Giving the Gift of Music
| Thinking of buying a music CD for someone? That's so twentieth century. If the music lovers in your life use iTunes, treat them to some music at the iTunes Music Store. The iTunes Music Store offers a few options for giving music. If you want to give a specific album, song, or video to someone, you can. Don't have anything specific in mind? You can also buy prepaid music cards and gift certificates that let your lucky recipients pick and choose exactly what they want. You can even set up a monthly music allowance that keeps on giving. To access most of these options, use the links in the Account area of the music store's main screenit's located along the left edge of the screen. Allowance: Music Monthly Want to give all year long? Set up an allowance to give a monthly music stipend. You can give as little as $10 per monthabout one album's worthor as much as, gulp, $200. You aren't giving cash, of course, but rather the ability to buy a given amount of music each month. And if your recipient ends up being a bad boy or girl, you can cancel the allowance at any time during the subsequent year. Try that with a music CD.  Your recipient must have an Apple account. If he or she doesn't have one, you can set up an account when creating an allowance. Note If you know your recipient has an Apple account but you don't know what the account name is, don't set up a separate account for the allowance. That would complicate your recipient's life, since music store purchases are locked to a specific account. Instead, either find out what the recipient's Apple account is, or, if you want to maintain the element of surprise, buy a gift certificate or prepaid card instead. Gift Certificate If you don't know your recipient's Apple account nameor you aren't feeling generous enough for a monthly allowanceconsider a gift certificate. You can give between $10 and $200. Apple emails the gift certificate to the recipient, who can redeem it by simply clicking a link. For an analog touch, you can also have the gift certificate printed and mailed to the recipient. Or print it yourself and tuck it into a card. Prepaid Cards Prepaid iTunes Music Cards are available in various denominations from Amazon.com, Target, CompUSA, Circuit City, and the Apple online and retail stores. To redeem the card, your recipient clicks the Redeem link on the music store's home screen, then types the card's serial number (it's printed on the back of the card, beneath a scratch-off coating). After the card is redeemed, the recipient's copy of iTunes will show that he or she has an additional credit. Giving Specific Items You can give any item that's sold at the iTunes Music Store. Make your way to the main page for an album or TV series, then click the Gift link. (For albums, the link reads Gift This Album; for shows, it reads Gift This TV Show.) A new screen appears that enables you to give the entire album (or season, for TV shows) or only certain songs or episodes. You can also give something that you already have in your music library; see page 48.
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