iTunes

Because it's easier to critize than to praise, here's an incomplete list of things I don't like about iTunes [5]:

1. Poor format support


2. Slow as a dog


3. Memory hungry


4. No keyboard shortcut for the search field.


5. Search is always for current view only.


6. No gapless playback


7. Stupidly huge database file


8. No global keyboard shortcuts


9. Starting with iTunes 5, you can no longer install the language version of your choice


10. No way to easily rate the currently playing song


11. No display of rating in either the miniplayer or currently playing window


12. Why do I have to chose between having the level meters and seeing the song title?


13. Finding an album while in library view and starting the playback does not add it to some form of "now playing" playlist.


14. Closed playlist folders do not open when you try to drag a file onto them


15. Requires that you add the artwork to the audio files if you want it displayed


16. Windows-specific complaint: it doesn't follow Windows conventions very well

NOTES
2. Slow to the point of making the scroll wheel on my mouse worthless. Slow to the point of using up so much CPU that when I try to scroll through a huge playlist, playback starts stuttering

3. iTunes 5 is worse than previous versions as well. Much worse. Worse to the tune of about 60 MB of RAM.

5. Which means if I want to search the library to add a file to the playlist I'm working on, it takes another couple of unnecessary step to accomplish.

6. Yes, I know, true gapless playback is impossible with MP3s, but there are a lot of software that manage a hell of a lot better than iTunes.

7. 19.4 megs. And it's duplicated in XML format. At 22.1 megs it's even bigger. Together, 41.5 megs. And it's written to disk every time a trackable event occurs. To contrast and compare, Winamp's database file takes up 6.2 megs; Foobar's 6.8.

10. Right-clicking the icon is not easy. I'm talking keyboard shortcut or something visible in the main UI*.

13. This in particular drives me NUTS, because it means if you navigate away so that the song is no longer in the current view, iTunes will stop playback once the song concludes.

15. I can see how having the artwork embedded in the files comes in handy for iPods that have the capability to display it, but there really is no reason for it on a desktop machine. It just means that every file becomes a couple 100k larger than necessary. And while that doesn't sound like much, it adds up when you have twenty thousand files in your library.

16. Like using CTRL-TAB to switch between tabs in a tabbed dialog, for instance.

* Finding the song in the main view doesn't count, because there's a good chance it's not visible. You can CTRL-L to get to it, but once again, that's an unnecessary step.