What is iTunes

iTunes is a popular free application from Apple which, among other things, can import, organize and play back a library of music. All Macs come with itunes preinstalled and a Windows version is also available free of charge.

The main features of iTunes are

Simplicity

iTunes is easy to use and most functions can be achieved within a couple of mouse clicks.

Importing from CD

iTunes can import your CDs for you and if you have an internet connection it will automatically get the track names from the CDDB database. This means you don't have to manually name your tracks and is a great time saver, iTunes can encode your music into a variety of formats.

For more information on encoding check out the ripping/encoding section on page 3

Automatic Library organization

If you let iTunes organize your music for you, all the tracks you add to your library will be moved into a folder structure according to the tags in your files. So if you have a track by Toto called Rosanna, from the album Past to Present, it will be moved into your iTunes Music folder under:

iTunes Music/Toto/Past To Present/Rosanna.mp3

This can be a valuable tool for keeping your music tidy on your hard drive.

Other features

iTunes is the default way to manage music on an iPod, iTunes will automatically synchronise the music collection on your iPod with the music on your machine. iTunes also allows you to purchase and download music from the apple music store

Please note: older music bought from the Apple Store can be DRM protected and will not play in Scratch LIVE or anything other than iTunes. You can upgrade most music to remove the DRM protection using the iTunes Plus service form the Apple Store.

Some useful iTunes links

Apple iTunes page
Wikipedia iTunes Article
Wikipedia comparison of media players