How to redeem iTunes gift cards for music, apps, books and movies

If you were lucky this morning, you were nice enough for Santa to provide you with an iTunes gift card. That opens you up to countless great apps, movies, books, TV shows, albums, and you could have a busy day of downloading ahead of you…provided you know how to use the card. It’s simple enough, but Apple has kind of hidden the redeem links. Here’s how you redeem your codes for free downloads in iTunes and the various store apps.

iTunes

1. Launch iTunes and click “Redeem.”

2. Scratch off number on card and enter it in field (I suppose you could this first, but let’s not be difficult).
3. Enter your iTunes password if you’re not already logged in. Your credit should appear in the upper right of the browser.
4. Add the apps, movies and music to your cart and follow Apple’s purchasing instruction. Be sure to get the good stuff…there’s a lot of junk in there.

iTunes App

1. Launch the iTunes app and tap on either “Music” or “Videos” at the lower left.
2. Scroll down to and tap “Redeem.”

3. Enter code. You may now have to enter your password, too, but then the app should immediately start downloading.

App Store app

1. Launch App Store and tap on “Featured” at the lower left.
2. Scroll down to and tap “Redeem.”

3. Enter code.

Books

1. Launch Books and click on “Store” if you’re not already there.
2. Tap the “Featured” icon at the lower left.
3. Scroll down to and tap “Redeem.”

4. Enter code.

Now, it used to be that there were different gift cards for apps and for music/videos. That’s no longer the case in the U.S. But in other markets, make sure you check the card to see how it’s meant to be used. You don’t want to redeem a gift code for an app only to find it’s not meant to be used for that.