In This Chapter
As an iPod owner, you're on the cutting edge of entertainment technology. This chapter introduces the iPod and tells you what to expect when you open the box. I describe how to power up your iPod and connect it to your computer, both of which are essential tasks that you need to know how to do — your iPod needs power, and it needs audio and video, which it gets from your computer.
An iPod is, essentially, a hard drive or flash memory drive as well as a digital music and video player in one device. An iPod is such a thing of beauty and style — and so highly recognizable by now — that all Apple needs to do in an advertisement is show one all by itself.
The convenience of carrying music on an iPod is phenomenal. For example, the new 160GB iPod classic can hold around 40,000 songs — that's more than eight weeks of nonstop music played around the clock. And with built-in skip protection in every model, you won't miss a beat as you jog through the park or when your car hits a pothole.
A common misconception is that your iPod becomes your music and video library. Actually, your iPod is simply another player for your content library, which is safely stored on your computer. One considerable benefit of using your computer to organize your content is that you can make perfect-quality copies of music, videos, movies, podcasts, and audio books. You can then copy as much of the content as you want, in a more compressed format, onto your iPod and take it on the road. Meanwhile, your perfect copies are stored safely on your computer. Your favorite albums, audio books, TV shows, movies, and podcast episodes can be copied over and over forever, just like the rest of your information, and they never lose their quality. If you save your content in digital format, you'll never see your songs or videos degrade, and you'll never have to buy the content again.
The iPod experience includes iTunes (for Mac or Windows), which lets you synchronize content with your iPod and other devices, such as the Apple TV player for your home TV and stereo. You also use iTunes to organize your content, make copies, burn CDs, and play disc jockey without discs. I introduce iTunes in Chapter 2.
An iPod is also a data player, perhaps the first of its kind. As an external hard drive, the iPod serves as a portable backup device for important data files. You can transfer your calendar and address book to help manage your affairs on the road, and you can even use calendar event alarms to supplement your iPod's alarm and sleep timer. You can keep your calendar and address book in your iPod automatically synchronized to your computer, where you normally add and edit information.
In the case of the iPod touch and iPhone, your data player is in fact a complete personal digital assistant that lets you enter data as well as play it. With an iPod touch or iPhone you can check and send e-mail, visit your favorite Web sites, get maps, obtain driving directions, check the current weather, and even check your stock portfolio, to name a just a few things.
Introduced way back in the Stone Age of digital music (2001), the iPod family has grown by eight generations as of this writing, including the popular iPod touch, the high-capacity iPod classic, the ultra-slim iPod nano that includes a video camera, and the tiny iPod shuffle — the iPod you can clip to your belt or wear on your sleeve. Even from the beginning, iPod models were truly innovative for their times. With the MP3 music players of 2001, you could carry about 20 typical songs (or a single live Phish set) with you, but the first iPods could hold more than 1,000 typical songs (or a 50-hour Phish concert).
Today's iPod models work with iTunes on either Windows computers or Macs, but that wasn't always the case. The first-generation iPods worked only with Macs. In 2002, Apple introduced the second generation — one version for Windows and another for the Mac, using the same design for both. For the third generation (2003), Apple changed the design once again.
Third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-, seventh- and eighth generation iPods — as well as offshoots, such as iPod mini, iPod nano, and iPod shuffle — work with either Windows or Mac and come in a variety of hard drive or flash memory sizes. By design, you can hold an iPod in your hand while you thumb the scroll wheel (my generic term for scroll wheel, scroll pad, touch wheel, or click wheel). The LCD screen on full-size models offers backlighting so that you can see it in the dark. The iPhone and iPod touch let you tap the sensitive display with your finger to select items and functions, and flick with your finger to scroll or move the display.
The eighth-generation iPod classic box includes earphones and a USB dock adapter cable that can connect either the iPod or a dock to a computer or power adapter. You can get accessories, including Apple's Universal Dock and an AC power adapter, separately. For example, the iPod AV Connection Kit offers the adapter, AV cables, Apple Remote, and the Universal Dock with adapters for all models.
The accessories don't stop there. Docks of various sizes, shapes, and functions are available from vendors, such as Belkin, Monster, and Griffin. Some docks are combined with home speaker systems. You might also want a carrying case and some other goodies, many of which are described in this book. They're available at the online Apple Store (www.apple.com/store) or the physical Apple Store or other consumer electronics stores.
You also need a few things that don't come with the iPod:
With a Mac, iTunes version 9 runs on all versions of Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard or newer versions, and on the older Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.11 or newer version. You need a 500-MHz processor or better (Intel or PowerPC) and at least 512MB of RAM; 1GB of RAM is required to play HD-quality videos, an iTunes LP, or iTunes Extras from the iTunes Store. You also need an Intel PowerPC G5 or a 1-GHz PowerPC G4 or faster processor, with 16MB of video RAM, to play videos, and a 2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo or faster processor to play HD-quality videos, an iTunes LP, or iTunes Extras.
For details about using USB or FireWire cables, visit this book's companion Web site at www.dummies.com/go/ipod7e.
Older models, still available in stores and online, might include versions of iTunes as old as version 4.5 — which is fine because version 4.5 works. It just doesn't have all the features of 9. You can download a newer version at any time to replace it.
After you bring content into iTunes and update your iPod, you're ready to play. The design of the iPod classic and iPod nano lets you hold the iPod in one hand and perform simple operations by thumb. Even if you're all thumbs when pressing small buttons on tiny devices, you can still thumb your way to iPod heaven.
The iPod touch, like the iPhone, offers a multi-touch interface that lets you tap your way into iPod heaven even faster. With an iPod touch, your fingers do the walking. You can make gestures, such as flicking a finger to scroll a list quickly, sliding your finger to scroll slowly or drag a slider (such as the volume slider), pinching with two fingers to zoom out of a Web page in Safari, or pulling apart with two fingers (also known as un-pinching) to zoom in to the page to see it more clearly.
Your iPod touch displays the message “slide to unlock” — slide your finger across this message to unlock it. The main menu appears with the following selections:
After touching a button on the iPod touch display, a new page appears with more selections you can touch. In fact, you can touch every menu or button you see on the display. The iPod touch runs applications (Safari, Contacts, Calendar, YouTube, and so on), and the multi-touch interface changes for each application.
For example, touch the Music button on an iPod touch to view a list of artists. After touching Music, buttons appear along the bottom of the display that you can touch to view a list of playlists, artists, songs, albums, and more. With a flick of your finger, you can scroll the list and touch selections to view the albums of an artist or the contents of an album or playlist. Touch any song to start playing it, and control buttons appear to control playback: Previous/Rewind, Play/Pause, Next/Fast-Forward, and a volume slider. Press the physical button on the front of the iPod touch to return you to the Home menu.
On the iPod classic and iPod nano models, the click wheel makes scrolling through an entire music collection quick and easy. With your finger or thumb, scroll clockwise on the wheel to scroll down a list, or counterclockwise to scroll up. As you scroll, options on the menu are highlighted. Use the Select button at the center of the wheel to select whatever is highlighted in the menu display.
Fifth-generation iPods, sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-generation iPod classic models, the iPod nano, the iPod mini, and fourth-generation iPods (including color-display models) provide pressure-sensitive buttons underneath the top, bottom, left, and right areas of the circular pad of the wheel. These areas tilt as you press them, activating the buttons.
The iPod main menu for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-generation iPod classic models and the iPod nano offers the following selections:
The iPod main menu for fifth-generation models is the same, except that podcasts are found in the Music menu. The main menu for fourth-generation models is the same as for fifth-generation models, but without the Videos selection.
The iPod touch responds to gestures you make with your fingers. For example, you make the following gestures to perform the following functions:
The buttons that appear after selecting content to play on the iPod touch perform various tasks for playing content items:
The buttons on the click wheel on iPod classic and nano models do various tasks for song, podcast, audio book, and video playback:
The buttons and click wheel can do more complex functions when used in combination:
52.15.80.101