May 24, 2010
You can now use the down triangle next to an app's Buy button in the iTunes Store to buy and give apps to others, just like you can do with songs, albums, movies, TV episodes and seasons, and audiobooks. To send a gift by email, just enter the recipient's email address (or separate multiple email addresses with commas to send to more than one person). You can also choose to print out a gift certificate to mail or give in person. By the way, if you just want to spread the word instead, the Tell a Friend option is also available via the triangle, and it lets you send an email from within iTunes by entering text and your friends' email addresses. Or you can use Copy Link and then paste it into a mail message.
May 17, 2010
As your music library grows, duplicate copies of songs have a way of showing up in your collection. A little periodic purging with the help of the Display Duplicates command in the File menu can both save space and keep things tidy. Begin by selecting Music in your iTunes Library, then choose Display Duplicates in the File Menu and sort the resulting list by Name. It will display only songs with names that exactly match the names of other songs.
Not all will be duplicates, of course. For example, some might be covers, and others could be different performances by the same artist. To help identify actual duplicates, put the Time column right next to the Name column in your display. (Just grab it by the title and drag it over there. And by the way, hiding the Artwork column will make it easier to spot what you're looking for.) Identical names with identical playing times are highly likely to be duplicates and you can then choose the one(s) you want to get rid of. When you're done, click Show All at the bottom of the window.
There's also a quick way to spot duplicates of the exact same song from the exact same album by changing the Display Duplicates command to Display Exact Duplicates. In iTunes for Windows you do this by holding down the Shift key when you click the File menu, and you can then move down the menu to select that command. On the Mac, hold down the Option key while you select the Display Duplicates command and it will change to Display Exact Duplicates. You'll still need to look carefully before deleting because some albums contain more than one version of the same song, but most of what you'll see will be true duplicates.
May 10, 2010
On the iPhone and iPad you can go directly to the App Store and use the Categories button on the bottom of the page to find out what's just been released in each app category. After you pick a category (or in the case of Games, a subcategory) use the Release Date tab at the top to produce a view with the most recent releases displayed first. (On the iPad there's also a Release Date tab at the top of the App Store front page.)
In iTunes on your computer, start by selecting either iPhone or iPad at the top of the App Store front page, then point at App Store and use the triangle that will appear to choose among the categories. Apps that support both iPhone/iPod touch and iPad will appear when you browse no matter which you choose, and if you click one of those apps for more detail you'll be able to switch between iPhone and iPad screenshots to see how the app presents itself on the two screens. To find the subcategories for the Games category, scroll down the page to the More Games list of links on the lower right.
