First and foremost, PLEASE do not ask me any of the following: who showed me this software, how they got this software, or if I can give it to you. The first two answers are secret, the third is NO. I do not currently have a copy of this - if I did, I wouldn't be talking about it.

That said, there has been a lot of talk about Apple porting iTunes over to other platforms and hardware, and one of the big rumors was a version of iTunes for Sony's PSP. Sony has been one of the sticking points when it comes to the iTunes Music Store, but it seems that they would be far more interested in working with Apple if it benefited their own products in some way. Well, if there was a version of iTunes for PSP, and if people could buy songs from the iTunes Music Store directly onto their PSP, that might give the PSP more value, which would be a good thing for Sony.

I recently received a very strange offer from somebody I know - they claimed to have a copy of iTunes 5.0 for PSP, and wanted to know if I would be interested in checking it out. Obviously, I thought it was a joke at first, but they insisted that they were serious. I've known this person for a long time, and while I still thought they were kidding around, there was enough of a chance that they weren't that I raced over to their place.

They weren't lying.

The Basics
The crude "help" screen currently in place (more on that later) states that this is "iTunes 5.0 for PSP," and it indeed takes after the look of the iTunes 5.0 we all know and love (or hate). The main screen has a play button (that can't be used itself, but changes depending on if the music is playing or paused), the information display, a search box, a Sources list, the 5.0 Search Bar, and your main library listing.

What works / what doesn't
This is very obviously beta software, and I'm not sure if my friend just got ahold of an older version of iTunes PSP, or if this represents the current state the project is at. I'm not sure if this will sync with your Mac / PC version of iTunes 5.0 or not when finished, but right now you have to manually load songs onto a memory stick. However, iTunes PSP seems to read things directly from the main PSP MUSIC folder, and even if music in inside other folders in that folder, iTunes PSP will find it. Music we got to work was MP3 and AAC files - however, music purchased from the iTMS doesn't currently work.

Everything other than the main library in the Sources list doesn't work currently. If you have a UMD in the drive, it'll show up, but you can't do anything with it. I know one of the new features of the 2.0 firmware is playing music off of UMDs, but we didn't have any UMDs that support that feature to see our version of iTunes PSP was able to support them as well or not yet.

The Search Bar works, and you can toggle through the options with the Select button. Selecting "Videos" and "Booklets" do nothing, even if you have video files in the proper PSP folder. The PSP and iTunes support the same types of videos - MPEG4 varients - so I wouldn't be surprised to see that option stay, as it would be very cool. Booklets I'm not too sure of, and my guess is it is probably just placeholder for now. Searching works with the Triangle button - if the search box is empty, you push Triangle, and the standard PSP text entry screen comes up so that you can put in what you want to search for. When done, the search results show up. If you push the Triangle button again when there is text in the search box, it'll clear out, and reveal your entire library. Because of the way you enter text, it is a bit of a pain, so I'm not sure if the search function is going to stay or not.

General Preferences
Here's a look at the General preferences. You'll notice a blue bar on the "Check for new version" option - you press Up or Down on the control pad to move that highlight bar to the option you want to toggle with X. Pressing Circle hits the OK button, and gets you out of the prefs screen. Manually moving down to Cancel causes it to glow, like a default Mac OS X button, but OK stays highlighted as well - obviously a bug. The Left and Right shoulder buttons switch between the different prefs options, but so far only General and Playback have any options in them. The text size options currently don't work, the "check for updates" tries to connect but produces a failure, and the "Podcasts" and "Radio" options indeed remove them from the source list.

Visualizer
While playing around with iTunes PSP, I happen to push the analog stick in a direction, and it switched to a visualizer. The framerate is a little low right now, but I'm sure with more work it could be pretty decent. I worry about the battery life, though, and also if you really need a visualizer on the PSP or not.

Help screen
Very obviously a placeholder screen, as it in no way has an Apple look or feel, and there are some strange word choices, such as "iTunes options" instead of "preferences." There's also no mention of how to bring up the visualizer, or how to even bring up this help screen itself. (Press Select when in the Preferences.) Also, of course, take note of the notice at the bottom. *heh*

FAQ
A few questions I've received from people who have found a way to track down means of contacting me.

That iTunes player looks totally fake. What gives?
As I said, the player is an obvious beta, so I'm sure the interface at this point is more "Try and see what works" than an actual finished interface. The play button there by itself looks odd, but putting the forward and back arrows would be pointless, since you can't push them or interact with them, and you don't need the visual clue. Also, the search box seems to be too far to the right, and the entire balance looks a bit off due to how the info area is skewed more to the left.

Are there other options besides Song Title, Artist, and Time?
Not as of now, at least that I can find. I've also found no way to adjust the size of the columns.

If the help screen comes up from Prefrences, why can't you see the prefs window behind it?
When you press Select to bring up the help window, the prefs window goes away. Press Select again, and you're back to the main iTunes window. As I said, an obvious placeholder, and no doubt just stuck in to explain what most of the buttons do.

How do you start up iTunes PSP? What option is it under?
Actually, if a memory stick formatted to run iTunes is in the PSP, it starts automatically when the PSP is turned on. My friend said that iTunes is installed via a special app, and once installed on the memory stick, you can only (for now) use that stick for iTunes. The reason is that there is no proper interface for getting to iTunes / exiting to the PSP main menu at this point. My guess is the reason is because there is no good place to get to it from the main menu at this point.