Recently in iTunes Category

There was a time when playing iTunes music on any non-iPhone device was impossible. Not any longer. Android phones will play iTunes tracks purchased since the store stopped locking down tracks with DRM. This means you can play iTunes on Droid, Samsung Galaxy S, the Nexus One, and any future Android-powered hardware. The one thing you don't get from your iTunes purchases is an easy way to manage adding music from iTunes to your Android phone. Here I walk you through a couple of options for managing music between iTunes and Droid and other Android phones.

" I'm trying to update my iPhone software. I keep getting a network connection timed out message from iTunes before the download completes. How can I update my iPhone if I keep getting this network timeout error?"

Figuring out why the iTunes network connection timed out can be a challenge because there are a number of variables involved. I most commonly see the iTunes network connection timeout happen in one of two situations. If you are trying to update your iPhone software without having the newest version of iTunes installed, you can get a network connection timeout. The other common situation is when you are using an unreliable WiFi connection. So how do you fix the connection timeout?

"I did a restore on my iPad and lost all my apps. When I go back to the iTunes App store it says that I have to buy the same iTunes apps I already purchased. How can I redownload my iTunes apps that were previously purchased from the iTunes store?"

The iTunes App store assumes you will sync your apps with your computer when you connect your iPad. What they don't do is make that process automatic by enabling app sync by default. This translates to a situation like yours, where you purchased a bunch of iTunes apps, restored your iPad, and then realized you didn't have any of your apps. Fortunately, there's a solution that will get you the apps you previously purchased, without spending any additional money.

For being the most widely used music manager on the planet, iTunes is a fairly lousy music manager. It routinely can't find the correct track information or incorrectly assigns track information to songs. It largely seems to happen with songs not purchased through iTunes, which makes me suspicious that the failings are by design. Enter TuneUp, which does a great job of tracking down all that missing song information. Unlike iTunes, which takes a wild guess at what your tracks are, TuneUp plays the tracks with missing data to figure out what they are. Instead of having a bunch of songs labeled Track 1, you get the real song data, correct album art, and a better organized music collection using TuneUp. Made for both Mac and Windows, TuneUp Lite is free for the first 100 albums. If you decide you like it, you can save 15% using the link below.

Download TuneUp for iTunes and try out the free version on your Mac or PC.

"My iTunes account says I have 5 computers authorized. I just got a new computer and it won't let me add my iTunes account. Is there a way to authorize more than 5 computers in iTunes?"

iTunes only allows a maximum of 5 computers per iTunes Store account for music and video playback. This can be frustrating if you change computers often or if you upgrade and realize you don't have a way to deauthorize an old computer. In the past, I've run into a situation where 3 of the 5 computers authorized on my iTunes account weren't even in my house anymore. There are a couple of ways to solve this problem.

"My hard drive crashed and I lost all my iTunes music, including about $1000 worth of songs I purchased from iTunes Music Store. I'm already stuck re-ripping a bunch of CDs but what about all those songs I paid for? Can I re-download songs purchased from iTunes or am I out of luck?"

Sorry to hear about your data disaster. Losing files is never fun and I don't envy you having to rip those CDs. Hopefully I can offer some good news for you with regard to those songs you paid for from iTunes. You can redownload music purchased from iTunes, they just don't make it easy.

"I got a new computer, installed iTunes, and now it says I can't authorize my computer because I have too many. This is the only computer I use so how can I deauthorize iTunes on all computers I'm not using?"

Part of the deal Apple made with music and movie companies when they started selling songs through iTunes was to limit the number of computers where the stuff could be played. This translates to times where you won't be able to access your iTunes purchases like what happened to you here. Fortunately you can deauthorize previous computers, Apple just doesn't make it obvious how to do it.

"Now that Apple owns lala.com can I transfer songs on lala.com to iTunes and then to my iPod?"

In order to put songs from your Lala.com account into iTunes and on your iPod, you need a Lala.com account. You also need to have purchased the download version of the song. Any song you can download as an MP3 from Lala can be added to your iPod. Songs that are web songs, cannot be added to iTunes or copied to your iPod. You do need some additional software to make it easy.

"I have a problem in opening my iTunes. When i double click the icon, a box written with "The iTunes library.itl file is locked, on a locked disk, or you do not have write permission for this file" came out and it prevented me from running my iTunes. What should i do?"

Fortunately problems with opening iTunes don't happen very often, but when they do a feeling of panic can set in. What if you can't access your music. There are a number of potential causes for this error, which makes it hard to narrow down the exact cause. In most cases the solution is one of two things.

"If I have a playlist of songs in iTunes, can I import my iTunes playlist in Windows Media Player and have it work there too? Or do I have to recreate my iTunes playlist in Windows Media Player?"

There is not direct solution to export a playlist from iTunes and import the playlist into Windows Media Player. The two applications use a different structure for their playlist data and don't communicate. Fortunately, there's a workaround.