Chapter 2. Tour the iPod Touch
You’ll learn to:
Set up and activate your Touch
Learn to control your iPod by touchscreen
Load the Touch with music, videos, and other content
Adjust the Touch’s settings
THAT SHINY NEW IPOD Touch is more than just a media player, it’s a palm-size computer in its own right. Think of it as the iPad Micro. But as with any new computer, you need to take a few moments to get to know it before you can get the most out of it.
This chapter starts with the basics, like turning the Touch on or off, setting it up to use email and buy apps, and plugging it in to sync content from your other computer—you know, the one with the big hard drive and all the music, videos, and photos you may want to take with you on your iPod.
In 2001, the original iPod used a scroll wheel and buttons to get around its music library, a method the iPod Classic continues. But the iPod Touch brings a whole new level of control to your fingertips. In fact, your fingertips do control the way you use this very special ’Pod. This chapter shows you all the moves you need to surf the Web, look at pictures, find your music, and make this little touchscreen device work for you.
To get started on your guided tour of the iPod Touch, turn the page.
iPod Touch Ports and Switches
THE IPOD TOUCH KEEPS most of its controls behind its sensitive screen, but it does have a few physical buttons and jacks on the outside. Here’s a tour of the Touch from top to bottom:
Sleep/Wake. Press the thin button on top of the Touch to put it to sleep and save some battery power. If you’ve got a song playing, no problem: A sleeping Touch still plays music—it’s just the display that goes dark.
Volume. These two buttons reside on the left side of the Touch (bottom left). Press the top one to increase the sound on either the tiny external speaker or an attached pair of headphones; the bottom button lowers the volume. As you press the physical volume buttons, the Touch’s screen gives you an on-screen graphic to show how loud or soft the sound is getting (bottom right).
Home. Forget clicking your heels together three times to get home—just push the indented button below the Touch’s screen and you’ll always return Home. The iPod’s Home screen is where your tappable icons for music, photos, Safari web browsing, and more hang out. If you ever wander deep into the iPod and don’t know how to get out, push the Home button to escape. You can also push Home to wake the Touch from sleep.
Lightning Connector. This tiny jack is the port you use to plug in the iPod’s USB cable for charge-ups and media transfers from iTunes. This connector replaces the old 30-pin Dock Connector on previous iPods, so if you’re shopping for speakers and other audio accessories, make sure you get gear that fits your iPod’s jack. The Touch’s own tiny external speaker sits to the port’s right, with the headphone port on the left.
Headphones. Plug the included EarPod headphones into the small, round jack on the bottom edge of the Touch. Non-Apple headphones with the standard 3.5mm stereo plug work, too.
Set Up and Activate Your Touch
EVER SINCE APPLE DEBUTED its iOS 5 software in 2011, the Touch could jump onto the Internet over the airwaves with its WiFi chip, making it the easiest iPod to set up. Touch owners no longer have to get to a computer and unwind a USB cable to get their iPods ready for action—they can do all that wirelessly. This, of course, means you need a WiFi network nearby. (If you don’t have one, flip ahead to Set Up and Sync Your Touch With iTunes to learn how to set up the Touch via dependable USB cable.)
Here’s how you set up your player as a brand-new iPod Touch right out of the box—providing that the tablet retained its charge on the trip from China; if power is running low, see Charge Your iPod for charge-up instructions.
Press the Touch’s Home button. You see a gray screen with the word “iPod” in the middle of it and a right-pointing arrow underneath it. Put your finger on the arrow and slide it to the right.
Tap your preferred language for iPod screens and menus. English is the default for U.S. users, but tap the arrow for more than 30 other linguistic choices from around the world.
Pick your country or region. The United States is the default choice, but if you’re not there, tap Show More.
Choose your WiFi network. If you’re at home, find your personal network on the list and tap it to select it. Type in your network’s password. If you’re in range of a public network, you can connect to it, but be leery of typing in any personal information, like a credit-card number, to set up an Apple ID.
Wait for Apple’s servers to activate your iPod over the WiFi connection. Once the iPod connects to the ’Net, activation takes just a few minutes.
Decide whether you want to turn on Location Services. Location Services pinpoints the position of your Touch on a map, using a database of WiFi hotspots to guide it. It’s great for finding restaurants close to you, but not so much for your privacy. If you leave Location Services off, you can always turn it on later by tapping Home→Settings→Location Services→On.
Decide if you want to set up this Touch as a new, empty iPod, or restore your previous content (music, photos, apps, and so on) using iCloud or iTunes backup files from an old iPod (Set Up an iCloud Account).
Sign in with or create an Apple ID. Your Apple ID (Set Up an Apple Account) is the online user name and password you use to buy and download apps, music, books, videos, podcasts, and more from the iTunes and App Stores. If you already have an Apple ID, sign in with it here. If not, tap “Create a new Apple ID” to go to the next screen, where you can base your new ID on an existing email address or set up a spiffy new—and free—iCloud mail account (see below). If you don’t want to deal with this Apple ID stuff now, tap the Skip This Step link at the bottom of the screen.
Set up iCloud. On this screen, you can turn on Apple’s free iCloud service, where you can back up all your apps, contacts, calendars, and more to Apple’s online servers. You can also restore the Touch from an iCloud backup. You get a free @icloud.com email account with your account, but you can also set up existing Mail accounts on the Touch later, as Set Up Mail Accounts explains; Chapter 5 has more on iCloud.
Turn on the Siri personal assistant (or not). This voice-activated helper program—described on Command Siri—can grab movie listings, sports scores, restaurant suggestions, and more out of the air when you push the iPod’s Home button and ask clearly. Siri does need to upload info like your contacts and location information to Apple to do her work, so if you have privacy issues, leave Siri off and do the research yourself.
Decide if you want to anonymously send diagnostic data to Apple to help the company improve its services.
Register the iPod Touch with Apple. If you need service on the player later, from an Apple store or authorized repair shop, your iPod is on record.
Now, start using your Touch! You don’t see these setup screens again, unless you need to replace the software on an ailing iPod (Start Over: Restoring Your iPod’s Software). You get the option during the setup steps to restore a backup of the iPod’s settings and account data from an iCloud or iTunes backup file, so you’re not totally back on Square One. The iPod setup process has come a long way, baby.
Set Up and Sync Your Touch With iTunes
IF YOU SKIPPED THE PC-free iPod Touch setup because you didn’t have a WiFi network around (or because all your stuff is on your computer), you can set up the player using iTunes instead. Just connect your iPod to the computer with the USB cable. When you do, iTunes pops up and walks you through the setup, which includes naming your gadget and choosing sync options.
If you already use iTunes to manage media on an iPhone or iPad, odds are you already have a healthy media library on your computer. And if you’ve had an iPod before, iTunes offers to put the content from your old player onto your new one. Depending on the size of your new iPod’s drive, you may be able to fit all your stuff on it—or not, if you have more than 32 or 64 GB of digital treasures on your computer. If you have less than that and want to take it all with you, choose the “Set Up as New iPod” option shown below and then click Continue. On the main iTunes screen, click the iPod button in the horizontal row. On the next screen, click the type of content you want to autosync, like Music. Turn on the Sync Music checkbox, click the Apply button, and then hit the Sync button..
iTunes Wi-Fi Sync
Now, just because you chose to set up your iPod with iTunes instead of doing it wirelessly doesn’t mean you always have to dig up your USB cable when you want to put new stuff on your Touch. That’s because you can now sync your ’Pod wirelessly. The iPod and the computer you’re syncing with just need to be on the same WiFi network, and iTunes has to be open at the time of the sync.
To set up Wi-Fi Sync, connect the Touch to your computer. Click the iPod icon at the top of the iTunes window, and then click the Summary tab on the next screen. Scroll to the Options area and turn on the checkbox next to “Sync this iPod over Wi-Fi” as shown below. Click the Apply button, and then click Sync to change the setting and allow syncing over the network airwaves.
An icon for your Touch now stays visible in the iTunes window, where you can manually add stuff to the player (as Adjust Your iPod’s Syncing Preferences with iTunes explains). The Touch wirelessly syncs itself once a day when it’s plugged into power. It’s slower than a USB sync, but often more convenient, and you can still sync by USB when you want.
Ready to sync over that new album? Click the Sync button in the iTunes window—or, on the iPod Touch, tap Home→Settings→General→iTunes Wi-Fi Sync→Sync Now.
Turn the Touch On and Off
WHILE ITS NICE, BRIGHT interactive touchscreen gets most of the attention, the Touch does have a few physical controls—a quartet of buttons along its edges and front. Two of these buttons let you turn the Touch on. One is the narrow little Sleep/Wake button on the Touch’s top-right edge (circled). The other is the Home button on the front of the Touch (described on the next page).
The Sleep/Wake button serves a second purpose, too—it puts the Touch in Sleep mode. Give it a gentle press and the Touch goes down for a nap in standby mode.
To wake a sleeping Touch, press the Sleep/Wake button once more or press the Home button.
If you want to turn your Touch off completely, the Sleep/Wake button acts as an On/Off button, too—just press and hold it down for a few seconds. The screen fades to black, and the no-nonsense “slide to power off” red arrow appears. Drag the arrow to the right to power down your ’Pod.
When it’s time to play, press the Sleep/Wake button to turn the Touch back on.
The Home Button and Home Screen
EVEN WITH ITS SIMPLE design, the Touch has one very prominent physical button, smack-dab on the player’s glass front: the Home button. You’ll press this one a lot, because it’s the portal to all the stuff stored on your Touch.
Most people associate the word Home with peace and stability, and this button lives up to that notion. No matter where you are in the Touch—16 levels up in a game, deep into the new Mumford & Sons album, or out on the Internet, pressing the Home button always brings you back to the main Touch screen. You don’t even have to click your heels three times.
When you turn on your brand-new Touch, the Home screen will probably look something like this, with its included apps in their standard order. The Touch divides the icons into two groups: One is the four-by-five grid in the main part of the screen, and the other is the single row of four icons along the bottom. (Older versions of the Touch have a shorter screen with only five rows of icons.) You can have up to 11 flickable pages of icons on the Touch’s Home “screen,” but no matter which page you flick to, the four icons stay anchored to the bottom of the screen.
Want to rearrange the icons—including that bottom row of four—so you can put your most-used apps up front? Press down on an icon until it wiggles, and then drag it to a new location. When you’re done rearranging, press the Home button to make the icons sit still again. Once you fill up the first Home screen with icons, swipe your finger to the left to go to the next screen of icons. Swipe your finger the other way to go back to that first screen. (If you find all this finger dragging, well, a drag, you can rearrange your icons more easily in iTunes; see Manage Apps in iTunes.)
The Home button can do other tricks, too, like letting you switch quickly from one app to another (Multitask on Your Touch) and forcing misbehaving apps to quit. If an app is stuck on-screen, hold down the Sleep/Wake button until the red “power off” slider appears (opposite page). Let go of Sleep/Wake and hold down the Home button until the app closes—and you’re back Home. To take a quick pic from the Lock Screen, press the Home button twice to get a 
icon that takes you right into the Touch’s Camera app.
Finger Moves for the iPod Touch
UNTIL THE TOUCH ARRIVED on the scene, iPods were controlled by a click wheel or control ring on the front of the player. The Nano has a limited version of the touch-sensitive screen, and the Shuffle and the Classic still use the circular control. But with a Touch, you don’t need a steering wheel to get around your iPod—you just tap the on-screen icons and menus to navigate.
You’ll use some moves more often than others as you navigate the Touch:
Tap. Lightly touch a song title, app icon, or picture thumbnail with your fingertip. The Touch isn’t a crusty old calculator, so you don’t have to push down hard; a gentle tap on the glass starts a song, launches an app, or pops a picture into view.
Drag. This time, keep your fingertip pressed down on the screen. As you slide it around the Touch glass, you scroll to different parts of a web page, photo, or other item that goes beyond the screen’s boundaries. You also use the drag move to nudge on-screen volume sliders up and down. It’s the same concept as holding down the button on a computer mouse and dragging. A two-finger drag scrolls a web window within a web window (which is, fortunately, not too common on mobile sites).
Slide. A slide is like a drag, but you need it only a couple of times on the Touch. The first is on the “slide to unlock” screen you see when you wake the iPod from a nap (see below). The second is when you want to power down the Touch completely; press the Sleep/Wake button until the “slide to power off” slider appears.
Note
The iPod Touch relies on the human touch—skin-on-glass contact—to work. If you have really long fingernails, a Band-Aid on the tip of your finger, or happen to be wearing gloves at the time, you’re going to have problems working the Touch. You can’t use a pencil eraser or pen tip, either.
You can, however, find special styluses that work with the Touch screen. These cost anywhere from $10 to $30, and include the Hand stylus (handstylus.com) and models from Pogo (tenonedesign.com/stylus.php). Apple has a couple of options on its accessibility page for its iOS devices at http://tinyurl.com/appleaccessibility.
Flick. This move lets you speed-scroll up and down through long lists of songs, or side to side through overstuffed photo albums. To flick properly, quickly whip your finger along the length or width of the screen. (Make it a light movement—this isn’t a slide or a drag here.) The faster you flick, the faster the screens fly by. For example, use the flick when you’re in Cover Flow mode (Cover Flow in Motion)—tap the Home screen’s Music icon and hold the Touch horizontally. All your album covers appear on-screen, and you can flick through them until you find the one you want to hear.
Finger spread and pinch. Can’t see what you want because it’s too small on the screen? To make it bigger, put your thumb and index finger together, place them on that area of the screen, and then spread your fingers apart. To go the opposite way and zoom out so things shrink back down, put those same fingers on the screen, separated this time, and then pinch them together. Twisting your fingers as you pinch can rotate a 3D map, too.
Double-tap. This two-steppin’ tap comes into play in a couple of situations. First, it serves as a shortcut to automatically zoom in on a photo or a section of a web page. You can also double-tap to zoom in on a section of an Apple map (Chapter 4).
Second, if you’re watching a movie or TV show, tap the screen twice to toggle back and forth between screen aspect ratios—the full-screen view (top), where the edges of the frame get cropped off, or the letterboxed view (bottom), which movie lovers favor because it’s what the director intended a scene to look like. Movies tend to get letterboxed on the top and bottom of the screen, while pre-HD TV shows, as shown here, get side bars to preserve the older 4:3 screen ratio.
Two-finger tap. Two fingers, one tap. That’s what you do to zoom out of an Apple map view (remember, you use one finger and two taps to zoom in—Apple just wants to keep you on your fingers…er, toes).
Sync Content to the iPod Touch
AS EXPLAINED BACK ON Set Up and Sync Your Touch With iTunes, there’s an easy way to fill up your new Touch with music, videos, photos, and other stuff from your computer: connect it to iTunes during the setup process, select the ’Pod in the iTunes window, and then click the various tabs at the top of the next screen for the types of content you want to sync. Click Sync Music on the Music tab, for example, and all your tunes transfer to the iPod; repeat for each tab of content you want.
While autosyncing means never having to worry that you left that new album behind, some people like more control over what goes on their iPods. If you’re one of those more discriminating folks, you need to load songs onto it manually. Until you do, the Touch just sits there, empty and forlorn in your iTunes window, waiting for you to give it something to play with. Here are your options:
Manual Method #1: Selective Syncing
Click the iPod icon in the row of buttons at the top of the iTunes window. This opens up a world of syncing preferences.
Click the Music tab, and then turn on the Sync Music checkbox.
Click the button next to “Selected playlists, artists, and genres,” and tick off the items you want to copy to your iPod. (No playlists yet? See Chapter 12.)
Click along the top row of tabs (Photos, Apps, Books, and so on) for other types of content. On each screen, select the items from the iTunes library you’d like to sync. Then click the Apply button at the bottom of the iTunes window to make it so.
While any podcasts you downloaded to your computer from the iTunes Podcast Directory (Download and Subscribe to Podcasts) appear in the computer’s iTunes library, they don’t sync over to the Music app on the Touch on iOS 6 or later. Instead, podcasts appear in Apple’s optional Podcasts app, which you can download free in the App Store. The same goes for any iTunes U educational material or ebooks from Apple’s iBookstore—those files are filed in the optional iTunes U and iBooks apps, which are also free in the App Store. Chapter 3 has more on grabbing and using these apps.
Manual Method #2: Drag ’n’ Drop
Manual Method #3: Check the Box
Every item in your iTunes library has a checkmark next to its name when you first import it. Clear the checkmark next to whatever you don’t want on your Touch. (If you have a big library, hold down the Ctrl [⌘] key while clicking any title; that performs the nifty trick of removing all the checkmarks. Then go back and check only the stuff you do want.)
Click the iPod icon in the horizontal row of buttons on the main iTunes screen, and then click the Summary tab.
At the bottom of the Summary screen, turn on the checkbox next to “Sync only checked songs and videos,” and then click the Sync button.
What’s in the Settings Menu
THE TOUCH IS A powerful little media machine, and you fine-tune the way it works in the Settings menu. Here’s what you find by tapping the Settings icon on the Home screen:
Airplane Mode. When the flight attendant tells you to turn off all Internet devices, tap Airplane Mode to On—that turns off your WiFi, the airborne data streams the pilot is worried about.
WiFi. Turn the iPod’s WiFi antenna on or off here—or see what wireless network you’re currently connected to.
Bluetooth. Flip this setting on to link up wireless keyboards and headsets.
Do Not Disturb. The Touch has a Quiet Time setting, as The “Do Not Disturb” Setting explains.
Notifications. Many apps can alert you to news and updates (like football scores) with “push” notifications that automatically pop up on-screen. Turn the alerts on or off here.
General. Here you’ll find the Touch’s About menu (listing the iPod’s serial number, software version, and number of songs, videos, apps, and more), plus network info. You control wireless settings, like those for iTunes Wi-Fi Sync and over-the-air software updates, from here as well. You can also restrict Spotlight searches to certain file types, set up a passcode for your Touch, and adjust the date and time. The Keyboard settings let you turn off (or on) the iPod’s spell-checker and auto-correction features. In the International area, you can choose the iPod’s display language or switch to a foreign-language keyboard. The Accessibility options include VoiceOver settings, spoken-word alerts, and high-contrast screen text. You can also reset all the settings you’ve fiddled with—and even erase all the iPod’s content.
Sounds. The Touch can make all sorts of external noises, from ringtones for FaceTime calls to keyboard clicks. Set your sounds (and volumes) here.
Brightness & Wallpaper. If you don’t like the Touch’s Auto-Brightness sensor adjusting your screen, override it and make your own adjustments here. You can also change the background image on the Touch screen.
Privacy. Tap here to get to the GPS-like iPod’s Location Services settings and see apps that have permission to see your data, like contacts and photos.
iCloud. Tap here to set preferences for syncing your personal data—contacts, calendars, mail, notes, reminders, bookmarks—as well as your Photo Stream (Share and Stream Photos With iCloud) and data to Apple’s free online storage locker.
Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Tap here to set up an email account right on the Touch. You can adjust all other mail-related preferences here, too (like how often the Touch looks for new mail), and delete unwanted accounts. Scroll farther down to dictate the look of Contacts and Calendars, and the way each app alerts you. Chapter 4 has more on syncing contacts and calendars.
Notes. Tap here to pick one of three fonts for your little yellow iPod notes.
Reminders. Choose the calendar with which you sync your iPod’s to-do list.
Messages. Set up your account to use Apple’s free iMessage service for iOS 5 and later devices here. Use Messages has more on Messages.
FaceTime. Turn the FaceTime feature on here, and set up the email account you want to use with it so FaceTime callers can find you.
Maps. Choose miles or kilometers here, as well as map label size.
Safari. Specify the Safari web browser’s default search engine (Google, Yahoo, or Bing), and whether you want the Autofill feature to fill in website user names and passwords on your behalf. The security settings are here, too: Turn on warnings for potentially fraudulent websites, block annoying pop-up ads and cookies, or clear your browser cache—which erases all the accumulated page parts left behind from your web surfing. Chapter 5 has more on this fun stuff.
iTunes & App Stores. Sign in or out of the Apple ID you use to buy iTunes stuff here. You can also turn on Automatic Downloads (Adjust Your Store Preferences).
Music. You can set the iPod to shuffle with a shake (or not), turn the Equalizer and Sound Check features off or on (Chapter 5), set limits for maximum volume, and choose to display lyrics and podcast titles here.
Video. Instruct the Touch to play videos from where you left off and turn closed captioning on or off. You can log into Home Sharing here, too.
Photos & Camera. The settings for iCloud Photo Streams (Chapter 15) are here, as well as those for your Touch slideshows—including the time each slide stays onscreen, the transition between shots, and whether the Touch repeats the show or shuffles the slides.
Twitter. If you use the popular microblogging service, log into your account here to tweet photos, links, and more from the Touch.
Facebook. Log into your Facebook account here for the quick ’n’ easy sharing of Safari links, photos, and more.
Individual application settings. Depending on the apps you have installed, you’ll also see settings for programs like iBooks, Podcasts, and third-party apps.