Hi Shaun, On Saturday, September 22, 2007, at 09:51AM, "VaShaun Jones" wrote: >Tell me about the I Toones store. Don't you have to sign up or >something? If not how do I access it?On Sep 22, 2007, at 11:42 AM, >Esther wrote: >> As Kevin said it's actually easiest to subscribe to podcasts >> through the iTunes >> Store,
You can use the iTunes Store to get podcasts without signing up or anything. The only things you need an account for are items that are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM). That means that podcasts, of the sort that are freely available, are most easily found, managed, and downloaded from the iTunes Store. On the other hand, since music, movies, tv shows, and anything that is sold to you is governed by labyrinthine rules of what you can purchase depending on where you live, you need to set up an iTunes account for any of these transactions. Most music, movie, or ebook/audiobook for sale download sites take your credit card information as proof of your geographical location. Same goes for debit cards funded by PayPal that someone mentioned earlier today in another thread. The main reason all this is so tortuous is that the music and movie industries strongly regulate what you can buy and who you can buy from depending on where you live. If you buy your Mac at an AppleStore, and ask them to set up a dot Mac account at the time, which they can do for you if you tell them the username and password you want to use, then I think that account can be used for the iTunes Store. You may still have to "review" the account information and agree to abide by the rules of use, and that's the part that is hard to do accesibly, but you'll have an account. Otherwise, people have set up their accounts with sighted assistance, or through contortions by using their Windows machines! Hope this makes sense. Oh, and this also means that if there are links to podcast pages at the iTunes Store, anybody can use them. On the other hand, if you want to purchase music or an audiobook, you have to go to the item that can be purchased for your country, if there is one. So, UK or Australian users can't get buy US TV programs in the iTunes store (unless they happen to have a credit card with a billing address in the U.S.) Same goes for movies. You have to buy from what's available for the iTunes Store for your country. In the U.S. you can buy iTunes gift cards, but they're not accessible either. Well, maybe you can use one of those OCR pen readers to scan the code after you scrape off the coating that covers it on the back, so you can enter the code. That's another way of getting around having to enter a credit card, but it still doesn't get you through the accessibility part of having to review your account. And in case you didn't guess, you're not supposed to send U.S. iTunes cards to your friends in Canada, etc. though you can "gift" people with iTunes purchases. (I wonder whether that means they have to register, review an account and provide their country information? Probably so). Well, there you have it. But no problems using the iTunes Store to find and download podcasts. Cheers, Esther
