The Macintosh Ilife 04 © 2004 Jim Heid, All Rights Reserved
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iTunes and iPod: Making Music and iPod: iTunes Making Music Shopping at the iTunes Music Store At the iTunes Music Store, you can search Getting Set Up: Signing In for, browse, audition, and buy music. Wander the store’s virtual aisles or search Step 1: for specific songs or artists. Listen to 30-second clips of your finds. Buy just the Step into the Store songs you want, or buy entire albums. Be sure you’re connected to the iTunes downloads your purchases into your Internet, then click the Music Store music library, from which you can add item in the iTunes Source list. them to playlists, burn them to CDs, and iTunes connects to the music store. transfer them to an iPod. You can browse and search at this If you’ve experimented with music- point, but you can’t buy music until swapping services, you’ll find the iTunes you sign in. Music Store easier to use and much more reliable. And you’ll be able to take off that eye patch, since you won’t be pirating from Step 2: Sign In your favorite artists. To sign in, click the Sign In button You can use the music store with any in the upper-right corner of the If you don’t have an Apple kind of Internet connection, but a high- store, then complete the dialog account, click Create New speed connection—for example, a cable box below. Account and then supply modem or DSL line—works best. Music your billing information. takes a long time to download over a slow modem connection. Before you can buy music, you must set up an account by providing billing infor- mation and creating a password. Once that’s done, you can buy songs and albums with a couple of mouse clicks. The music you buy is stored in AAC format and is tied to your account in ways that guard against the piracy that pervades the MP3 scene. And yet you still have If you’re an America Online If you’re a .Mac member, plenty of freedom to burn CDs and move subscriber, you can charge have purchased from the Apple your music between computers. your purchases to your AOL online store in the past, or account. Click AOL, specify have ordered prints or books Let’s go shopping. your screen name and pass- through iPhoto, you already word, then click Sign In. have an Apple account. Specify your ID and password here, then click Sign In. 30 31 iTunes and iPod: Making Music and iPod: iTunes Making Music See how to go shopping. Shopping at the iTunes Music Store The Music Store at a Glance Navigate within the Browse by genre, store (see below). artist, and album (page 33). Each genre has its own area of the store; choose a genre to Search the store. display its area. To search only by artist, album, song name, or Music Store at the Shopping iTunes Publish your favorite composer, click the playlists for others to magnifying glass and see and rate (page 39). choose a category. Featured items appear After typing search in these virtual aisles. criteria, press the To move within an aisle, Return key to do the click the blue arrows at search. the edges of the aisle. What’s everyone else buying? Top song and album downloads appear here. Getting Around in the Store The navigation bar changes as you move within the store; click the buttons to jump to areas that relate to what’s on your screen. Go back or forward Go to the front of the The current genre To go to the current The album you’re one screen. music store. appears here; click it artist’s discography, currently viewing. to go to that genre’s click the artist’s main screen. name. Some discog- raphies have photos, videos, and links to artist Web sites. 30 31 iTunes and iPod: Making Music and iPod: iTunes Making Music From Browsing to Buying Once you’ve created an account and signed in, you’re ready shop at the iTunes Music Working with a Song List Store. You might start by browsing the store’s virtual aisles, clicking on the little You’ve searched or browsed your way to a list of songs. album thumbnail images or the text links What happens next is up to you. around them. (The links are underlined when you point to them.) Go elsewhere: Click an Follow the pack: The You might jump to a genre by using the album name or photo to most popular songs and Choose Genre pop-up menu. You might display its songs. Click artists that complement use the Browse button to quickly navigate an artist name for a dis- your search appear here, genres, artists, and albums. Or you might cography. Click the genre each as a clickable link. use the Power Search option to home in on name to go to that genre. exactly what you’re looking for. The end result of any searching or browsing session is a list of songs. Here’s where you can play 30-second song pre- views, locate additional songs from an art- ist or album, and most important, buy songs and albums. You can also burn your purchases to audio CDs and transfer them to an iPod. Play a preview: Double-click a song to hear a sample. See more: In the Drill down: In the Who cares? The Buy: To buy a song, Artist column, click Album column, click Relevance column click its Buy Song the arrow for the art- the arrow to show isn’t very useful. button. ist’s discography. the entire album. To hide it, Control- click on its heading and uncheck Relevance. (You can show and hide other columns, too.) 32 33 iTunes and iPod: Making Music and iPod: iTunes Making Music Learn how to shop faster. Tips for the iTunes Music Store To Shop Faster, Browse If you’re the type who heads for a mall directory instead of wandering around, try the music store’s browse mode, where you can quickly home in on genres, artists, and albums. Browsing is efficient, and because it discards graphics in favor of all-text displays, it’s fast, even over slow Internet connections. Step 1. With the music store displayed, click to From Buying Browsing the Browse button in the upper-right corner of the iTunes window. Step 2. Choose a genre, then an artist. Tip: You can navigate the browse boxes with the keyboard. Use the arrow keys to move up and down, or type the first few letters of a word to jump to it. To jump between boxes, press Tab or Shift-Tab. Power Searching With the music store’s Power Search feature, you can specify multiple search criteria at once—for example, to search for only those versions of Giant Steps performed by John Coltrane. Step 1. Click the music store’s Power Search option, or choose Power Search from the search box’s pop-up menu. Step 2. Specify your search criteria and click Search. 32 33 iTunes and iPod: Making Music and iPod: iTunes Making Music Tips for the Music Store Stopping Stutters Advanced menu, choose Apple Account To use the shopping-cart mode, choose in the subsequent dialog box, and then Preferences from the iTunes menu, click Saddled with a slow connection? type your Apple ID and password. You Store, and then click the option labeled Improve song previewing by tweaking must be connected to the Internet to Buy Using a Shopping Cart. The Buy iTunes’ preferences. deauthorize a computer. Song button that appears next to each song now reads Add Song: click it to add Choose Preferences from the iTunes Burning What You Buy menu, click the Store button, and then a song to your cart. check the box labeled Load Complete You can burn purchased songs to audio Preview Before Playing. From now on, CDs, but iTunes imposes a minor restric- iTunes will load the entire preview tion on your burning endeavors. If a To buy the songs in your cart, click the before playing it. You’ll wait longer to playlist contains purchased music, you Shopping Cart item in the Source list, hear the preview, but at least it won’t can burn a maximum of seven CDs then click the Buy Now button near the be interrupted. containing that playlist. lower-right corner of the iTunes window. Authorizing and Binge Buying? Get a Cart Deauthorizing When you go into a store, chances are Unlike the music files that iTunes creates you don’t just buy one thing. Most of the when you rip a CD, the music tracks you time, you grab a shopping cart so you buy contain some playback and copying can haul all of your purchases to the restrictions designed to prevent music cashier at once. thieves from sharing the songs through iTunes provides a shopping cart, and Internet file-swapping services. using it is a better way to shop when Keep Informed When you buy a song, the iTunes Music you’re picking up several songs. If you use iCal (page 86), you can sub- Store embeds your Apple ID in the music When the shopping cart is active, iTunes scribe to daily calendar updates of top file that downloads to your hard drive. doesn’t download each purchased song songs, albums, and new releases by going To play the song, you must authorize immediately. Instead, it slings them into a to Apple’s iCal site (www.apple.com/ical).