Aaah, iTunes. You know, it comes with your Mac but you don't really use it because it's the place you download music. You know music you have to PAY for. It may be a second home for your children and the bane of your credit card, but hold on. There's something else here. Something great, something FREE. OK. Interested a bit now.
Out in the real world, it's a fair bet that you are interested in something. It may be as prosaic as Golf (I know Golf IS important), Soccer, Macs (now that's really important) or some obscure yearning to know more about Japanese pottery. The point is we all have hobbies and interests and here on iTunes is where that interest combines with download technology and that all important word FREE. It's the world of podcasts.
Podcasts? You may have heard the word bandied about. It's mentioned quite regularly on Radio 4 because the Archers is available via podcast, as is the complete archive of Melvin Bragg's In Our Time. Basically podcasts are audio programmes created by both mainstream media and (importantly) by independent creators. Because it costs essentially zero money to make a podcast, anyone can do it and as a result podcasts are available on almost any subject you care to mention. The quality does vary enormously, from full BBC programmes to a couple of teenage girls shouting about Twilight from their bedroom, but the theory is good. Whatever interests you, there should be a podcast about it, and it will be free. Yes, podcasts are free.
So where do you find them. Well, from iTunes of course. When you fire up iTunes you are presented with your music.
You need to click on the small store icon in the left hand column. This will take you to the er, store where you will be overwhelmed by the mess and the number of things you can click on and buy. Which is why most people stop here. But don't. See towards the top of the window the tab for podcasts. That's where you want to go.
The podcast section is choc full of podcasts on every subject. If you aren't sure what you might like the Apple staff pics are a good place to start. If you have an interest then you can enter this into the search box in the top right corner of the iTunes window. This will return results from all sections of the store so you will need to narrow the results down by using the choices in the narrow search results section. Once you have found something click on the podcasts icon to go to its home page.
You subscribe to podcasts. By clicking the subscribe button, each time you launch iTunes it will check for and download any new editions of that podcast. You can also download any old editions from the episode list. You can subscribe to as many podcasts as your brain can cope with.
Amazingly podcasts aren't the only freebie offered by iTunes. Next time we'll look at the hidden world of iTunesU.
