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Contents 1 Introduction 2 A look at the iTunes Interface 2.1 Top Toolbar 2.1.1 Playback and Volume Controls 2.1.2 Display 2.1.3 Chapter Button 2.1.4 Search Field 2.1.5 Round Button 2.2 Bottom Toolbar 2.3 Sidebar 2.4 Contents Pane 3 Getting Music In 3.1 From Audio CDs 3.1.1 Step 2: Importing the Music 3.2 From your Hard Drive 4 Meet the Music Store 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Types of Pages 4.2.1 Home Page 4.2.2 Genre Page 4.2.3 Artist Page 4.2.4 Album Page 4.3 Browsing 4.4 Searching 4.5 Special Features 4.5.1 iMix 4.5.2 iTunes Essentials 4.5.3 Celebrity Playlists 4.5.4 Movie Trailers 4.6 Podcasts 4.6.1 About Podcasting 4.6.2 Getting Podcasts 4.6.3 Managing Podcasts 4.7 Videos 4.7.1 About Videos 4.7.2 Getting Videos 4.7.2.1 Music Videos 4.7.2.2 Pixar Shorts 4.7.2.3 TV Shows 5 Organising your Music 5.1 Playlists 5.2 Smart Playlists 5.3 Playlist Folders 5.4 iMixes 5.5 Burning CDs 6 Meet the iPod 6.1 Determining your iPod's model 6.2 Setting up an iPod shuffle 6.3 Setting up an iPod with a screen 6.4 Managing your iPod 7 iTunes Preferences 7.1 General 7.2 iPod 7.3 Podcasts 7.4 Playback 7.5 Sharing 7.6 Store 7.7 Advanced 7.8 Parental Control 8 iTunes Tricks 8.1 The Visualizer 8.2 The Equalizer

[edit] Introduction

Music has taken many forms since the invention of the gramophone in 1887. First there were vinyl records, then cassette tapes, then CDs. Fast forward to now. The era of a physical medium for music is coming to a close, and "digital music" (music stored files on your computer's hard drive) is popping up to replace it. To manage your collection of digital music, you use a specialized music-managing application. And Apple's iTunes is widely considered to be the best availible.

Please Note that this chapter covers the Macintosh version of iTunes only.

[edit] A look at the iTunes Interface

The grey plastic iTunes window has many components. Let's take a look at them:

[edit] Top Toolbar

[edit] Playback and Volume Controls

The three glossy white buttons on the left-hand side of the toolbar control the playback of music. Directly to their right is a volume slider for adjusting how loudly iTunes plays music.

[edit] Display

iTunes has a pale yellow display built right in to middle of the toolbar. This displays the currently playing song, a level meter, and status of tasks such as downloading, importing, burning, or synchronizing with an iPod. To cycle through the availible things to display, click the small right-arrow button on the left side of the display.

[edit] Chapter Button

When listening to a podcast with "chapters", you'll use this button to navigate inside it.

[edit] Search Field

This Spotlight Search Field helps you find music as fast as you can type.

[edit] Round Button

The big round button on the far right of the top toolbar changes functions depending on what you are doing. It's many states include Browse, Burn, Refresh, Update, and Options.

[edit] Bottom Toolbar

[edit] Sidebar

[edit] Contents Pane

[edit] Getting Music In

Before you can organize and listen to your digital music, you'll need to get it into iTunes. The steps yo must follow vary depending on where your music is currently stored.

[edit] From Audio CDs

You may already have a large collection of music on CDs. It would be a shame to waste all of your CD music, right? Fortunately, iTunes lets you take audio CDs and turn them into digital music files very easily.

in iTunes You Can import songs by putting your CD's In Your PC Or Mac Then Click import CD. It Will Go In Your Libary , Then You Put In Your iPod Then Drag The Songs To Your iPod (When You First Pust Your iPod In There Is A Setting That Says Do You Want iTunes To Put All The Music On Your iPod Automaticly)

(If You Don't Have iTunes Click On The Link to Get It http://www.apple.com/itunes/overview/ )

[edit] Step 2: Importing the Music

TIP: If you're about to go on an importing binge (where you will import all songs on every CD you put in your Mac's drive), the first setting back in Importing Preferences comes in handy. It lets you choose what iTunes does when you put in a CD. Since iTunes lets you pick out which songs to import, most people normally have this set to simply show the songs on the CD and let you choose how to play them, or maybe automatically play the CD upon insertion. But if you're about to go on an importing binge, the one you want to pick is "Import and Eject". Now you don't have to worry about anything: as soon as you put in a CD, iTunes will do everything detailed below automatically.

WARNING: Unless you're a fan of manually typing in all of the details of your CD, make sure your computer is connected to the Internet when you import music! iTunes will connect to a special website called the "Gracenote CD Database" and find out all of the information about your CD and put it in automatically.

Now that you have your encoder set up to your liking, it's time to do the actual importing. Insert a CD, and it will appear in the Source sidebar. Select it, and you should see a list of songs. If you see generic "Track 1, Track 2..." names, read the warning above.

You can preview any song simply by double-clicking its title. Check the boxes next to the songs you wish to import, and make sure the songs you don't like aren't checked. Now press the big, round import button in the top-right corner and iTunes will go through and copy the songs to your computer. As it does this, the songs it has finished will be labeled with a green checkmark, and songs it's working on with an animated orange soundwave symbol.

When all the songs you picked are done importing, you're CD has been successfully imported! The songs are now in your library.

[edit] From your Hard Drive

If you already have digital music files lying around your hard drive, you can add them to iTunes very easily. Simply select your Library in the Source sidebar and drag and drop the file into the main pane. Done! The file is now in your library. Note that you WILL have to enter the information for the file manually, because the Gracenote CD Database, as the name implies, works only for CDs.

[edit] Meet the Music Store

[edit] Introduction

[edit] Types of Pages

[edit] Home Page

[edit] Genre Page

[edit] Artist Page

[edit] Album Page

[edit] Browsing

[edit] Searching

[edit] Special Features

[edit] iMix

[edit] iTunes Essentials

[edit] Celebrity Playlists

[edit] Movie Trailers

[edit] Podcasts

[edit] About Podcasting

[edit] Getting Podcasts

[edit] Managing Podcasts

[edit] Videos

[edit] About Videos

[edit] Getting Videos

[edit] Music Videos

[edit] Pixar Shorts

[edit] TV Shows

[edit] Organising your Music

iTunes was the first application to introduce Apple's famous "Library/Collections" method for organising items. All music you add to iTunes is stored in a central storage area called your "Library". You can then create lists of music called playlists, which include only links to songs that live in your library.

[edit] Playlists

To create a new blank playlist, press the + button below the sidebar.

[edit] Smart Playlists

[edit] Playlist Folders

Playlist folders are new to iTunes 6 and are a convenient way of keeping playlists organised. They also act like playlists themselves, making for a great way to build "macro playlists". Selecting a folder, will display every song of every playlist contained within it, in the library window. With a little imagination this can prove to be a powerful feature.

[edit] iMixes

[edit] Burning CDs

[edit] Meet the iPod

You probably know that the iPod is Apple's uber-Popular portable digital music player. These days, you can spot the signature white earbuds everywhere you go, and the latest models can play movies and photos in addition to music. Is setting one up hard? Why don't you be the judge?

[edit] Determining your iPod's model

There are six different models of Apple's flagship iPod. They are named after the most important new trait in each new model:

• iPod with Scroll Wheel - This iPod's wheel actually moves under your finger
• iPod with Touch Wheel - This iPod's wheel is white and touch sensitive, but its buttons are not
• iPod with Dock Connector - This iPod has four touch-sensitive buttons lined up above the wheel
• iPod with Click Wheel - This iPod has its buttons under the wheel, which is grey
• iPod with Color Display - This iPod is identical to the iPod with Click Wheel, but has a color screen.
• iPod with Video Playback (current) - This iPod supports video playback, and has a large color screen.

Both the iPod with Click Wheel and iPod with Color Display had special "U2 Editions" availible. These iPods are black with a red wheel, and have the signatures of U2's members on the back, but are otherwise identical to their white counterparts (The iPod with Video Playback comes in black, but it is not a U2 edition). Also note that the iPod with Color Dispaly was also sold as the "iPod photo".

In addition, Apple has produced three spin-off iPods:

• iPod mini - This iPod is made of colored (or silver) aluminum
• iPod shuffle (current) - This iPod does not have a screen
• iPod nano (current) - This iPod is about as thick as a pencil

It is important to know your iPod's model when setting it up or using it with iTunes.

[edit] Setting up an iPod shuffle

[edit] Setting up an iPod with a screen

[edit] Managing your iPod

[edit] iTunes Preferences

To access the Preferences menu, go to Edit>Preferences.

NOTE: [1/2/3] denotes a radio button or a drop-down menu. [1, 2, 3] or [1] denotes a checklist. (Example) denotes a push button.
<0--example--10> denotes a slider. The horizontal line denotes a horizontal line in the menu.

[edit] General

• Source Text: [Small/Large]

This option defines how large the text in the sidebar is. Default: "Small".

• Song Text: [Small/Large]

This option defines how large the other text is. Default: "Small".

• Show: [Party Shuffle, Videos]

This option defines which of these things to show in the sidebar. Default: All.

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• [Show genre when browsing, Group compilations when browsing, Show links to Music Store]

These options are pretty self-explanatory. Default: "Show genre, Show links".

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• [Check for iTunes updates automatically]

Also self-explanatory. Default: On.

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• Language: [List of languages]

[edit] iPod

(Placeholder, I don't have an iPod)

[edit] Podcasts

• Check for new episodes: [Every hour/Every day/Every week/Manually]

This option defines how much time should pass before iTunes checks for updates. If "Manually" is selected, you must click "Update" from the podcast screen. Default: "Every day".

• When new episodes are availible: [Download all/Download most recent one/Do nothing]

This option defines how iTunes should handle new updates. Default: "Download all"(?).

• Keep: [All episodes/All unplayed episodes/Most recent episode/Last 2 episodes/Last 3 episodes/Last 4 episodes/Last 5 episodes/Last 10 episodes]

This option defines what iTunes should trash to leave room on your hard drive. Default: "Last 5 episodes".

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• Set which podcasts are downloaded to your iPod: (iPod Preferences)

This takes you back to the iPod tab.

[edit] Playback

(Note: This gets REALLY complicated, so I have split each checkbox option up into its own bullet. Just stay with me.)

• [Crossfade Playback:] <0--seconds--12>

This option defines whether iTunes should fade the current song out as the next song fades in. I recommend unchecking this, because it gets really annoying. Default: On, slider set to 5.

• [Sound Enhancer:] <low----high>

Whatever this is. Default: Off.

• [Sound Check]

To quote: "Automatically adjusts song playback volume to the same level." Default: Off.

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• Smart Shuffle: <more likely--random--less likely>

To quote again: "Smart shuffle allows you to control how likely you are to hear multiple songs in a row by the same artist or from the same album."

• Shuffle: [Songs/Albums/Groupings]

Umm... I dunno. Default: Songs.

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• Play videos: [in the main window/in a separate window/full screen]

Self-explanatory.

[edit] Sharing

I dunno what the heck this is, so I won't get into it.

[edit] Store

• [Buy and download using 1-Click/Buy using a Shopping Cart]

1-Click downloads and charges as soon as you click on the button, but it warns you (you can opt to turn this warning off). A Shopping Cart is self-explanatory. Default: 1-Click(?).

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• [Automatically create playlists when buying song collections, Play songs after downloading, Load complete preview before playing]

...? Default: Automatically create playlists.

[edit] Advanced

Whoo! I can't go into detail about this!

[edit] Parental Control

• Sources: [Disable Podcasts, Disable Radio, Disable Music Store, Disable shared music]

Self explanatory. Default: None.

• Music Store: [Restrict explicit content]

I'm guessing this doesn't show things with the iTunes "Explicit" bar.

• Click the lock to prevent further changes.

This allows you to set password protection on this bar.

[edit] iTunes Tricks

[edit] The Visualizer

The visualizer is a nifty iTunes feature that lets you view an automatic light show choreographed to your music. To start it up, press the "atom" button on the right side of iTunes' bottom bar.

[edit] The Equalizer

The equalizer can be found in the lower right hand corner of the iTunes program, the 3 sliders Icon gets it started. After that, some adjusting of the sliders and you change the sound.