The second in our Best Music Player series is here and today we’ll be taking a look at Apple’s iTunes music player. iTunes is a music player you’ve all heard of – it’s one of the most used music players available thanks to Apple’s iPod and iPhone range and marketing for their products.

iTunes was announced back in 2001 and started out as a Mac OS 9-only application until it was available for OS X from version 2.0. The latest version, 9.2 (the one used for today’s article) was released along with the release of iOS 4.0 and the iPhone 4, adding support for both. You can download iTunes from Apple’s website now.

One of the most annoying things about iTunes that you notice before you install the application is the massive file size for the download. With a size of 93 MB it’s just ridiculous that there is also a separate installer for those of you running 64-bit Windows like us, the download link of which is hidden in the fine print down the left hand side.

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In an unsurprising move, Windows 7 has just slipped above Windows Vista in overall market share, just over a year after the full RTM release. Windows 7 usage has risen in this period to claim 19.08% of the operating system market, with Vista sliding down to just 18.37% worldwide. Due to the unpopularity with Windows Vista it is not surprising to see such a quick changeover to the new OS (just look at that rocketing yellow line resembling Windows 7), as you would think these stats suggest.

However, upon closer examination of the above graph you can see that actually Windows Vista market share has been declining rather steadily, but slower than that of XP. XP’s market share is currently sitting at 55.73% having declined from 69.95% in July of 2009, compared to Vista’s 22.71% market share in 2009 slipping to the current 18.37%. This suggests that Windows 7 has consumed proportionately more market share out of Windows XP’s than Windows Vista’s, which is great to see considering XP is a 9 year old and rather outdated OS.

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Released on Monday by Microsoft is the Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) public betas. While Windows 7 SP1 includes just minor hotfixes, all of which were probably available to download via Windows Update at some point, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 contains some new virtualization tools to help enterprise users with the VMs as well as prepare them for cloud computing.

RemoteFX, now included in Server 2008 R2 SP1 (unfortunately not present in Windows 7 SP1), is a new upgrade to RDP’s “graphical remoting capabilities”. It enhances the remote desktop client so that remote clients can use multiple displays, multimedia streaming and Aero if the server PC is currently utilizing any of those features. Basically RemoteFX renders the entire screen on the remote PC locally before compressing it and sending it to the remote host/client. How well this actually works and whether or not there will be lag present will depend on your setup and you’ll probably need some powerful hardware to run it smoothly.

The beta is available right now for your consumption via the Microsoft TechNet Evaluation Center. To install the beta, you will need an existing copy of the RTM version of Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 already installed on your machine; the copy on TechNet does not include a full version of either. For Windows 7, the SP1 beta update weighs in at over 1.2 GB.

After the recent revelation that Windows 8 could contain some sort of application store to try and make it easier for users to find and install applications that they like, I have a few words to say. Basically, the Windows 8 app store is bound to fail.

Most readers here are probably used to some form of app store – maybe it’s a smartphone app store like the Android Market or the Apple App Store or maybe it’s a game app store like Steam. These things work. Smartphone app stores work because it’s the easiest and pretty much only way to download apps to your phone, and Steam and other game services work because they’re cheap and offer a load of great features.

Some how I don’t think these great qualities of other app stores will carry over to the app store we might be seeing in Windows 8.

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There has recently been a huge leak of confidential details concerning Microsoft’s plans for Windows 8 via “Microsoft Enthusiast” Francisco Martin’s blog. It appears as though Microsoft is heavily focusing on performance improvements in the next major revision of Windows.

Microsoft will enable high-speed data transfer solutions such as USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 in Windows 8 to thankfully bring the operating system up to speed on the latest revisions. However, it would be nice to see these specifications enabled in Windows 7 as well, maybe through an update or service pack.

Windows 8 will also be optimized in such a way that the system can be booted nearly instantly or much more quickly than previous Windows versions. Systems should also be ready to use without any major delays and available content in their systems such as email, media and sports scores will be ready to use at the drop of a hat with speedy performance. Performance improvements are always welcome, especially with plans for instant-on boot-up which should be fantastic for people who want instant access to their powered-off systems.

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Apple yesterday released an update to their Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” operating system. 10.6.4 includes the new Safari 5 right out of the (virtual) box, fixes some unresponsive keyboard/trackpad issues, fixes a sleep issue with the 2010 MacBook, adds RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras plus a whole load more improvements, fixes and security patches. Previous updates to Snow Leopard are also included with the 10.6.4 update.

As usual, we highly recommend that you keep your system up to date and for Mac users this means installing the 10.6.4 update. You can download the update through the Software Update on your machine, or via a manual download from Apple’s website. Note that by downloading it through Software Update you will get a reduced file size. Full release notes are below.

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In the emerging netbook market, Google decided it would announce a new-style Linux-based OS that would be perfect for netbook owners, set for release in Q4 2010. Recently, Google has also showed off a new application market for Chrome and Chrome OS. We at The PC Report have used Chrome OS briefly when it was first released, but today we’ve taken an in-depth look at the OS and how it will affect the OS and netbook markets.

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As we saw with the Asus Eee Pad, Microsoft has announced a new operating system designed for tablet PCs. With a ridiculously long name, Windows Embedded Compact 7 is designed for tablets that may not be using a desktop-style processor architecture that can be embedded at a hardware level. The OS is also designed to be much more touch friendly than the standard editions of Windows 7 but will seamlessly integrate with the normal version of Windows 7.

The new OS will be made for multi-touch capable panels, which is again another death for the resistive single-touch panel. Multi-touch gestures will be available throughout Windows Embedded Compact 7 including pinch zooming in the browser and panning. There will also be better support for media throughout the OS, including a new Media Library, HD media support and a flexible plugin architecture. Syncing your personal details and other items between Embedded Compact 7 and Windows 7 will also be improved.

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A few days ago Fedora pushed out a new version of their popular Linux operating system. Version 13, codenamed “Goddard” adds a new feature called PackageKit which identifies when printers are plugged in and automatically downloads and installs the drivers for the device – very handy. The installation process using Anaconda has been streamlined, and the network manager has been improved for mobile broadband users along with a new GUI. The open-source ATI and Nvidia drivers have also been improved.

If you’re interested in downloading Fedora 13, check out this page here. If you;re unsure on whether to upgrade to this version, you may find more new features that you like in the extensive release notes.

Lucid Lynx has been released.  You can download it here. Torrents will be the fastest way to obtain it since all of the servers will probably be bogged down from massive numbers of downloads.