iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Second Edition

Chapter 4. iTunes for Macintosh and Windows

Apple’s iTunes software—the ultimate jukebox program for Macintosh and Windows—supplies the software yin to the hardware yang of the iPod. It plays and organizes your music, copies music from your CD collection onto your hard drive, and burns new CDs with music in a sequence you like. It’s also an online music store where you can buy a favorite song, legally, for a buck, with just a few mouse clicks.

Note

If you’re on Windows, you can still use MusicMatch Jukebox Plus, which first came with the iPod in 2002—but you won’t be able to use the iTunes Music Store. If you install iTunes after you’ve installed MusicMatch Jukebox, be warned that the iPod will switch its syncing allegiance to Apple’s software (returning to the mother ship, as it were).

If you try iTunes but want to go back, see Section 5.1 for steps on how to get MusicMatch and the iPod speaking to each other again.

Introduction to iTunes

As the MP3 music craze of the late 1990s swept across the globe, software programs for playing the new music files on the computer began to pop up around the Internet. Many Windows fans fondly remember WinAmp as their introduction to MP3 software; early adopters on the Mac side likely recall programs like SoundApp, SoundJam MP, and MacAmp.

When iTunes debuted in January 2001, Apple reported that 275,000 people downloaded it in the first week. The iTunes software proved to be a versatile, robust all-around music management program made exclusively ...