By which I mean, my wife was give a £25 iTunes card but neither of us have any apple products, neither of us have a laptop suitable for iTunes installation (nor do we want it installed) so what are our best options for actually redeeming the card?
Sell it to a friend for £20? They get a 20% discount, while you get cash and avoid the fuss of going through hoops to use the card.
Seriously? How are you able to access the internet on that dinosaur? iTunes is a resource hog, but it’s not THAT bad.
All you have to do is install iTunes, start an account, buy your music, and delete iTunes. Or just send the card to me, I’ll use it.
I will add one thing to this, which may not be as important now that iTunes music is DRM-free, but probably still worthwhile.
All you have to do is…
[ol]
[li]install iTunes, [/li][li]start an account, [/li][li]buy your music,[/li][li]burn to a CD,[/li][li]uninstall iTunes.[/li][/ol]
you only need iTunes to sync the music/pictures/whatever from your pc to the mobile device. When you buy all your apps/music/whatever direct on your iphone, there is no need to install iTunes
Buy your songs with iTunes, be sure they are MP3 not AAC.
Save them to another locatoin, burn to disc, whatever,
Delete iTunes.
Note you will need to create an account for the iTunes store…
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the OP does not have an iPhone.
Does iTunes (and other Apple software) sink it’s teeth into a computer after an install? Like RealPlayer used to or Symantic products, requiring more than a simple uninstall/remove program.
Thanks for the input everyone,
No, I don’t have an iPhone or any other apple products.
My laptop is running Ubuntu and an iTunes installation doesn’t work (tried it several times)
My wife’s laptop is an elderly, ram-impaired netbook that fell over when I tried to install iTunes 3 years ago, unless it has got slicker in the meantime I suspect it will do the same again, plus I have the same concerns as Rhythmdvl above.
Is there no web based option for purchasing? Do I absolutely have to install?
I took a few curiosity minutes after posting to Google how to uninstall iTunes and came up with reasons why I avoid Apple software–it also installs ‘helper’ apps and automatic updaters. I didn’t see if each one could easily be removed or if you need to go into the registry, but unless Apple has changed and a series of Web sites are off their mark, it will install more than iTunes. (NO I DON’T NEED OR WANT QUICKTIME! (I use real alternative for that.)
Do you have access to any Windows install disks? What about setting up Windows as a virtual machine, downloading and burning as per above, and then just deleting the machine–no trace of iTunes or anything else.
I’ve been very happy with Oracle’s VirtualBox, but in an opposite configuration (Win host; Linux guest).
Hmmmm, no I don’t have any installation disks.
One option may be to persuade my missus that she’d be happier with an ubuntu installation then, just before doing that, strip out everything from the windows installation, see if that’ll allow an itunes installation, do the downloads then wipe and install ubuntu.
This palaver is exactly why I have grooveshark and an android phone. It isn’t easy to just dip into a little bit of apple is it?
Lord Mondegreen’s approach is starting to look better. I hope you work something good out. 
Other than the straightforward install, have you Googled things like *How to Install iTunes Ubuntu * or the like? I’m seeing a few places that walk you through the Ubuntu installation. Doesn’t get around the bloatware, but it may be an option.
iTunes only offers AAC downloads, and why wouldn’t you want AAC files? They are smaller and offer better sound fidelity than MP3.
Are you one of those people who mistakenly believes that AAC files are a proprietary Apple file format that cannot be played on non-Apple devices?
Apple is so evil that they have even published detailed instructions about how to uninstall iTunes: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1925
You DO need and want QuickTime if you want to use iTunes. iTunes uses QuickTime as the engine to play media files.
Thanks, that’s pretty much the kind of thing I was referring to. There is no single uninstall program–you have to uninstall six separate componenets. Doable, and easier than going into the registry (though if I were uninstalling I’d want to search deeper than just Apple’s sites to see if they left anything behind), but terrible form.
If you’re going to install one program, you should be able to uninstall one program and have it removed from your machine. Not a lot of people are going to think that after uninstalling the program from Control Panel that they need to hunt down separate instructions.
ETA:
No, no I don’t. Didn’t you just say upthread that ACC files aren’t proprietary Apple files? I can’t continue to use WinAmp, RealAlternative or Media Player (whatever I have as my default MP3 player)? Apple’s idea is that I have to use Quicktime? That’s pretty blatant bloatware, and another reason for avoiding Apple products if you can.
Yes, I’m quite happy to bugger around in terminal windows and non-standard installations but I’ve given it a few goes and none of the hints and tips seem to work. Other sources on the web suggest that there seems to be a particular problem with 10.04 and I hated the 11.x release so don’t want to go that way.
If I could be arsed to spend more time on it I may find a work-around but it seems just such a faff on to download a bit of music. Especially when I can go to amazon or multiple other stores and do it through a web browser. I sort of understand the reason that apple want to have greater user oversight but it seems rather silly that I can’t enter the store and buy a non-proprietary item without installing a complete program.
Of course those AAC files will play back with any of those other playback applications… but if you want to use iTunes as your playback application, or use iTunes to preview the songs before you buy them, you’ll need to have QuickTime installed.
Um … right. That bit of arbitrary and capriciousness is why it’s terrible form. There is no need to other than Apple Marketing deciding it should be that way.