. so there isn’t a lot of “mac” software competetion(there is of course independent software vendors - but only for nerds ;)).. so itunes is the way it is due to good design..
soooooo…. I guess it is interesting to see what design decisions is important to apple.. and to its users. and to compare that to the evolution that happens with products in the PC market. I really think that itunes has it going on.. but that suddenly the simple application that ruled the apple market is going to compete in the much more aggressive PC market. it should be interesting to see how the product matures..

ok so I have no clue if I make any sense. stupid lack of foresight..