In 1993, Billy Idol released a concept album called Cyberpunk, which shipped to rock critics with a floppy disk of interactive artwork. We can’t recall a single track from the album, but we do remember being sure that this was the future of music. iTunes LP reminds us of that--and of years spent pouring over liner notes before there was Google search.

iTunes LP is Apple’s newest music “format,” essentially a bundle of extra video, music, and image files to play on your computer (but not on your iPod). When LP launched, the iTunes Music Store featured a handful of albums that touted the new format. We downloaded the latest offerings from Muse and Jay-Z (whose lead single ironically proclaims, “Death of the ringtone/This ain’t for iTunes”). In Jay-Z’s case, the iTunes LP extras came bundled with the iTunes’ deluxe version of the album, which sells for $6 more than the standard version. Muse, on the other hand, only offers a single iteration of its album The Resistance. It costs $11.99 and isn’t labeled as a deluxe offering, but includes iTunes LP content. It sounds confusing because it is: iTunes LP adds a potential third variant to iTunes’ full album options.

Jay-Z brags that Blueprint 3 "isn't for iTunes," but iTunes LP begs to differ.

When you play an iTunes LP file on your Mac, you get a custom view of the album’s contents. iTunes LP is designed as a full-screen interface, but the main display area is 1280x720 pixels, which can result in distracting scrollbars appearing, depending on your display settings. You can play album tracks or view extras like photos, videos, and liner notes. We were disappointed that you can’t sync the extra iTunes LP content to your iPhone or iPod. LP files are built from of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see iPhones and iPod touches eventually gain the ability to natively play iTunes LP files. For now, however, users are out of luck--unless they’re comfortable poking around inside OS X packages and manually adding the content to their devices.

From iTunes LP, there’s no way to rate tracks or view metadata without exiting to the standard iTunes interface. If you exit the LP, the current song will continue to play, but reopening LP takes you back to the top level of the menu, stopping playback. A few times, we had problems loading LP files, and they just stuck on the splash screens, which appear while content loads. From the song list, clicking on a song title doesn’t start playback. Instead, it brings up a screen of related info, with a Play button that has to be clicked separately. Since the screens aren’t standard, the Play button isn’t necessarily easy to find or always in the same place. These are small annoyances, for sure, but they add up to a somewhat frustrating experience for actually listening to music, which is supposed to be the whole point.

iTunes LP is a cool idea, but it's bogged down by interface problems and small inconsistencies--the kind of stuff we buy Apple products to avoid.

iTunes LP
COMPANY: Apple, Inc.
CONTACT: www.apple.com
PRICE: varies
REQUIREMENTS: Mac OS 10.5 or later, iTunes 9
Photos, videos, and other extras. Brings the pleasure of liner notes back to music geeks.
Can't sync iTunes LP content to an iPod or iPhone. Interface inconsistencies are a pain. Standard dimensions may cause scrollbars to appear on smaller displays.