Read on to see the pictures, most of which come from the fabulous GUI Guidebook.
SoundJam MP

Early 2000: SoundJam MP by, the now out of business, Casady & Greene was the basis for iTunes. Didn't know that, huh? Yep, Apple liked it so much that they bought the rights to it and hired its developers to write iTunes. Read all about it on Wikipedia.
iTunes 1.0

January 9, 2001: Ah, iTunes 1.0. This started iTunes mania, folks, and it only ran on OS 9. Those were simpler times, when 86 MP3's seemed like a lot. Apple touted that with iTunes you could store an unlimited number of MP3's, burn CD's (using CD burners that Apple has just added to Macs) and watch a 'visualizer,' which was totally trippy, dude.
iTunes 2.0

October 23, 2001: 9 months after introducing iTunes 1.0, Apple announced iTunes 2.0 which ran in either OS 9.2.1 or OS X 10.2. The big ticket items were MP3 CD burning, an equalizer, and cross fading. More and more folks were getting into the whole iTunes thing, but it was still Mac only much like the iPods (which were also introduced this year). You could transfer 1000 songs from iTunes to your iPod in 10 minutes. Truly, this is the future. No one knew then that iTunes and the iPod would be such a killer combo.
iTunes 3.0

July 17, 2002: iTunes 3.0 introduces smart playlists and Sound Check (that makes sure all your songs play at the same volume level). Audible.com support was also introduced in this version of iTunes. iTunes 3.0 dropped OS 9 support altogether, requiring OS X 10.1.4 or greater.
iTunes 4.0

April 28, 2003: iTunes 4 was all about one thing: The iTunes Music Store (seen below). Starting off with 200,000 songs the store made a big splash, but it was Mac only. iTunes 4 was the first version to include Rendezvous™ (now Bonjour) music sharing, which was pretty darned cool.

October 16, 2003: iTunes for Windows was introduced to sell more songs and iPods (the iTunes Music Store in OS X is pictured above). Mac users bemoaned the fact that first they had to share iPods with PC users, and now they had to share iTunes. Hell had frozen over. Apple also teamed up with AOL to offer one click purchasing using AOL screennames, added audiobooks to the store, and added the 'Allowance' feature. Oh, and podcasts in the Music Store too, thought that didn't happen until June 28th 2005.
iTunes 5.0

September 7, 2005: iTunes 5 breaks on the scene and everyone asks, what's up with that plastic looking thing in the main window? iTunes 5 introduced improved search, Smart Shuffle (people complained the iTune's shuffle wasn't random enough), and folder support.

The iTunes Music Store in iTunes 5. More than 2 million songs are available.
iTunes 6.0

October 12, 2005: Just 2 months later (which really confused people) iTunes 6 busted onto the scenes. The biggest news here (as seen below) was the addition of short films (from Pixar) and TV shows (from ABC) in the iTunes Music Store. $1.99 gets you an episode that you own forever and ever.

The iTunes Music Store in iTunes 6, now with TV shows! This was when people said, "When is Apple going to change the name of the store?!'
iTunes 7.0

September 12, 2006: iTunes 7 introduces a number of new features, including an overhauled IU and movies for sale (Disney only, once again). A name change for the iTunes Music Store finally arrives, now it is simply the iTunes Store. The store offers videos at quadruple the resolution, and you can even get games for you iPod now.

The newest look for the iTunes Store.
Where will the future lead us? Only his Steveness knows for sure.













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
9-14-2006 @ 7:42PM
Jon said...
You said Podcasts were introduced in iTunes 4 but I'm pretty sure they were included in 5.0. Can anyone else verify this?
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9-14-2006 @ 7:44PM
John Russell said...
I wish there was a way to go back to the look of iTunes 6, while keeping the new features in iTunes 7.
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9-14-2006 @ 7:45PM
Elliot said...
Great piece. Can I just say that black highlighing on the left in iT7 is the worst interface decision I've seen Apple make in years? I mean really, I almost think it's a bug that will be resolved in 7.0.1, it's so bad.
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9-14-2006 @ 7:46PM
Jon said...
Just checked on Wikipedia. It was 4.9, not 5.0 (almost!). The date was June 28th 2005 though.
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9-14-2006 @ 7:49PM
Query said...
I find it odd that iT7 is now pretty much all plastic, but the iTS is still glass.
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9-14-2006 @ 7:49PM
Larry said...
I miss the good old nuclear Burn CD button. That and I dislike the look of the lower buttons. (ie: new playlist, linear, shuffle, show artwork, browse and eject buttons) They were very good looking in the previous version.
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9-14-2006 @ 7:53PM
Scott McNulty said...
Thanks all, I added the date for the podcasts in the store. :)
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9-14-2006 @ 7:54PM
Alan Joyce said...
@Jon: Agreed, there is no way Apple introduced podcasts to the iTMS in October 2003. The term 'podcasting' wasn't even coined until 2004.
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9-14-2006 @ 8:01PM
michel said...
I just miss the icons of itunes 6 and the marvelous burn button and of course : Aqua scrollbars !
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9-14-2006 @ 8:19PM
CyBeR said...
iTunes 5 introduced search? Huh? That search field has been in there since 1.0!
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9-14-2006 @ 8:42PM
Twist said...
Apple considered basing iTunes off of SoundJam's rival Audion for a time. You can read about it here: http://panic.com/extras/audionstory/
P.S. Audion's Linked Playlist feature needs to be added to iTunes.
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9-14-2006 @ 8:52PM
Blair Bendler said...
When are you guys going to start *proofreading* your blog entries?? The spelling and grammar on TUAW have become embarrassing lately.
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9-14-2006 @ 9:29PM
Steven said...
Also, the resolution of video in the iTunes store has been quadrupled.
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9-14-2006 @ 10:02PM
carpeicthus said...
I still have my original copy of SoundJam on my hard drive, just as a relic of tribute. It was fantastic for the time, and had features iTunes *still* doesn't have. Skinning (no surprise there), and a built-in alarm clock, for example.
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9-14-2006 @ 10:02PM
carpeicthus said...
Resolution has been doubled. The number of pixels has been quadrupled. Resolution is density at a given frame size, so it goes by the square root of the pixel change.
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9-14-2006 @ 10:16PM
Victor Agreda Jr said...
iTunes 4 not only introduced the music store, but featured Ashlee Simpsons' original nose.
"Remind yourself it's just a blog, I should really just relax..." (apologies to Joel)
Reply
9-14-2006 @ 10:42PM
Colin Nowra said...
Please talk about the new feature where you can put all your TV Shows that you didn't get from iTunes that can now be put into the right category (TV Shows) you previously had to leave them in the Movies section.
Reply
9-15-2006 @ 12:56AM
Joe Folkmann said...
I'm actually glad to see aqua go. I like how subtle everything thing is with iTunes 7. The only thing I wish they would have kept was the green folder icon.
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9-15-2006 @ 1:04AM
Michael Kalus said...
iTunes 7 clearly is a nice step forward, too bad the audio playback is buggy :( Audio output suddenly drops and I have clipping on clear songs when / if iTunes plays for any extended period of time in the background, have to stop and restart the playback to "fix" this.
Reply
9-15-2006 @ 1:05AM
gojou said...
Regarding iTunes 2.0, at the time of its release in October 2001, the most current version of OS X was 10.1, having been just released as a free upgrade to the very slow and somewhat buggy 10.0, released in March 2001.
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