Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual, Lion Edition

iTunes: The Digital Jukebox

As a Windows veteran, you may already be familiar with iTunes.

iTunes, in your Applications folder, is the ultimate software jukebox (Figure 9-13). It can play music CDs, tune in to Internet radio stations, load up your iPod, iPhone, or iPad, and play back digital sound files (including the Internet’s favorite format, MP3 files) and other popular audio formats. It can also turn selected tracks from your music CDs into MP3 files, so that you can store favorite songs on your hard drive to play back anytime—without having to dig up the original.

iTunes also lets you record your own custom audio CDs that contain only the good songs. Finally, of course, iTunes is the shop window for the online iTunes Store, which sells music, TV shows, movies, and iPhone/iPad apps.

Figure 9-13. When the Library icon is selected in the Source list, you can click the Browse button (upper right) to produce a handy, supplementary view of your music database, organized like a Finder column view. It lets you drill down from a performer’s name (left column) to an album by that artist (right column) to the individual songs on that album (bottom half, beneath the browser panes).

iTunes can also burn MP3 CDs, music CDs that fit much more than the usual 74 or 80 minutes of music onto a disc (because they store songs in MP3 format instead of AIFF). Not all CD players can play MP3 discs, however, ...