Hey wait a minute…isn’t PC World contractually obligated to hate most any Apple products? That’s a distinct possibility, but writer Rick Broida does a serviceable job outlining the shortcomings of Apple’s omnipresent digital media software. He does give a nod to the new application store, the regularly posted free media, and the overall “smartness” of the program in building playlists, but he still finds a lot of room for improvement.

The major gripes are familiar: the insistence on DRM, the lack of a subscription service, and the draconian process of having to download the entire program for each update, however miniscule. The rest of the list is hit and miss. While a case can be made about Apple pushing their products and the unwieldy process of bringing music from other sources, iTunes’ lack of e-books isn’t causing anyone to lose sleep. The most puzzling of Broida’s complaints, however, is the one about the “mystery box” that accompanies every item in an iTunes library. I hadn’t paid attention to the boxes before, and now I can’t stop looking at them. Stupid iTunes…[PC World]