The iTunes Interface

Here's an overview of the main iTunes interface (version 6) on a Windows machine (the Mac interface is almost identical). Mouse over the red boxes for details:

There are really just a few steps to getting started with iTunes:

1. Download and install the software - Go to www.apple.com/itunes/ and click "Free Download." When you install the software, it asks if you want it to move your current music library into iTunes. It'll find it and import it all at once, organizing your files in folders by artist name and then at a second level by album title. If you don't want to import your music during the installation process because you want more control over what gets moved where, then you can do it manually after the installation (see step 2).

2. Import your music - You have two options in the "File" menu at the top of the iTunes interface. You can add a file to your iTunes library, add a folder to your iTunes library, or "Import." If you "Import," iTunes will search for your music and give you the option to import it all at once, which is basically the same process as letting iTunes import your music during installation.

   Once you import some music, the iTunes library looks something like this:

You can see here that a couple of the tracks we imported don't have complete ID3 tag information. We could add any missing album or genre information to a song by right-clicking on it and selecting "Get Info."

3. Create a playlist - Click the "+" button at the bottom-left of the iTunes interface. A new playlist will appear in the Source column.

Name your playlist. We'll call ours "HowStuffWorks." Then right-click on each song in your library that you want on this playlist and choose "Add to Playlist" from the list of options. The playlist you just named will appear for you to choose it.

Here's our new playlist:

4. Burn the playlist to a CD - Just put a CD-R in your drive, and the iTunes software detects it. Now the Browse/Burn button in the top-right corner of the iTunes interface is for burning. Click it. Done. You'll have your new CD in about 2 minutes (give or take a minute depending on how many tracks are in your playlist).

5. Download your music to an iPod - Plug your iPod into your computer's USB 2.0 port. Done. iTunes sees the player and downloads your entire iTunes library. If you'd rather transfer files manually or only transfer certain playlists, you can change the sync settings at Edit/Preferences/iPod.

Once you've got a feel for the software, check out the Advanced tab and the Preferences and View Options areas under the Edit tab at the top of the screen. From here, you can play with some of the features like display settings, file-type conversion, burn speed, parental controls and podcast settings. And you might want to explore the built-in iTunes Store to add to your library of content. In the next section, we'll visit the iTunes Music Store.

Is Apple Spying? MiniStore showed up as auto-enabled feature in iTunes v.6.0.2. This feature sends information to the iTunes Music Store about what you're listening to, and the Store sends back related content you might be interested in buying. When people installed 6.0.2, they didn't know it was sending out information about them. When they discovered it, the word "spyware" started getting thrown around quite a bit. As a result, Apple put a notice on the software support pages explaining what MiniStore does and doesn't do (Apple claims that none of the information sent to the Store is recorded anywhere) and how to disable the feature in version 6.0.2. Apple also turned off the default enabled setting for MiniStore in version 6.0.3, so that users need to turn it on in the first place.