iTunes is the worst piece of software ever written (yes, worse than Windows ME).

It is slow. It is ugly. It is not fit for purpose. It makes it incomprehensibly complicated to anything other than the simplest possible action. It takes forever to start, forever to sync, forever to do anything.

I think the main problem is that iTunes was designed to be a music player. Over the years, the iTunes store, iPod syncing, iPad syncing, podcasts, books (Books?! In iTunes?!) apps, Genius, a social network (remember Ping? No, nobody else either), and various other things that should  never have existed in a media player have been bolted on and it’s become a bloated steaming pile of shit.

iTunes Sucks

If I copy a CD to my computer (as I do a lot, as I like buying CDs rather than digital downloads – but that’s another blog post entirely), to get it on my phone (Galaxy Nexus, ICS) I do the following:

• Copy CD to computer
• ???
• Music appears on phone

This is due to the wonder that is Google Music. Its uploader sits in the background on my PC, uploads it to the server, and as soon as it’s there it’s available to play on my phone straight away (or press the “Save for offline” button for use on a plane etc.).

To get it on to my iPad / iPod:

• Copy CD to computer
• Add the new folders to the library (even though I’ve told it where my music library is, because it’s not the default iTunes folder and iTunes did not rip the CD, it does not pick up new music automatically)
• Wait for it to add the files, with a popup box containing an unending progess bar, which stops me using iTunes for anything else at the time
• Dismiss all the duplicate notifications. Note there’s no skip all button if you accidentally try and replace in stuff you already have in the library – you have to click “Don’t replace” every single time.

Clicky clicky clicky....zzzzz

• Wait for it to load album artwork, which always ignores the existing downloaded album art and never seems to find the right album art.

Waiting to add files...

• Go through each album without album art. Right click to find album art. Mostly this works, when it doesn’t you have to find the art, copy it, right click on the album, hit Get Info, and then right click on the white square and paste the image in. Then press OK and wait for it to apply.

Waiting for the broken album art...

• Wait for it to analyse all of the tracks for gapless playback information, which seems to take an eternity. Pretty sure I also have that feature off.

Gapless, which should be off but takes forever

• Plug in iPad / iPod. You can’t choose what music goes on to the device until it is plugged in (WTF?). Clear warning about not having enough space. Take stuff off. Have too much space. Add stuff on.
• Try and sync. Sync fails, not enough space. A mysterious 1.5GB of “Other” has randomly appeared. Remove stuff. Sync.

This is by far the most annoying thing. Popup says not enough space, capacity bar says I've plenty.

• Punch things.

This is very very broken. Something needs to be done about it.

While I admire Apple’s hardware, their software has always been absolutely terrible. Quicktime – I need say no more. OS X is basically unusable.  iTunes isn’t fit for purpose. iOS is so slow it seems like it’s running on a steam engine.

It is with great pleasure that I announce my latest open-source adventure in the form of Twiq.

Twiq is a little applet for Windows that allows you to quickly tweet a message you come up with and then get straight back to work.

Too many times I have forgotten something funny, useful or generally tweetable while I wait for a web browser and Twitter.com or a client to load. No longer! Twiq is always listening just a keypress away (Ctrl+Win+Space in fact) to get that tweet dispatched efficiently.

You can’t read tweets with Twiq, but then you’d get distracted from whatever you’re working on. The flow for creating a tweet with Twiq has been designed to be super-smooth. Ctrl+Win+Space brings up the program, and puts your cursor in the tweet box; 140 taps gets you a witty, thoughtful, or useful tweet; press Return and your tweet is dispatched; Ctrl+Win+Space gets rid of Twiq and you back to work.

By popular demand – a screenshot of Twiq in action:

Twiq is free and open-source. The code is on Github, and you can get the latest installer from there too.

I’m just going to say this – the point of me writing this review is that you go and download the Beluga app for your iPhone or Android device right now. Not because someone can give me some dollars (coz that would be nice) but because for the first time in many years I see an application that could possibly just change things on a scale bigger than Twitter and Facebook.

No light words, there. But Beluga is an application unlike any other that I have seen. While it seems simple on the outside, I think it has some kind of power to do something great and get rid of SMS, and Facebook for good. But it’s not just me – Louis Gray and MG Siegler have been waxing lyrical about it too.

So what does this app actually do that makes it so cool?

Last night Google Hotpot launched. It is a very early version of Google’s local ratings service, giving users the chance to rate local restaurants, bars, pubs, clubs – well pretty much any place really. Initially I thought (as I suppose many people did) that this is only the web interface, but I also noticed this morning that Google Maps automatically updated on my Android phone (don’t worry, I told it that it could do that) to include a fancy widget to help you rate places as you go to them.

That’s right, now is your chance to sign up for the Imagine Cup – the worldwide student technology competition!

Whether you’re in to programming, digital media, IT or gaming, there is a competition for you to sink your teeth in to. And if you win in the UK, not only will you get great exposure for you and your idea, but you will also win a trip to New York for the worldwide finals next year!