A blog by just another Dave

If you’re a parent of a highly temperamental wonderful teenager like me, then you might enjoy this tip. After much Googling combined with some trial and error, I discovered a fool proof* way to obtain an iTunes account with absolutely no credit card required. Why is this important? Regardless of how responsible Alex tries to be with my iTunes account, invariably she ends up miscalculating her iTunes gift card value or simply forgets to add the prepaid card to my account before downloading songs. When this happens I receive a nice email from Apple informing me that (I) just purchased Justin Timberlake’s latest single along with fifty other songs – all conveniently charged to my credit card.

For quite some time now I’ve attempted to create a stand-alone account for Alex but Apple does an incredibly good job of masking the fact that accounts can be created without a credit card. However, I did finally come across a solution that worked by reading the comments at GHacks.net, so without further adeu I present you with the simple solution:

1. Ensure that you have signed out of your iTunes account. You can do so by clicking on your email address in the upper right-hand corner and clicking “Sign Out” in the pop-up window.
2. Go to the home page of the iTunes store by clicking on the little house icon in the upper left-hand corner.
3. Click on the “App Store” link in the list at the top left. 
4. Find any iPhone Application that is free and attempt to download it. The easiest way to find a free application is to glance over to the lower right and view the list of “Top Free Apps”.
5. When the pop-up window asks you to sign in, click on the “Create New Account” link at the top of the window.
6. Follow the sign up process until you reach the credit card screen. If everything worked, you should see a “None” option to the right of the credit card types. Select this option and finish the signup process.
7. Voilla, you have your very own stand-alone iTunes account not linked to your credit card.

One final tip: be sure to keep the login details handy so you can pass them onto your kid – and so you can authorize your own computer for his/her songs. (Because even parents like to listen to Justin Timberlake once in a while.)

*Disclaimer: This process worked as of the publishing of this blog post. If history repeats itself, Apple will continue to plug the holes for creating iTunes accounts without credit cards.