Yeah. We know. Welcome to bluetooth. This makes everyone crazy, people have been talking about it for years and Apple hasn't fixed it since 10.6. We can only assume this is intended to harass us into using iTunes as our media center. Instead of competing products like Garageband, Skype or World of Warcraft.
I wrote a perl script to automatically kill itunes anytime it tries to start. Added the script as a login item. Works slicker than anything else I have found, and it works universally, as Apple keeps finding inventive new ways to launch iTunes uncommanded.
Stick it in a plain text file, test it at the command line, then add it as a login item. Here you go.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
# Force iTunes to quit the moment it tries to start up. When you want to
# actually run iTunes, start a small app you don't normally use, then iTunes.
# An example is Notes or Dictionary. Specify that app in $partnerapp.
my $partnerApp = "Dictionary"; # name must be exact. Case matters.
print "Killing iTunes unless '$partnerApp.app' is running.\n"; #\n is return
while (1) {
my $line = "";
my $allow = 0;
# run ps -aef and scan output to see if iTunes and partnerApp are running.
foreach (`ps -aef`) { # read each line into magic variable $_
$allow = 1 if (length($partnerApp) and m=/$partnerApp.app=);
next if (not m=/iTunes.app/=); # skip if not part of iTunes app
next if (not m=/iTunes =); # skip if not the main iTunes program
$line = $_;
} # end scanning ps -aef
if ($line and not $allow) {
my $pid = substr ($line, 6, 5); # parse out 5-digit process ID
system "kill $pid"; # force quit that process ID
print "Killed $pid $line\n"; # tell the user.
} # end foreach
sleep (2); # 2 seconds
} # end while forever
