Mac users are often regarded as very loyal customers, but that's because they have very good reasons, such as iTunes, to stick to Apple products.

iTunes has become one of the most widely spread music managers today. The release of the iPhone and the new iPod models has only contributed to increase this popularity, thanks to the seamless synchronization of contents between the computer and your device.

Now with iTunes 8, Apple continues to develop and improve this music software masterpiece with fresh new features that enable users to make the most of their multimedia library.

Managing your iTunes library is a piece of cake. You can view extended information about each track, edit their tags and rate them. Also, iTunes lets you comfortably browse through your library with the amazing Cover Flow system or the newly implemented grid view, which displays cover artwork sorted by album, artist, genre or composer. And for those of you who work in a LAN environment, the great news is that you can share your music libraries with your network mates.

One thing I particularly like of iTunes as music manager is its ability to create playlists. The Smart Playlist tool enables you to create almost any kind of playlist based on just about any criteria you set: artist, genre, date added, star rating or even the number of times you've played each song. Another great playlist is the so called Party Shuffle, which comes in very handy when you invite some friends over to your place. You can then leave iTunes working as a DJ and play music on its own, but if you drop by the PC at any time, you can freely add more songs to the list or rearrange them in any way.

Regarding playlists, iTunes 8 includes now an exciting new feature called Genius. Just like other popular music sharing tools, Genius learns from the tracks you play on iTunes and recommends you similar songs, either from your own library or from the iTunes Store. In this way you can easily build thematic playlists by grouping similar songs, and also meet new bands you may not know about. The only drawback is that Genius needs to gather information about your music library and send it over to Apple in order to work, something that privacy freaks won't be happy about.

However, if there's something where iTunes is not perfect yet, that's the player function. You may disagree here, but I think the iTunes player falls too short, especially when compared to its music manager side. It does have some interesting features, like the Smart shuffle function and crossfading playback, but I still find it too simple. I also missed the ability to control the player from anywhere with global hotkeys, which is great if you listen to music while you're working on the PC with other apps. Fortunately there are some plug-ins that cover this need.

In all, despite these slight flaws, iTunes is probably the best choice to manage your music collection –and that includes Windows users.

Download iTunes 8.0.1.11 in Softonic

As far as open source multimedia entertainment centers go, Elisa is a very impressive effort although it requires a lot of processing power and RAM.

Elisa has an intuitive interface that gives a professional feel and can be used to view both TV streams and most major video formats. You can even access it remotely from another computer if need be. Elisa also makes a pretty good audio player and displays album covers and other band related images as it plays your music in the same way as iTunes does.

Indeed, some of the inspiration for it appears to have come from iTunes although unlike iTunes, it extends itself to photo viewing and even browsing the Internet. The latter two functions are not the strongest areas of the package, although the browser is mainly designed for watching videos.

If you've got plenty of RAM to spare and fancy doing all your multimedia functions under one umbrella, Elisa is a beautifully presented and free open source solution.

Download Elisa 0.5.10 in Softonic

This handy app helps you find cover artwork, album reviews, and track listings for your favorite artists and albums. It also boasts iTunes Integration to see and control what's playing. You can listen to entire albums or double-click on any track to play. It contains regional searching for USA, UK, Japan, and Germany helps find more album covers. You can automatically send artwork to iTunes in three different sizes, and artwork displays in the dock for song currently playing in iTunes.

With Album Cover Finder you can find practically any music CD cover through the automated search of specialized Internet databases. The images downloaded are relatively small at 300 x 300 pixels, but serve well as an icon for each album you have. Once you have found the cover image that you want you can save it as a BMP file or drag it directly to your MP3 catalogue.

Download Album Cover Finder Lite/Full 6.5.3 in Softonic

With Last.fm, music fans have found a place to congregate and share musical tastes. The Last.fm player places the “social music revolution” onto your desktop, giving you access to thousands of tracks from all musical genres.

The beauty of the application is that it encourages you to find similar artists to the ones you’re accustomed to and also pushes you to interact with users who share the same tastes. Search results appear as a tag cloud, with the biggest elements being the most popular. With thousands of songs available on Last.fm, it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll listen to the same thing twice. The player is streaming and you’ll have to be connected to the internet and have a Last.fm account for it to work.

Although slightly bulky, the Last.fm player interface is sleek and accessible. We like the shiny control icons and the “now playing” window. This is where you’ll find all artist information like album cover, a small description of the artist, related tags and artists and top listeners. The menu bar on the left includes your recently played tracks, recently loved and recently banned, although to listen to these you’ll need to upgrade your Last.fm account (€2.50/month). The last 10 stations you’ve listened to are automatically saved in your history file.

The social experience is central to Last.fm and becomes pretty addictive. By listening to tracks you create a profile of yourself, the music you listen to and the artists you like. Last.fm then connects you to other users that have similar tastes, whom it calls neighbours. In the Last.fm player, you can connect to neighbours' stations and listen to their tunes. The lists of the friends you made on Last.fm will also appear in your player. If you have the Audioscrobbler plug-in installed, Last.fm can also track all the songs you play in your favourite desktop music app (like iTunes) and connect you with even more neighbours.

Most of us here at Softonic have Last.fm connected all day, simply because it doesn’t require you to have your own music library, it’s free and provides an endless flow of new tunes. In line with modern evolutions in online music, this web music application mixes streaming and social tools to give you an exciting music player. No music fan with access to Internet should be caught dead without it.

Download Last.fm Player 1.5.2.38918 in Softonic

iTunes is a great tool to synchronize content between your iPod or iPhone and your computer, but unfortunately it only works in one way. So if you want to transfer files from the Apple device or you're simply looking for an iTunes alternative, here's Xilisoft iPod Rip.

This handy app lets you synchronize contents between an iPod/iPhone and your computer in both ways, including music and video. Transfers are easy to do and also instantaneous, syncing content in the very moment you add files or folders to the list. They can also be done in batches, though the trial version has some limitations in this area.

On the downside, Xilisoft iPod Rip is obviously not the same as iTunes, so it doesn't support podcasts, or ringtones to name a few. I specially missed ratings and even more Cover Flow, to which I'm addicted after having spent a whole weekend downloading covers for all my albums so that they look nice on iTunes. At least the program does support playlists!

In any case, Xilisoft iPod Rip is a really handy solution if you're looking for a quick, easy way to copy files from the iPod/iPhone to your computer. If you need a complete music organizer, you'd better stick to iTunes.

Download Xilisoft iPod Rip 2.1.1.0616 in Softonic

If you're a bookworm and you've literally got books all over the place, then why not get organised by cataloguing them all in a database.

And what better tool to do it with than Book Collector which is like the iTunes of book cataloguing. This simply but impressive program allows you to browse through your collection from the comfort of your PC enabling you to share and rediscover old titles that had since been consigned to a dusty bookshelf. You can order your books by author, title, publisher, year or cover art. The clever thing however is that you don't need to scan in any of the cover art - it downloads everything you need from a database simply by using the ISBN number. You can include personal details like purchase date, store, location, whether you've read-it as well as catalogue chapter lists, characters and book creator credits. In addition, the program links book entries to e-book or audio-book files. In addition to downloading cover art, it downloads a quick synopsis of each book which is great for writing reviews or sharing titles with a friend. The only thing lacking maybe is something to save your favourite quotes or pages in and possible a link to the publisher's site for the author's latest releases.

An excellent tool for bookworms that will help you get even more out of your book collection.

Download Book Collector 5.2.2 in Softonic

If you're an iTunes fan, but not a big fan of the amount of memory it tends to use, then this could be something to make your life easier.

ITunesControl simply displays a popup which enables you to see exactly which song you're listening to without having iTunes fully expanded. It appears at the centre-bottom of your screen with a small image of the album cover if available. The biggest bonus for most users however, will be the fact that it allows much greater control of iTunes via the keyboard which is great if you don't have a multimedia PC keyboard. The controls are basic but better than nothing. However, you may experience problems when iTunes updates according to some users. The program is liable to crashes after an update but the developers claim that simply reinstalling iTunes should solve this problem as long as you restart your computer in between.
The program is also a big bonus in that it has a very small CPU footprint so it won't hog your PC's memory usage unlike iTunes tends to.

A useful little utility especially for those on slower machines although it could have been given a nicer look and may crash after updates.

Download iTunesControl 0.40 in Softonic

The CoverFlow graphic interface is certainly a nice tool to browse your albums, either in your Apple handheld (iPod Touch, iPhone) or on iTunes itself. But it doesn't look that cool when most of your album covers are missing, does it?

iArtWork can fix this problem for you. This iTunes add-on searches for covers for all the albums in your iTunes library. The only requirement for this little app to work is that you have your music properly tagged, as these tags are the keywords iArtWork uses to look for covers on the Internet.

Found covers are displayed on the program's interface, from where you can import them directly into iTunes. In case there's more than one cover available for the same album and you want to change the one that iArtWork has chosen, double click on the album title and a Search tool will open up. From this same tool you can also search for new covers that the program hasn't been able to find, though most of the times it won't be necessary.

With iArtWork you'll be able to fill in the visual gaps in CoverFlow, provided that you have your music collection perfectly tagged.

Download iArtwork beta in Softonic

Once you get used to a certain media player you feel somehow obliged to be faithful to it, which is certainly a mistaken attitude as it prevents you from discovering great tools like J.River Media Jukebox.

If the player you've been using until now is iTunes you already know how to use Media Jukebox, because the program resembles the Apple media player both in appearance and functionality. And if not, the learning curve won't take long thanks to Media Jukebox's intuitive design.

Like I said this program looks like iTunes a lot. On the one hand I wonder if this is going beyond any legal limits - as regards plagiarism. On the other hand, it makes Media Player very familiar and easy to use. Resemblances aside, the program features just about anything you would ask for in a full featured music player: from a library manager with which to organize your music collection to an embedded player, including a tag editor, a CD ripping tool, a CD burning tool and support for online podcasts, album art cover display and handheld music device synchronization.

Media Jukebox features a sleek dark interface organized in several areas and some extra details that add a spicy taste like the different 3D effects you can apply to the album cover art, the great smart playlist creation tool or the ability to download plug-ins from the developer's site to improve or add new functions to the program.

Summing up, J. River Media Jukebox is an excellent media suite where you'll find all the tools you'll ever need to organize, manage and enjoy your favorite music.

Download J. River Media Jukebox 12.07.17 in Softonic

Originally MyTunes was developed to work with iTunes version 4.1 to 4.7, but no further releases were put out to match the seemingly never ending iTunes revisions. Thankfully, despite its lack of updates, this unique tool is still kicking strong with the latest version of iTunes. Softonic has dug up some interesting information that illustrates just how fragile and unforgiving the software development process can sometimes be.

Quite some time back, MyTunes suffered one of those cruel twists of fate that rear their head from time to time, effectively bringing development on this popular utility to an abrupt halt, CNET News.com reports"the popular software has all but vanished from the Net, and its programmer's sites have gone dark. But this time, it's not the doing of an angry record industry or a conflict-averse Apple. Trinity College sophomore Bill Zeller, who wrote the program in less than two weeks of off-time coding last year, says he simply lost the source code in a catastrophic computer crash." Zeller said: "I was about to release the second version, when I lost everything. I may put it back online, but there won't be any updates. I don't want to rewrite it."

Download MyTunes Redux 1.0 in Softonic

iRADIOmast is the ultimate iTunes radio guide Radio without commercials. The program provides details of thousands of new radio stations, covering new genres like Bluegrass and Turntablism. The program is fast and contains an easy installer/unistaller. The app is compatible with other iTunes plug-ins and features a large US weather station directory.

Download iRADIOmast 2.9 in Softonic

It's an incredible oversight by Apple that iTunes does not import album covers. iTunes Art Importer comes to the rescue however by allowing you to have all your favourite album covers alongside your favourite tunes - and it looks great.

The program is connected to the Amazon database and adds the album cover of the song that is playing at any one time. It doesn't always offer you the right album unfortunately although it prompts you to select one from a list of probable candidates. You can configure the program to automatically choose the one that it thinks is correct although you may end up with Billy Joel instead of Billy Ocean.

When you start up the Importer, iTunes will also start up if it's not already running. The best way to use the Importer is to select all the tracks for a single album in iTunes and click the search button in the Importer (denoted by the magnifying glass). It will then query Amazon.com for albums that match. If multiple albums are found, the best match will be automatically selected. When the correct album is selected and the album art is displayed on the left, simply click the Import button and you're done.

This is not an essential program for music lovers but it can deepen your appreciation of your collection by learning about the album cover info.

Download iTunes Art Importer 0.9.2 in Softonic

Do you have music files? Do you want to organize your audio collection by artist name, album and songs title? Or you have MP3 player and want to see the correct tags on a display? 1st MP3 Tag Editor can help you!

Our tag processor can edit MP3, Apple iTunes M4a, Musepack MPC, WMA, OGG Vorbis, WavPack, FLAC, APE, WAV files; rename a group of files and folders by tag information; generate tags by filenames and folders path; change capitalization; create Windows Media Player and Winamp playlists; export information to text files and MS Excel; automatically download lyrics and album covers; delete unused MP3-tags.

If your files are without tags and filenames look like track01.mp3, track02.mp3 etc, 1st MP3 Tag Editor can emulate Audio CD header and import songs names from FreeDB. Another great feature is support of Amazon services - just enter artist name and get names of all the tracks from the selected album.

Download 1st MP3 Tag Editor 5.6 in Softonic

Desktop Album Display is a small desktop utility for your viewing and hearing pleasure. This program enables you to place the covers of your favorite music albums on your desktop, and use them to launch your favorite media player. Desktop Album Display currently supports a bunch of very popular players like Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes or Foobar, to name a few.

Take a look at what this program has to offer:

• Desktop display of your favourite music albums
• Profile creation and management for multiple users
• Automated search of covers in folder album or over Internet

Download Desktop Album Display 1.50 in Softonic

OrangeCD Catalog is the comprehensive music database program for cataloging your music on any media: CD, DVD, MP3, iTunes, OGG, FLAC, WMA files or even your old LPs and tapes. To add a new CD to the database, you just need to insert it in your computer or scan barcode from jewel case, and OrangeCD will download all information from FreeDB and Amazon databases, including cover image and album reviews. You don't have to type a single word. Filling your music CD database becomes quick and easy.

The resulting database can be used for browsing, searching, printing or exporting to any of the supported formats. Now you can quickly check if you own specific album or song, find its exact location on CD shelf, print CD changer index sheet or calculate your total CD library value for insurance. You can create web pages with the list of all your albums and upload them to your website. The feel and look of the web pages is defined by templates and can be easily customized.

You don’t even have to run your own website to upload your music list online. In OrangeCD, you can publish your music collection catalog on MyGenres.com, share it with friends, and browse your music inventory from work or school computer.

See the screenshots of OrangeCD Catalog in action on this page.

Download OrangeCD Catalog 6.1.2.11126 in Softonic

This program is a companion for iTunes. iTunes Album Browser analyses your music collection, collates the full albums that are contained within it, and displays the album covers (or spines), with various sorting and filtering capabilities to get to the music you want quickly and intuitively. It retrieves album art from Amazon automatically if required. It can also display album reviews, song lyrics and all other songs from the playing artist.

If you are a REAL music fan and want to listen to music as it was intended, as full albums with tracks in the correct order, then this is the program for you. However, it's also possible to use it as a "jukebox", to mix and match different tracks from different albums as you require. It's also possible to collate "best of" albums by artist or genre, using your own personal ratings.

Download iTunes Album Browser 2.1.37 in Softonic

If you like to listen to your music anywhere and on anything, be it an iPod, a phone or a PC, you're going to need to change your tracks to different formats. MP3Producer works in the same way as most converters, in that you select your audio files from a CD or from a folder and then select the new format and bitrate. MP3Producer converts your files fairly quickly and can handle more than one track simultaneously.

MP3Producer’s interface is divided into two windows, making it easily understandable. The left side is composed of four tabs: Track List, ID3 Tag, Filename and MP3 Settings. Depending on the tab you have selected MP3Producer will provide explanations on the right side to help you go through the conversion process. The application also offers more flexibility than other audio converters by allowing you to select a segment of a track to be modified.

Although MP3Producer does not store audio tracks as instinctively as iTunes, the program does well at organizing your music library. Once you have selected the folder to which the converted track will be saved, you can also create subfolders according to information such as artist, year or album. The process was slightly awkward but we appreciated the fact that MP3Producer went a bit farther than just converting music. The program also works with an online source, FreeDB, to obtain information from thousands of artists and albums. You can also add a tag to the converted file (copyright, private, original, or CRC error protection) if you need to protect the rights to the track.

On the downside, we were disappointed that MP3Producer only used FreeDB to extract musical information. It would be great to benefit from the bottomless wells of information that are Amazon or the iTunes music store. Also, MP3Producer doesn’t let you download cover art to enhance your music collection. Last but not least, we were surprised to see that you can not convert to MP4, a format that is reasonably popular nowadays.

Thanks to a good set of features, ever-present explanations, and a few tools to manage your music library, MP3Producer is an audio converter with that little bit more that gives it the edge over similar applications.

Download MP3Producer 2.54 in Softonic

iAlbumArt allows you to quickly and easily download album cover artwork for your entire iTunes music library. You can even update albums that are already on your iPod.

iAlbumArt works by searching Amazon's music database using the album and artist information from iTunes to locate and download the artwork. You can also manually pick the version of the art you want to save. The artwork is saved in the ID3 tag of each track as a compressed image (PNG).

iAlbumArt works and feels like iTunes. You pick the iTunes play list you want to use and iAlbumArt will show you the current artwork and allow you to download covers manually or in batch. Cover art is saved to the individual audio files. You can even update the artwork for tracks on your iPod. Just select iPod from the playlist.

Download iAlbumArt 1.8 in Softonic