How to Buy Audiobooks, Movies, and Non-Music Products from iTunes
The iTunes Music Store is now just called the iTunes Store because you can purchase a lot more than just music for your iPod. Whether you’re an audiobook fan or a TV buff, or a lifelong learner, you can use your Mac to find what you need on Apple iTunes.
Audiobooks: From Ernest Hemingway to James Patterson, you can find the iTunes equivalent of books on tape. You can sample 90-second previews, three times as long as music selections. Of course, audio books can go on for hours, compared to three or four minutes for your average song. Prices vary too. A 23-minute audio of Stephen Colbert's remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner costs $1.95; an eight-and-a-half-hour audio version of “Papa” Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms goes for $25.95.
Podcasts: Podcasts, found in the Podcasts genre inside iTunes, are another form of Internet radio; you can listen to these free, downloadable files whenever you find time. However, many podcasts go beyond radio and show video. Podcasts cover a broad range of topics (business, politics, sports, TV and film, technology, and so on) and are served up by experienced broadcasters, mainstream media outlets (National Public Broadcasting, Newsweek, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal), and ordinary people.
You can fetch individual episodes by clicking Get Episode or subscribe to podcasts that arrive on a regular basis. As with audiobooks, you can click to hear (or watch) a 90-second sample.
You can find the podcasts you’ve downloaded by clicking Podcasts in the Source list. You can also instruct iTunes on how often to check for new episodes (hourly, daily, weekly, manually) and how long to keep episodes you’ve downloaded (all unplayed, most recent, last two, last five, and more).
Video and TV shows: Lost was among the first handful of TV shows that Apple made available on iTunes. The number of programs quickly mushroomed to incorporate everything from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to The Sopranos. Music videos and short films are also available.
Videos and TV shows inside iTunes cost $1.99 to $2.99 apiece; high-definition shows fetch the higher price. As with audio tracks, you can sample 30-second previews and also subscribe to a season for a given series.
Before you can transfer some videos to an iPod, you may have to convert them to a format iPod recognizes. Select the video and choose Advanced→Convert Selection for iPod.
Movies: Apple not only sells motion pictures through iTunes but rents them, too. Newer films typically cost $14.99 to purchase or $3.99 to rent; add a buck for HD. Rented movies come with restrictions. You have 30 days to start watching, but only 24 hours to finish once you’ve begun playing it.
Through iTunes you can view the trailer and read plot summaries, the credits, and customer reviews. You can watch a movie on your computer. If you want to watch the widescreen TV in your home theater, you need to purchase Apple’s $229 (on up) box called Apple TV that connects to a TV and wirelessly communicates with your iTunes library to show movies, pictures, and videos and play music through the television.
iPod games: Want to play Sudoku or Pac-Man on your iPod? Apple sells Sudoku, Pac-Man, and other iPod games in iTunes for $4.99 each. As of this writing, the games were compatible with third-generation iPod Nano, iPod Classic, and some other models, (but not the Touch or iPhone). And though the games are transferred to the iPod when you connect it to iTunes on your Mac, you can’t actually play the games on your computer.
The App Store: If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can access nifty programs for those devices — covering games, news, productivity, social networking, and more. More than 3,000 apps were available as of this writing, with more than 90 percent priced at under $10 and more than 600 free. While you can access the App Store wirelessly on an iPhone or Touch, you can also get there directly via iTunes.
iTunes U: If you’re a lifelong learner, you’ll enjoy the more than 50,000 free educational audio and video files from top colleges, museums, and other global organizations.
Macs and OS X Glossary
802.11x wireless
A protocol for connections to your Ethernet network and your Apple TV unit.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Address Book
The place for addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses on the Mac. You can also add a picture and note about the person.
Macs and OS X Glossary
alias
A pointer to another application of folder.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Bluetooth
A short-range wireless technology that lets your Mac communicate with other compatible gadgets, from up to 30 feet away.
Macs and OS X Glossary
ColorSync
A printer setting that lets you add black and white, blue tone, sepia, or other filters.
Macs and OS X Glossary
cookie
A small file that a web site automatically saves on your hard drive. It contains information that the site will use on your future visits. For example, a site might save a cookie to preserve your site preferences for the next time or ¯ in the case of a site such as Amazon.com ¯ to identify you automatically and help customize the offerings that you see.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Dashboard
A translucent screen that lays on top of your desktop and houses clever little applications called widgets.
Macs and OS X Glossary
desktop
The whole of your Mac’s computer screen. Also called the Finder.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Discoverable mode
Helps other Bluetooth devices find your Mac.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Dock
The colorful bar on the bottom of the Mac screen. It’s a rough cross between the Windows taskbar and the Start menu.
Macs and OS X Glossary
double-clicking
Left-clicking twice in rapid succession while keeping the cursor in the same location.
Macs and OS X Glossary
dragging
Positioning the cursor on top of a symbol or icon and then holding down the mouse button and rolling the mouse across your desk, which moves the symbol or icon to a new location.
Macs and OS X Glossary
driver
A software program provided by the printer manufacturer that tells Mac OS X how to communicate with your printer.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol; DHCP
A protocol that enables a computer to automatically get connection information for communicating with a network or your ISP.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Exposé
A Mac feature that, with a click of a button, organizes your Mac desktop.
Macs and OS X Glossary
FileVault
A Mac feature that automatically scrambles, or encrypts, the data in your Home folder.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Finder
The application that Mac OS X runs to display the operating system’s menus and windows.
Macs and OS X Glossary
FireWire
A speedy connector often used with digital cameras.
Macs and OS X Glossary
FTP
Part of the TCP/IP protocol suite; (the hoary acronym FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is one of the oldest methods for sharing files between computers
Macs and OS X Glossary
function keys
Housed on the top row of the Mac keyboard, the keys with the letter F followed by a number.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iCal
The Mac’s built-in calendar.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iDVD
The application that lets you burn movies onto a disk.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iMac
A Mac desktop computer.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iPhoto
The application where you store and touch up digital images.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iSync
The application that keeps your calendar, Address Book, and Internet bookmarks synchronized across multiple devices.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iTunes
Apple’s renowned musical jukebox.
Macs and OS X Glossary
iWeb
The tool that lets you create personal Web sites, blogs, and podcasts.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol; LDAP
With LDAP, you can search a central company directory from anywhere in the world as long as you have an Internet connection.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Lightweight Extensible Authentication Protocol
An encryption protocol developed by Cisco Systems for superior security in the business world.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Mac Mini
Apple’s budget desktop computer. Weighing less than 3 pounds, it’s portable, but not in the same sense as a notebook.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Mac OSx
The operating system that Apple included with all new Mac computer systems since 2002.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Mac Pro
A Mac desktop intended for professionals facing demanding graphics and other computing tasks. Its arrival completed the transition of the Mac line to Intel processors.
Macs and OS X Glossary
MacBook Air
Apple’s super-thin Mac. Encased in aluminum with a 13.3-inch display, Air measures just 0.16 inches at its skinniest point and just 0.75 inches at its thickest. But it still boasts a full-size keyboard and very good battery life.
Macs and OS X Glossary
MacBook, MacBook Pro
Apple’s successor to the PowerBook.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Mail
Apple’s built-in calendar.
Macs and OS X Glossary
MobileMe
The application that keeps your e-mail, contacts, and calendar synchronized, no matter what device you’re using.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Network interface card
A hardware device that your computer uses to talk to the rest of the network.
Macs and OS X Glossary
operating software
The software that makes a Mac work.
Macs and OS X Glossary
parental controls
Safety features that let you place limitations on your child’s computer use.
Macs and OS X Glossary
partition
A formatted section of a disk that contains data.
Macs and OS X Glossary
PDF
A special document display format developed by Adobe; they display like a printed document but take up minimal space.
Macs and OS X Glossary
phishing
A form of Internet fraud where identity thieves, posing as a respectable financial or Internet company, tries to dupe you into clicking phony links to verify personal or account information.
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RAID set
A group of multiple separate disks, working together as a team.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Safari
The Mac’s Web browser.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Smart Groups
A way to group contacts in your Address Book.
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Smart Mailboxes
Searches for e-mail that matches specific search criteria.
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Spotlight
The Mac’s search technology.
Macs and OS X Glossary
start-up disk
The boot drive that contains the Mac OS X system you’re using at the moment
Macs and OS X Glossary
thread
Contains an original message and all related replies, which makes it easy to follow the flow of an e-mail discussion without bouncing around within your Inbox, searching for the next message in the conversation.
Macs and OS X Glossary
trackpad
The smooth surface below your Mac keyboard that’s your laptop’s answer to using a mouse.
Macs and OS X Glossary
USB port
The place on your Mac where you plug in devices you want to connect, such as printers, scanners, digital cameras, and more.
Macs and OS X Glossary
Voiceover
A screen reader designed to make using a Mac easier by speaking the contents of the screen.
Macs and OS X Glossary
wireless network
A network that isn’t connected by wires but uses radio waves, instead.
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