iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

A Tip for Dial-Up Music Lovers

The fact is, the iTunes Store works best with a high-speed Internet connection. Thanks to Apple's 1-Click option (see the top radio button in the image below), iTunes can instantly download a selected track as soon as you click the Buy Song button. That's a quick and painless experience for high speeders, but not so much fun for dial-up folks who have to wait for each track to download, bit by painfully slow bit.

If you have a dial-up modem and want a smoother shopping experience, iTunes has a setting that may help. You can find it on the Store tab of the iTunes Preferences box (Ctrl+comma/⌘-comma).

❶ Buy using a Shopping Cart. Now all songs you buy pile up until the end of your shopping session; then iTunes downloads them all at once when you click the Shopping Cart icon in your iTunes Source list (and then click Buy Now). This way, you can go off and do something productive while the stack of tracks squeezes through the dial-up connection.

Note

The 99-cent song was the set price in the iTunes Store for years, but as of April 2009, Apple is mixing things up a bit thanks to new deals with the record labels. Depending on the track, it could cost 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29. Albums remain dependably steady at about $10 a shot.