Apple’s iTunes is a well-known and popular music player that has been in use for years. However, there are now several alternatives to iTunes available for users. One such alternative is ATunes, which is a free and open source music player that was created by developers at the University of Utah. ATunes is designed to be more user-friendly than Apple’s iTunes. It has a more intuitive interface and can be used on any device, including computers, smartphones, and tablets. It also offers features that are not available in Apple’s music player. One of the most important features of ATunes is its support for multiple devices. This means that it can be used on different devices without having to switch between them. Additionally, ATunes offers a wide range of features not available in Apple’s music player, such as offline playback and support for multiple languages.
I briefly covered aTunes version 1.7 over a year ago. At that time is was not my main audio player and was a bit buggy at that time. The newest version 1.9 is much improved. aTunes is cross-platform and works on Windows, Linux, and OSX.
After installation the first thing to do is point to your music directory and populate the aTunes Repository. I pointed the Repository to my FLAC collection and it took very little time to populate all of my albums.
Another impressive feature is an area on the left side of the user interface where you get artist information. When I first played an Anathema song, I got a report on the band and also a list of other albums from them.
On top of that by clicking the Song tab you get all the lyrics to the song currently playing and the album cover.
There is the similar artists tab where you get a list of artist who play the similar genera to the artist you’re listening to. This is a list of artists I got while playing a Megadeth album.
An easy to use EQ comes with the package loaded with about 15 different presets.
The main focus of the default setup is the playlists that you can easily tab through which I thought was a great feature. This helps me keep different styles organized with different lists.
Organizing the columns in the playlists just check or uncheck what you don’t need to see.
Yes you can get all your favorite podcasts as well just enter in the RSS information.
Under the Song Information there are 2 buttons. One to copy the lyrics to the clipboard so you can put them into documents, and Search for Video — this will go out to YouTube and find videos from the artist playing. That is a cool feature!
Showing album and song information as well as the player controls are below the playlists.
Support for Last.fm and since it does, I created a Last.fm profile. You can add me to your friends if you want.
aTunes includes a album cover navigator and like in iTunes you can download ones that are missing. Formats supported are mp3, OGG, WMA, WAV, FLAC, mp4, and RM. A large list of online radio stations, CD ripping, and several skins included. You can use it with mp3 players too.
I am going to stop at this point but there are several more features and options I have not yet covered. I recommend installing this player and playing around with it more. I am extremely excited about this one. I think I found my new music player … (at least for the next 3 months).
Download aTunes
