Before we begin walking you through the introduction to ITunes, you may be wondering what exactly ITunes is, and what it can do for you. In short, ITunes is a digital media library, store, podcast directory, and radio directory. These broad functions are all housed within one application called ITunes.
ITunes allows you to listen to free online radio all over the world in just about any category you can think of. Similarly, ITunes makes thousands of podcasts available for free just by browsing for them. ITunes can also help you build your digital media libraries of content like music, movies, and even TV shows. For example, ITunes can rip CDs to your computer so that you can listen to them whenever you want, without locating the CD first. If you want to buy an album or just a few tracks from an artist, ITunes can help you do that to. When you buy the music, ITunes will automatically download the music for you, and place it in your ITunes library, as well as in your music folder under the ITunes folder. You can buy TV shows, and movies from the ITunes store also.
Before you begin using ITunes, you need to download ITunes, and then install the program on your PC. Installing the program is fairly easy, and involves agreeing to the license agreement, and then hitting the next buttons a few times. Once you get through the install process, you’ll be asked to restart your PC before using the program.
Now we finally get to the fun part. To start iTunes, find the ITunes icon in either the start menu, or desktop. ITunes can take an unusually long time to start, so just wait a bit longer for this one to start up. You may need to accept yet another license agreement when the program starts, but it only has to be accepted once. After that, the program will start and bypass the license agreement.
When ITunes starts, you will be placed within the sources tree view. This area allows you to select categories’ of interest to brows. As an example, tapping the letter R will select the radio category. When you tab, you will be presented with radio categories’, such as alternative, classical, rock, and so on. In this case, just arrow to the category that you want, open the category with the right arrow key. Then arrow down through the radio stations. When you find one that you want to play, just tap the enter key. To stop playback, just tap the space bar key. You can close a category of radio stations by tapping the left arrow key.
Some other areas to explore are the podcasts category. As was mentioned before, there are literally thousands of these to play with. You just search for what you’re looking for. If you find a podcast of interest, you can then subscribe to it, and you will have new podcasts downloaded to your computer automatically when they are issued.
The ITunes store is a great way to buy albums, or individual artist tracks. All you need to do is to select the ITunes store, and then tab to the search box. Type what you want and tap the enter key. When you tap the F6 key, it will move you to the different parts of the program. So after you do a search, you need to tap F6 to go to the results. These results are presented like a web page, so familiarity with the web is very handy in this area. Once you find your album, to play, you can press enter on it, then you will have to tap the f6 key to go to the list of tracks. As with the radio category, you arrow to the track, and tap enter to play it. Stop playback by tapping the space bar key.
Once you amass a few albums, you will really begin to build your personal digital music library. You can then brows the library and play tracks at will whenever you want. You can also create playlists of songs, and albums that you can play for hours of enjoyment! ITunes is really a fun way to discover new ways to part with your money. You will find something for everyone here. Take your time enjoying what ITunes has to offer.