The following article focuses on different channels of listening to music on iPod and iPhone. To enjoy music on iPod and iPhone, you first need to get the music in iPod/iPhone format onto iTunes library and then sync the music to your iPod/iPhone.

Channel 1. Buy music from iTunes Store for iPod/iPhone

To find and buy music from the iTunes Store, just click on the "iTunes Store" link under "Store" in the left column of iTunes. Once in, you're greeted with the iTunes Store interface, with links on the left-hand side that take you to Music, Movies, TV Shows, Music Videos, Audiobooks, and Podcasts. After you've chosen a song or album to buy, just click on the "Buy Song" or "Buy Album" button for that selection.

Channel 2. Import your CDs into iTunes for iPod/iPhone

If you own a few CDs, you can import them into iTunes for your iPod/iPhone. Since you've already spent money on this music, there's no reason why you should have to buy it all over again just to get the songs into iTunes. Apple made it simple to rip a CD to your library.

By default, iTunes rips songs to AAC format, and although AAC is a very high-quality format, it isn't as widely-supported as the ubiquitous MP3 format, which enjoys support from virtually every digital music player known to man, including iPod and iPhone. To ensure greater portability of your music (and prevent you from feeling locked into one product just because you've ripped all your music in one format), I suggest ripping your CDs as MP3s. To do so, go to Edit -> Preferences. In the General tab, click the Import Settings... button. In the pop up dialog window of Import Settings, select MP3 Encoder from the Import Using dropdown menu and Higher Quality (192 kbps) from the Setting dropdown.