Bournemouth — May 16th 2017

May's meeting's main event was an introduction to some of iTunes' features from Michael Corgan featuring some beautifully orchestrated slides. Michael started with the rhetorical question of "What does it do?", to which the answer was "A lot!".

Michael continued by describing the many ways to control iTunes, including on-screen buttons, function keys and keyboard shortcuts. He then moved on to adding material to iTunes' library (notably by ripping CDs) and discussed the settings that must be chosen before actually starting to rip. This includes choosing the format (e.g. MP3, AAC for audio) and the bit-rate (that trades-off quality against file size).

Audio books have their own settings and use much lower bit-rates. iTunes can also join CD tracks for continuous audiobook files. Curiously, the type (kind) for audiobooks should be set to 'music', not 'audiobook'.

Finally, Michael looked at buying tracks from the iTunes Store. This is a useful resource for previewing tracks (playing up to 90 second samples) and a very convenient place to buy and download either single tracks or entire albums. Apple Music provides yet more options, albeit for a monthly fee.

The presentation valiantly covered several of iTunes' many functions and there was a hint of a possible follow-up to discuss some more of them.

Comments

Page 1