First Look: iTunes 7 Goes Media Management.

Why is the iTunes Music Store so popular? Why is the iPod so popular? It’s iTunes.

Mac or PC, it’s iTunes that makes it happen. Welcome to iTunes 7.

Music, Podcasts, playlists, music videos, TV shows, now movies. iTunes is the glue that holds Apple’s package.

What makes iTunes so glueful is QuickTime, Apple’s Little Media Technology and Player That Could™. Mac or PC.

At a glance, the new iTunes will look both familiar and different. To the left is your list of media, playlists, etc. To the right is the detailed list.

In the iTunes Music all the familiar pieces are there. 3.5-million songs at 99-cents each. Over 200 TV shows at only $1.99 an episode.

There’s 20,000 audio book titles at varying prices. Podcasts? There’s over 65,000 of those and they’re free for download to iTunes.

New to iTunes are movies and games.

Movies? Movies are Disney titles only for now, though that includes Miramax, Touchstone, and Pixar titles. More will be added each week.

Games? Yes, games for your iPod. Only $4.99. Each.

iTunes has truly become a multi-media jukebox.

The left colum is called Source List and lists headings; Music, Movies, TV shows, Podcasts, Radio, the iTunes Store.

It’s now just the “iTunes Store”. It neveer sounded right calling it iTunes “Music” Store when it sells videos. But, what of iTunes as a store name? That’s another article.

Clicking on an iTem in the iTunes Source List gets you a change in the right side window to match your selection. Duh. Your mother can use iTunes.

iTunes features a new visual reference called CoverFlow which lets you sort through your music and cover art as if it was all sitting on a shelf.

This is quite cool looking and shows why Apple is just better at displaying technology and making tools you can use.

Apple even gets you the cover art you need (if you’re an iTunes account member) to make it all work and look as cool as it really is.

Playlists also make up the Source List, as do any conneccted devices, and shared computers.

Check out the Microsoft music store online. Then check out Amazon’s Unbox. Then check out Apple’s iTunes section online, and the iTunes Store in iTunes.

See that difference? One works well, attracts customers, sells product. The others do not.

Synchronization remains a highlight of the iTunes, iPod experience. No surprises in iTunes 7. Don’t break what’s working.

Of course, iTunes will sync with your iPods, not just music, but album art, movies, TV shows, music videos. The works.

There’s an iPod summary page which takes a quick snapshot of what’s on your iPod. It’s colorful, graphical, and displays an easy-to-read, eas-to-understand look at music, video, photos, and other goodies on your iPod.

New is the ability to transfer music from the iPod back to a Mac or PC (great if you lose a hard drive on your computer). So long as your computer, Mac or PC, is one that’s authorized, you can sync from the iPod.

Apple’s not showing us innovation, but the way business is done today.

The iPod, iTunes, iTunes Store is innovation only as the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I’m reminded of a recent IBM TV commercial where a man is at home trying to cut some rough bread, but trying to come up with the coolest thing since sliced bread.

Of course, someone else invented bread. Someone else had invented slicing, even before that. But putting together the two, bread and slicing, was a work of art.

Apple’s ecosystem is a work of art that continues to advance and amaze. And gather new customers from the Windows world who haven’t experienced the taste of Kool-Aid for Kids.

For now there’s not many movies at the iTunes Store. There will be more. Initial video resolution wasn’t great, it’s now improved.

The iTunes Store interface looks familiar. There’s not much that screams MOVIES. There’s a tabbed interface in the middle which makes navigation easier, but doesn’t catch your eye right away.

Clicking on the Movies link brings up a whole new world. The movies look like Time Machine from the OS X Leopard demonstration, and lets you scroll through what’s new.

That’s waaaay cool, and so far above any other online store.

But it’s eye candy. The one big, glaring item missing is the number of movies. A few dozen is not much, though, as it was with music and TV shows, we can expect more.

What are the other studios waiting for? Amazon? Or, are they just posturing so Wal-Mart and Amazon and other retail giants get used to the idea, then the studios cave in?

Another improvement since the early years is the iTunes Store. See? “Music” is gone from the name of the iTunes Music Store. I still don’t like “iTunes” but that’s for another evolutionary turn.

Nothing else online matches Apple’s iTunes Store. Having it built in to iTunes, and in perfect synchronization, Mac or PC, makes for many, many millions of happy customers.