About This Book
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About the Author
Kirk McElhearn writes about Macs, iOS devices, iTunes, books, music, and more. He is a Senior Contributor to Macworld, where he is The iTunes Guy, and he contributes to TidBITS and other publications. Kirk has written and co-written more than two dozen books about using the Mac, including Take Control of Audio Hijack, Take Control of Scrivener 2, and Take Control of LaunchBar.
Kirk’s Web site, Kirkville, presents articles on Macs, iOS devices, books, music, and much more. A lapsed New Yorker, Kirk has lived in Europe for more than 30 years; he currently lives in a farmhouse near Stratford-upon-Avon, in the United Kingdom. You can email Kirk at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @mcelhearn.
Acknowledgments
It’s a great pleasure to work with an editor who gets so excited about changes to iTunes. I want to thank Tonya Engst for once again shepherding this book through to its finished form, and doing so with such joy. Tonya’s questions often help me better explain some of iTunes’ more obscure features, and her problems with iTunes help me realize when my explanations aren’t exactly right.
Doug Adams was a big help in pinning down some of the more arcane aspects of iTunes, and his AppleScripts make iTunes much easier to use. My son Perceval shared some of his iTunes techniques, as well as his thoughts on and experiences with iTunes Match and Apple Music, and his music recommendations. Andy Doe helped me understand some of the minute technical details of digital audio and the financial aspects of music streaming. Discussions with Nick Flower gave me insight into issues around delivering digital music to customers from a record label’s point of view. Stéphane Sudre helped me figure out how to get graphics out of iTunes to use as inline buttons in this book. And thanks to Roman Loyola, the Macworld editor who oversees my many articles about iTunes and iOS devices.
Finally, I’d like to thank the readers of the previous editions of this book, and of my Web site, Kirkville. Through email messages and questions, they have helped me understand what they need to know, and have pointed out the occasional typo that slipped past our top-notch team of fastidious floppy [floppy? —Editor] editors.
The latest edition of this book was written in Nisus Writer Pro on a 5K iMac, with the help of a 12-inch MacBook, as well as an iPad Pro, iPad mini, iPhone SE, Apple Watch, iPod classic, iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV, under the influence of some wonderful Chinese green teas and wulongs, and first flush Darjeelings. Titus the Cat helped keep me alert as I worked, occasionally asking for food, but mostly just sleeping near my desk. And Rosalind the Cat, a recent addition, has taken Titus’s place in attempting to distract me while she plots an invasion of my workspace.
The stereo in my office, where I do a lot of listening, and where I played the music that accompanied me while writing this book, consists of a Yamaha R-N301 amplifier, a Denon DCD-720 AE CD player, Focal Chorus 705v speakers on IsoAcoustic desktop speaker stands, and a Wharfedale Diamond SW150 subwoofer. The cables and interconnects cost a few quid each.
To relax and keep my mind nimble, I like to see performances of Shakespeare plays; I live a few miles from the Royal Shakespeare Company’s two theaters in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. If you’re a Shakespeare buff like me, check out my articles about Shakespeare and his plays.
The soundtrack for this book included music by Nobel laureate Bob Dylan, The Clash, John Foxx, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans, The Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Brad Mehldau, Nonkeen, Jackson Browne, Robert Johnson, Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach, Charles Ives, King Crimson, John Cale, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and many others. It’s a delight to be able to write about software that manages music while listening to so much great music.
About the Publisher
TidBITS Publishing Inc., publisher of the Take Control ebook series, was incorporated in 2007 by co-founders Adam and Tonya Engst. Adam and Tonya have been creating Apple-related content since they started the online newsletter TidBITS in 1990. In TidBITS, you can find the latest Apple news, plus read reviews, opinions, and more.