How to browse and buy content from the iTunes Store

Summary

If you're new to the iTunes Store, this page will give you the basics of browsing and purchasing from the iTunes Store.

Products Affected

iTunes Store, iTunes

Searching for Content

If you know what you're looking for, you can type a search term in the Search Store field, which appears in the upper-right corner of iTunes. Press Enter or Return to perform the search.

In the resulting screen, you will see all the relevant search results pertaining to your search. You can filter your search results by Music, Movies, TV Shows, Applications, Audiobooks, Podcasts, and iTunes U content. 

Note: Not all types of content are available in all countries. 

You can listen or view 30-second previews of all songs and videos on the iTunes Store. To preview a song or TV episode, select the item you want to preview then click the small Play button to its left.

Tip: You can also use the Quick View feature to preview additional content such as music videos, songs, movies, TV shows, and so on. To do this, mouseover any of the thumbnails throughout the store and click on the " i " in the bottom-right corner of the thumbnail to activate Quick View. 

You can purchase directly from this area by clicking the Buy button next to any item, or you can add the item to your Wish List.

     

You'll be prompted to enter your Apple ID and password to confirm any purchase. You cannot add applications or podcasts to Wish List; you can buy applications with 1-Click and subscribe to podcasts. Read this article for more information on Wish List.

In the middle section of your screen, you will see a list of individual items that match one or all of your search terms. You can sort these results by any of the columns above the results by clicking the column's header:
 

 

Browsing for Content

On the main page of the iTunes Store, you can see all of the following at a glance: featured releases, the newest and most popular releases, items we think you'll like based on your previous purchases, items that are currently free, and various others. You can click Browse in the Quick Links section in the upper-right corner of the Home page of the iTunes Store and then you can browse the store as if it were your own iTunes library.

If you like a certain genre of music, such as Rock, you can quickly browse the Rock genre page by choosing Rock from the drop-down menu under Music from the navigation bar at the top of the main page. Simply click the drop-down triangle next to Music.

Whichever path you choose to pursue, you'll likely wind up clicking a link that takes you to the item's page. These pages generally display release information (such as release date, copyright information, and artwork), the item's price, the price to download the entire playlist, customer ratings and reviews, related items, and much more.

Source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1879