Howdy folks, new to iTunes. The kids are getting iPods for Christmas (yes, I'm old, getting for the kids, not myself.) I want to have them set up, their mp3 music transfered over, maybe download a couple of games for them.

Don't have the iPods yet. Windows XP, downloaded iTunes (10.5.1) and installed. Tried to create an Apple ID. I get to "Welcome to iTunes" screen with CANCEL and CONTINUE buttons. I click CONTINUE and nothing happens. I later found out if I let it sit for 20 minutes it gives me an error with something about iTunes not being available, but didn't note exactly what the error said.

I ended up creating an Apple ID online. I can log in online just fine on the Apple site. Within iTunes, I try to log in and it gives me "This Apple ID has not yet been used with the iTunes store. Please review your information." There is a CANCEL and REVIEW button. I click REVIEW and it goes to the "Welcome to iTunes" screen and again upon clicking CONTINUE, nothing happens. This is where finally last night I left it alone for about 20 minutes and got the not available error.

Going to try it out on the work laptop this long 5 day break from work (holiday over here for us) but that won't help me out with the home computer if I can't get it working. Hoping some more experienced with Apple stuff folks could shed some light. I've read nothing online except how the support from Apple with iTunes is completely useless and am still waiting for a response from them (so the uselessness of support is being confirmed thus far in my eyes.) I thought Apple was suppose to be the sliced bread of computing and electronics and works perfectly? I'm not seeing it thus far with my first experience.

First off, Apple products are garbage in all of my experience (only a few months now with the iPhone and it's already wanked up more than any other device I've ever had in my life, even the crappy iPod Nano I had years ago which was crap, too). Also, iTunes is a load of garbage as well.

Unfortunately I can't give you much in the way of advice in this matter; I don't use iTunes on my own rig, I use CopyTransManager instead. I refuse to install iTunes on my computer.

Hopefully someone more useful will come 'round soon and help you out.

To offset Maggot's comments, I use iTunes, and none of my iPhones have given me particular trouble - once in a while I've had apps that claim to be downloading, but just sit there blank, but little niggles like that are easily sorted. I think downloading ANY app would unstick the frozen ones...

Anyway, I've never come across your problem. Recently, my girlfriend got a Touch for work (demoing a brand of headphones), and installing iTunes, setting up Apple accounts and getting it all working was painless with not a single error message in sight. The only difficulty was getting her music (in My Music) neatly into iTunes without duplicates... But I think she got there with some fiddling...

Anyway, the point is, I can't help really. Can you go onto iTunes Store online (on a normal computer) and log in? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes?

If the Touch has iOS5 in it, then in theory you don't NEED to use iTunes (although you'll struggle to get music that you already own onto it), but that forces you to use cloud storage, which I'm not convinced by yet. But then you could use CopyTransManager instead...

I'd try logging into Apple stuff as much as possible on your computer - iTunes Store, Apple Store, Edit your account info etc, and reinstall iTunes as well. See if that helps.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Anyway, the point is, I can't help really.

Thank you Tristan, it's all fixed now. A huge help

Seriously, after reading seemingly hundreds of posts on the Apple website about similar complaints as far back as 2007, I finally found a post that was fairly recent and talking of the current version whom said he fixed his. Reset Winsock. Did that and I've got connection.

The ID problem was that I created it online and within iTunes, it was flagged because a CC number wasn't associated with it, which I don't want to do. I created a new account after attempting to download a free app so that I could select NONE as the payment and I don't have to have a CC associated. The kids will just use gift cards they get for their birthdays and such.

Never did get a response from Apple support though.

Oh... well.... err.... my pleasure. I knew I'd be able to help...

Glad you got it working though. Have fun playing with it. May I recommend you DO NOT download Angry Birds or Cut the Rope.

Autodesk Sketchbook is quite good if you like drawing - and most kids do.