Apple Buyer's Guide: iTunes And iPods Put Media In Your PocketApple Buyer's Guide: iTunes And iPods Put Media In Your Pocket

iTunes Software And Store

Once you're an iPod owner, you'll want to use Apple's iTunes software to get your audio and video from your desktop (Mac or Windows) to the iPod. iTunes organizes your music and video by artist, genre, or album, or you can create playlists of multiple tracks. iTunes also is useful for downloading podcasts. You can use iTunes to listen to audio or watch video directly on your desktop, or to manage audio and video on your iPod.

iTunes software also is your main entry into the iTunes Store, where you can buy music for 99 cents per track or $9.99 per album, download TV shows for $1.99 per episode or $9.99 per season, and download movies for $9.99. You can listen to your purchased audio, or watch your purchased video, either on your iPod or desktop.

But you don't need iTunes or even a desktop computer to access the iTunes store. You also can shop wirelessly over the Wi-Fi iTunes Music Store. The Wi-Fi store lets you do most things you can do through iTunes software, and do it over a wireless connection from your Touch or iPhone, without needing a desktop connection. However, the Wi-Fi store doesn't support video or podcasts.

Most of the content in the iTunes store is copy-protected using Apple's FairPlay digital rights management. As DRM schemes go, it's not too onerous. You can play your music and video on up to five computers and an unlimited number of iPods. But you can't play FairPlay content on non-Apple devices, so if you own hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of FairPlay content, you're pretty much locked in to the iPod for the foreseeable future.

It's best to think of FairPlay-protected content as being leased rather than purchased. It's yours for now -- if you play by Apple's rules (and assuming that Apple doesn't decide to change the rules in the future).

Fortunately, there are two ways around FairPlay: First, you can just buy a CD and rip it. iTunes lets you convert CDs to MP3s and play them on your iPod. Likewise, you can import digital video in other formats into your iTunes library.

Or you can export your FairPlay music content to a CD, and then rip that CD back into iTunes. That's cumbersome if you have a lot of FairPlay music, but it can be done. For now at least -- until and unless Apple changes its mind. (Keep in mind that you can't export FairPlay-protected video to a CD or DVD.)

Apple TV: Not Ready For Prime Time

The final product in Apple's multimedia entertainment portfolio is the Apple TV. It's a $299 device that sits in your living room, attaches to your TV, and lets you download Internet content from iTunes and play it on your TV. Our reviewer Carol Pinchefsky described the Apple TV as promising, but not quite ready for prime time.

The pluses (according to Carol): It looks great, links over a home network to a Mac or PC running iTunes, and it's relatively easy to navigate content. The minuses: The picture quality is poor on HDTV, and it doesn't merge your iTunes library from multiple computers into a single collection.

I'll add a minus that Carol missed: It's not a DVR. It doesn't record content off your cable TV or satellite dish. I can't see buying a separate device just for Internet video, in addition to the TiVo, DVD player, and cable box we already have cluttering up our living room. For what it does, the Apple TV is too much of an investment of money and living-room real estate.

Apple has a broad portfolio of multimedia devices and services to suit your entertainment needs. It will sell you audio or video, give you the software to manage it, and the device to play it on. Apple's DRM locks you in to their technology -- but that won't really be a problem until Apple's technology ceases to be the best products available at the best price.