Reviews for Macintosh OS X

OS X, the new operating system from Apple, can still run all of the older Macintosh applications. These applications are specifically written for OS X, and they take advantage of its stability and user interface.

Mp3 Players

iTunes

From Apple Inc.

Free from this CD

Out of all of the players I have tried, iTunes is only second to Audion 2, which costs $19.99. Audion may be slightly better, but iTunes is completely free, making it the best free player availible. It can import (convert) Mp3, WAV, and AIFF files very well, and in a surprising amount of time. Usually a four minute song encoding at 192 KB takes only a little over a minute. It also has a built in radio tuner which accesses Kerbango for streaming audio. This provides well over 1000 channels of radio without even using an internet browser. A button in the top menu provides access to CDDB, a website which provides CD information. This takes only 10 seconds, and it saves the hassle of manually typing in all of the song information. Another advantage of iTunes is the intuitive user interface. Finding songs, making playlists, and importing music doesn't take the work that other programs require. The best thing about iTunes is its CD burning capability. Other programs claim to be able to burn CDs, but they only leech off of other needed applications. iTunes has its own simple software that makes CD burning something that anyone can do. It supports virtually all burners, including SCSI, USB, and FireWire devices. The only drawback of iTunes is that it does not support plug-ins or skins. This is what gives Audion a slight edge over iTunes. iTunes does have a visualizer and a nice looking user interface, but they are not customizable in any way. If this feature makes its way into future versions, iTunes has my vote.

Audion

From Panic Software Inc.

Free trial for download on CD, full version availible at the Audion website for $19.99.

Out of all the Mp3 players I have tried, Macintosh and Windows, Audion is the best. Audion can encode in a variety of formats including mp3, WAV, and AIFF. It has encoding speeds just a little less than iTunes, access to streaming radio, (though it can only access streams you know the name of), and access to CDDB, a website which provides CD information. The interface has three components, a playlist window, a control window, and an equilizer menu with ten presets. I think that the best feature of Audion is its plug-ins and skins. From the Audion website, dozens of visual and audio plug-ins, along with cool looking skins, are availible for free download. This way your music not only sounds good, but it looks good too. The single thing that Audion lacks is CD burning capability, but since built-in burning capability is so new, I think that most users will be satisfied.

Not Yet Rated

Unsanity Echo

From Unsanity Software Inc.

Free Trial for download on CD, full version $19.99 at the Unsanity website.

Although it is still a very new player, Unsanity Echo has the potential to become the best mp3 player on the market. At the same price as Audion, Unsanity has all of the features of Audion, but supports more music formats and seems to be more advanced. Since it is so new, I have only tried it a few times, but from what I have seen, the technology in Unsanity outmatches both iTunes and Audion 2. The unique visualiser engine takes full advantage of the G4 Velocity Engine, and is much smoother even on slow computers. Unsanity supports plug-ins and skins, although the visualiser and skin it comes with more than suffice, and it also supports the much anticipated open source OGG Vorbis format. If much of the things I have said here don't make sense, I don't blame you. In a nutshell, Unsanity Echo is technilogically advanced and very cool. If it can gain a strong user base, Unsanity stands a fierce rival to iTunes and Audion.

Gnutella

LimeWire

From LimeWire.com

Free download on CD

Although LimeWire is packed with features and has a pretty user interface, it is not nearly as reliable as other clients such as Mactella. LimeWire looks nice, with shiny buttons and all, and it also features multiple searches and a long list of hosts, but it is very hard to get searches in and out fast. On my computer, LimeWire is always a step behind me. Still, on a fast internet connection, LimeWire does work moderatley well. But there are better choices.

Furi / Phex

From Gnutelliums.com

Free download on CD

Furi / Phex is supposed to work on all platforms. From my experience, it does not work on any platform. Bleh!

Mp3 Streaming

Mp3Streamer

Alexandre Carlhian

Free download on CD

If you're not a techno geek or you don't have much time to set up your radio station, Mp3Streamer is for you. Streaming songs is as easy as playing them with a simple Mp3 player. Mp3Streamer does'nt have some of the features ICEcast and MACast have to offer, such as listing song and artist names, but its simplicity makes up for it.