[ultraman289]

umm, well i just got my mac (ya i know u hear this alot) and I was thinkin bout buying an Ipod...But then someone told me you could only use songs from Itunes on the Ipod...and that sorta scared me, because i wantd to rip tracks from my Cd's...So is this true, can u only use songs from Itunes?

[off/lang]

In some respects this is true. The only songs that you can use from an online music store are from the iTunes music store, but you are, of course, free to rip cds and play them in your iPod.

I think you may have gotten a little confused about iTunes. iTunes is the music player. It can rip to mp3 and aac from CDs. One part of iTunes is the iTunes music store. From here you can buy songs online.

[SOLIDAge]

i hear this alot as a misconecption.

any MP3 that you have that you may have downloaded or whatever CAN be played in iTunes...any CD you want to rip? can be ripped into iTunes, and you can get your music from the iTunes Music Store. So your friend was right...iPod only works w/ iTunes, but all your currently existing MP3s and the ones that you want to import you can import/play with east no worries !

[AlphaQuam]

I hear this misconception a lot as well. People new to iTunes and Macs think that all iTunes is is a music store, which is not the case. I finally got a new hire to switch to iTunes after explaining to him that you don't have to pay anything to use it and that it's primary uses are ripping/burning/managing music you already have.

[::maroma::]

You can also put songs on your iPod that have been downloaded from other music stores (perish the thought!). So the only real limitation doesn't lie with the iPod, but with iTunes Music Store's format of AAC. Although, there is one limitation of the iPod, and that's not being able to play Windows Media files (big deal!).

[yoyoman]

wmf is shitty. IT is a prapriotary. How ever you spell it. MS doesnt give you much choice but to use there format.