Take Control of Apple Media Apps

Discover Apple's Music, TV, Podcasts, and Books apps

Version 1.0, published December 13, 2024

Back in 2019, Apple replaced iTunes for Mac, iOS, and iPadOS with three apps—Music, TV, and Podcasts—with audiobooks handled by the Books app. Take Control of Apple Media Apps is your guide to this post-iTunes world. Covers macOS 15 Sequoia, iOS 18, and iPadOS 18 or later, plus Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePod.

Kirk McElhearn shows you how to manage your music, videos, podcasts, and audiobooks on all your Apple devices. Whether you just want to play your media, or you want to go deeper with special features like Apple Music, Genius, Shuffle, Playing Next, and iTunes Match, this comprehensive guide has the answers you need.

Kirk also looks at various ways of bringing audio and video into Apple's media apps, tagging music and videos so you can find them more easily later, creating playlists, sharing your library over a home network, and accessing your media libraries on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, or HomePod.

Here's just a taste of what the book covers.

Music

Play Learn the basics of playing audio (and even music videos) in the Music app.Stream Use Apple Music, a paid service, to listen to any of 100 million tracks. Or listen to live broadcasts from Apple Music Radio.View Your Learn how to view your music library and work with contextual menus in the Music app.Organize Your Make a simple playlist of romantic songs, workout songs, or whatever theme you like.Store Your Music Library in the Learn how to use the Sync Library setting and get just the tracks you want on all your devices.Tag Your Tags are bits of information (also known as “metadata”) that can describe your media. Learn which tags to bother changing, the best ways to add lyrics and album art, and how to rate songs with stars, favorites, or both.Meet Apple Music Apple Music Classical is a special app for iPhone that helps lovers of classical music enjoy their favorite composers, performers, and pieces without the limitations of the standard Music app.TV, Podcasts, and Books

View Movies and TV Use the TV app (with or without the Apple TV+ service) to watch videos, including those purchased or rented from Apple and those you add yourself.Listen to and Watch You’ll be sampling and subscribing to podcasts in no time with Kirk’s advice, plus you’ll pick a method of syncing podcast episodes to your iPhone or iPad and even learn about creating your own podcast station.Listen to Discover how to download and play audiobooks in the Books app, and how to manage your audiobook library. ( This book does not cover using ebooks in Books.)All Media Apps

Buy or Rent Media from You can buy music, TV shows, movies, books, and audiobooks directly from Apple—and rent movies—from within the various media apps. Find tips on shopping for media, and get advice on sharing your purchases with family members and among your various Apple devices.