Love it or hate it, Apple's iTunes is one of the most popular digital music players around thanks to the success of the iPod. For years, even diehard Windows fans have been sucked into the iTunes ecosystem because it was the only easy and free way to work with Apple's ever-popular MP3 player. It's simply something we all have to live with.

As much as the iPod contributes to the player's overall popularity, iTunes does have a decent interface, great library management, and numerous other features going for it. Things like Party Shuffle and the new Genius playback mode are great alternatives to your standard "shuffle" playback. Even the Cover Flow view, while on the surface seems mainly like a waste of screen real-estate, adds a welcomed visual element to browsing your music collection.