Let iTunes expert Kirk McElhearn help you become an iTunes power user and get the most out of iTunes 11 whether you want to enjoy your own media or try cloud-based options like podcasts and iTunes Radio.
With a question-and-answer approach, Kirk shares his love of music and helps you understand the process of bringing media into iTunes, tagging it, adding album artwork, and organizing it into playlists. You’ll also learn the best ways to transfer media to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod.
Coupons in the back of the ebook help you save $5 off Equinux’s SongGenie for adding metadata and $5 off Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil wireless audio streaming software.
Find answers to questions about how to:
Play: This chapter covers how to play audio and video, and how to make quick playlists with Genius and Up Next. It also describes how to bring back the left-hand sidebar. Or, you can learn to love the new Source pop-up menu.
Rip: Add content to iTunes with detailed steps for ripping music CDs and audiobooks. (If you want to rip—or tag—audiobooks so they play nicely from iTunes, don’t miss this chapter!) Also, find general advice for ripping video DVDs and learn which file formats work in iTunes.
Buy: Become expert at managing and sharing iTunes Store media (including free podcasts and iTunes U courses), and understand what the iTunes Store does well—and not so well. Plus, discover other online music vendors, whether you want to download or stream content.
Tag: Kirk describes himself as tag obsessed. If that description fits you, or if you just want to take control of your tags, this chapter is for you. Tags are descriptive bits of information—known to geeks as metadata— that describe your media. You can sort and filter based on tags, giving you myriad ways to manipulate your iTunes library. Learn which tags to bother changing, how to tag a file to put it in a particular library, how to add lyrics and album art, and more.
View: iTunes has more views than flavors of ice cream at the corner grocery. Get the scoop on how to switch between views, where your album art is (or is not), and so forth. This chapter also discusses plain-as-vanilla contextual menus and Apple’s new menu flavor — the popover.
Organize: Make a simple playlist of romantic songs, workout songs, or whatever theme you like. Also, create smart playlists that, for example, comprise only your 5-star faves or tunes you haven’t heard recently. You’ll also find answers to questions about operational issues like dealing with a huge library, multiple libraries, and where iTunes puts your media files…including ebooks in 10.9 Mavericks.
Search: Find media in iTunes, plus learn tricks such as searching based on star rating or locating duplicates.
Sync: You’ve put all your media in iTunes… now, how do you transfer it to an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? This chapter answers questions about manually managing the transfer and has help for people who have too much music. It also notes options for playing media through a second- or third-generation Apple TV.
Cloud: Access content you bought from Apple even if you never actively downloaded it, from your computer or an iOS device. Plus, try iTunes Match, a subscription service that uploads your music to the cloud even if you didn’t buy it from Apple.
Share: Find answers to questions about sharing iTunes library media with others, primarily through Home Sharing on a local network.
Burn and Print: Learn how to copy music from iTunes to a CD. Also, get directions for printing a song list, for example, to include in the jewel case of said CD.
Back Up: This short chapter has tips and inspiration for backing up your (potentially irreplaceable) iTunes media.
Extend with AppleScript: Mac users can make iTunes do more with AppleScript. Learn about key AppleScripts that you can download to make iTunes jump through even more hoops.
Whether you are new to iTunes or a longtime user, I highly recommend Take Control of iTunes 11: The FAQ.
—Peter Bird, MyMac.com review
About Kirk McElhearn
Kirk McElhearn writes about Apple hardware and software, books, music, and more. As a Senior Contributor to Macworld for more than 15 years, he wrote hundreds of articles, including the Ask the iTunes Guy column. He is a regular contributor to The Mac Security Blog, the Literature & Latte blog, where he writes about their writing app Scrivener, and TidBITS, as well as several other websites and magazines. He is co-host of several podcasts, including The Next Track, a podcast about how people listen to music today, and Write Now with Scrivener. Visit his website Kirkville.