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iTunes offers a bit rate conversion feature which allows you to load more music onto your iPhone, iPod and iPad devices by downsampling high bit rate audio files.  This was initially introduced with the diminutive iPod Shuffle, but has available for all devices since iTunes 9.1.

This iTunes conversion feature is most useful if you have songs that have been imported directly from standard audio CDs to Apple Lossless or other high bit rate formats.

Upon enabling the “Convert higher bit rate songs to 128 kbs AAC” checkbox in the device options screen, iTunes converts all music set to transfer to the iPod, iPhone or iPad.  This conversion happens during the sync process.  All original music is left intact in your iTunes library, and the compressed audio is stored solely on the device.

This conversion process does reduce the quality of your music, but you’re likely not to notice if you use Apple’s included earbuds or other inexpensive compact headphones.  It’s perfect for listening on the go.

The secret shortcut to open or close all iTunes playlist folders in a given window is to Command-Click on one playlist folder’s disclosure triangle icon.  This will cause ALL folders to perform the action that a normal click would. 

So if the folder you’ve clicked is open, a command-click will close all folders.  If the folder is closed, a command-click will close all folders. 

This is great when you want to clean up your sidebar view or when you’re picking songs to sync from within the iPhone settings screens (where all the folder lists are expanded by default).

This trick also works in the Mac Finder, but the normal Apple convention is to use an option-click.

When the iTunes Music Store initially launched in 2003, all music sold contained Apple’s “FairPlay” Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection as a way of preventing piracy. 

The iTunes Music Store no longer uses DRM.  The change was announced in the 2009 Macworld Expo keynote and was implemented by the end of January 2009.

Music files from iTunes Music Store containing DRM use the .m4p suffix while the DRM-free versions use .m4a.

The image below shows the visual indicators of music files containing DRM.

Today, all music purchased from the iTunes Music Store is DRM-free and presented in 256kbs AAC format (Advanced Audio Coding) with a .m4a suffix. 

dfbills notes: Strangely enough, some of the free songs given away for various promotions do still contain DRM.  These .mp4 files can be found in various samplers and even free “songs of the week.”