Secrets of the iPod and iTunes (Fifth Edition) [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Interface

Considering how easy the iPod is to use, it's hard to believe the number of navigation screens that make up its interface. In the following pages, I scrutinize each screen. Except where indicated, the interface for the original iPod and the mini is exactly the same.

Main Screen

The main screen (Figure 1.17), which displays the word iPod at the top, is your gateway to the iPod. In a way, it's akin to the Mac's Finder or Windows' My Computer windowa place to get started.

Apple changed the main screen of the iPod with the fourth-generation models. The fourth-generation iPod's main screen contains these commands:

Music

Extras

Settings

Shuffle Songs

Backlight

Now Playing (if a song is playing or paused)

Living up to its name, the iPod Photo includes an additional command in its main screenPhotosso its main screen reads like this (Figure 1.18):

Music

Photos

Extras

Now Playing (if a song is playing or paused)

Settings

Shuffle Songs

Backlight

In the main screen on an iPod mini and an original iPod running iPod Software 1.3 Updater through iPod Software 2.2 Updater (the version of the iPod software current for third-generation iPods as this book goes to press), you can, by default, select the following items:

Playlists

Browse

Extras

Settings

Backlight

Now Playing (if a song is playing or paused)

Earlier versions of the iPod software do not include the Backlight command; instead, they offer an About command. On iPods running iPod Software 1.3 Updater or later, the About command is available in the Settings screen (described later in this chapter). Here's what you'll find within each item.

Music (Fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo Only)

As we go to press, this entry appears only on fourth-generation iPods and the iPod Photo (Figure 1.19). The Music entry serves an almost identical pur pose as earlier iPods' Browse entry. When you choose the Music command and press Select, the resulting Music screen reveals these entries: Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers, and Audiobooks. I explain the purpose of all these entries in the following sections.

Playlists

Regardless of which iPod you're using, when you choose Playlists (Figure 1.20) and press the Select button, you'll see a screen that contains the playlists you have downloaded to your iPod. These playlists are created and configured in iTunes or another music application, such as the Windows programs Musicmatch Jukebox, EphPod, Anapod Explorer, and XPlay. How you configure them is up to you. You may, for example, want to gather all your jazz favorites in one playlist and put ska in another. Or, if you have an iPod shared by the family, Dad may gather his psychedelic songs of the '60s in his personal playlist, whereas sister Sue creates a playlist full of hip-hop and house music. When I discuss iTunes and other music applications in later chapters, I'll look at additional approaches for putting together playlists.

You may notice a couple of other playlists that you didn't create: 60's Music, My Top Rated, Recently Played, and Top 25 Most Played, for example. These are Smart Playlistsplaylists automatically created by iTunes. As their names hint, these playlists list songs recorded in the '60s, songs that you think are just swell, songs that you've played in the not-too-distant past, and songs that you've played more often than others.

After you select a playlist and press the Select button, the songs within that playlist appear in a scrollable screen (Figure 1.21), and the name of the playlist appears at the top of the screen. Just select the song you want to play, and press the Select button. When you do, you'll move to the Now Playing screen (Figure 1.22), which can display the number of songs in the playlist, the name of the song playing, the artist, and, on the original iPod, the name of the album from which the song came. On an iPod Photo, you'll also see a picture of the album cover if the song has this information embedded in it and iTunes' Display Album Artwork on Your iPod option is enabled. Because the iPod mini's screen is so small, Apple decided to omit album information from the Now Playing screen on these smaller iPods. (If some of this information didn't appear in iTunes originally, it won't be displayed on your iPod.) Also appearing in this screen are two timer displays: elapsed time and remaining time. The screen contains a graphic thermometer display that gives you a visual representation of how far along you are in the song.

Text that runs off the screen in the Song, Artist, and Album screens is treated differently on the iPod Photo than it is on other iPods. The white iPods and the iPod mini place an ellipsis (…) at the end of an entry that exceeds the width of the screen. The iPod Photo will scroll selected text from right to left if it's longer than the screen can accommodate.

You can move one more screen from the Now Playing screen by using the scroll wheel or Select button. If you turn the scroll wheel, you'll move to a screen nearly identical to the Now Playing screen where you can adjust the iPod's volume (Figure 1.23). When you stop moving the scroll wheel, you'll be taken back to the Now Playing screen after a couple of seconds. If you press the Select button on any iPod except the iPod Photo while you're in the Now Playing screen, you'll be able to scrub through the song (Figure 1.24). (As I explained earlier, the iPod Photo displays an album art screen if a song has such art, you've chosen to enable that album art, and you press the Select button when in the Now Playing screen.) Like the Now Playing screen, the Scrub screen carries a thermometer display that indicates the playing location with a small diamond. Just push the scroll wheel back or forth to start scrubbing.

On-The-Go Dock-connector iPods

Scroll to the bottom of the Playlists screen on a third- or fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, or iPod mini, and you'll find an additional playlist that you didn't create: the On-The-Go playlist (Figure 1.25). Introduced with iPod Software 2.0 Updater, this playlist is a special one that you create directly on the iPod. It's particularly useful when you need to create a new playlist right now and don't have a computer you can plug your iPod into. It works this way:

1.
Select a song, artist, playlist, or album.

2.
Hold down the Select button until the selected item flashes a few times.

This flashing indicates that the item has been added to the On-The-Go playlist.

3.
Repeat this procedure for any other songs, artists, playlists, and albums you want to add to the list.

4.
When you're ready to play your selections, choose On-The-Go from the Playlists screen, and press the Select button.

In the resulting On-The-Go screen, you'll see a list of songs you've added to the list in the order in which you added them. (The song, artist, playlist, or album you selected first will appear at the top of the list.)

5.
Press Select to begin playing the playlist.

To clear the On-The-Go playlist, scroll to the bottom of the playlist, and select Clear Playlist. In the resulting Clear screen, select Clear Playlist; then press Select.

When you update an iPod mini or a third-generation iPod that's running the iPod Software 2.1 Updater or later, the On-The-Go playlist you created appears in iTunes' Source list as well as in the iPod's Playlist screenthus ensuring that you don't lose the contents of the playlists you so carefully created on the iPod. Each such playlist is numbered successively: On-The-Go 1, On-The-Go 2, and On-The-Go 3, for example. These playlists are copied back to your iPod, and the On-The-Go entry is cleared.

With the fourth-generation iPod and iPod Photo, Apple expands the On-The-Go playlist's capabilities, allowing you to create multiple On-The-Go playlists on your iPod. To do so, follow these steps:

1.
Follow the steps above to create an On-The-Go playlist.

2.
Scroll to the On-The-Go entry in the Playlists screen, and press Select.

The songs you added to your playlists appear in the On-The- Go screen.

3.
Scroll to the bottom of the On-The-Go screen, select Save Playlist, and press Select.

4.
In the resulting Save screen, scroll to Save Playlist, and press Select.

Your playlist will be saved as New Playlist 1. Each time you save a new On-The-Go playlist, it will be called New Playlist and assigned a number one greater than the last New Playlist created.

When you synchronize your fourth-generation iPod or iPod Photo with iTunes, your saved On-The-Go playlists will appear successively numbered in iTunes, bearing the name On-The-GoOn-The-Go 1, On-The-Go 2, and (you guessed it) On-The-Go 3, for example. During synchronization, these On-The-Go playlists are copied to your iPod, and the New Playlist entries are removed.

Browse (Not Found on Fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo)

The iPod allows you to browse the contents of your portable player in several ways: by Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, and Composers. When you highlight the Browse selection in the iPod's main window and press the Select button, you'll find all these choices listed in the Browse window. The fourth-generation iPod and iPod Photo don't contain a Browse command. Rather, the Music command serves nearly the same purpose and contains all the entries below. Here's what you'll find for each entry.

Artists

The Artists screen displays the names of any artists on your iPod (Figure 1.26). Choose an artist's name and press Select, and you'll be transported to that artist's screen, where you have the opportunity to play every song on your iPod by that artist or select a particular album by that artist.

You'll also spy the All entry at the top of the Artists screen. Should you choose this entry, you'll be taken to the All Albums screen, where you can select all albums by all artists. The All Albums screen contains an All command of its own. Select this command, and you'll move to the All Songs screen, which lists all songs by all artists on your iPod. (But if a song doesn't have an artist entry, the song won't appear in this screen.)

Albums

Choose the Albums entry and press Select, and you'll see every album on your iPod (Figure 1.27). Choose an album and press the Select button to play the album from beginning to end. The Albums screen also contains an All button, which, when selected, displays all the songs on all the albums on your iPod. (If the song doesn't have an album entry, it won't appear in this screen.)

Chapters 2 and 4), that song will appear in the Albums screen.

Songs

Choose Songs and press Select, and you'll be presented with a list of all the songs on your iPod (Figure 1.28).

Genres

The iPod has the capability to sort songs by genre: Acoustic, Blues, Reggae, and Techno, for example. If a song has been tagged with a genre entry (see the sidebar "I'll Need to See Some ID" in this section), you can choose it by genre in the Genres screen (Figure 1.29).

Composers

The iPod can also group songs by composers. This feature, added in iPod Software 1.2 Updater , allows you to sort classical music more easily (Figure 1.30).

Audiobooks (fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo only)

As you'll learn later in the book, the iPod is capable of playing audiobook files purchased from Chapter 2.

I'll Need to See Some ID

You're undoubtedly wondering how the iPod knows that Bob Marley's "Buffalo Soldier" is reggae and that Paul Hindemith composed Mathis der Maler. There's no profound trick to it. The iPod simply looks at each file's ID3 tags. ID3 tags are little bits of information that are included with a song's music data, such as title, album, artist, composer, genre, and year the song was recorded.

If someone has taken the time to enter this information (someone like you, for example), the iPod will use it to sort songs by genre, composer, or decade recorded. You can edit a song's ID3 tag in iTunes. In Chapter 2 I'll show you how.

Photos (iPod Photo only)

Coincidentally enough, the Photo command appears only on the iPod Photo (Chapter 3.

Extras

The Extras screen is the means to all the iPod's nonmusical functionsits contacts, calendars, clock, and games. Here's what you'll find for each entry.

Clock

Yes, the iPod can tell time. Clicking Clock displays the current time and date on all iPods. On third-generation iPods and later, clicking Clock also displays commands for setting the iPod's alarm clock, sleep timer, and date and time (Figure 1.32).

Alarm Clock

The Alarm Clock screen provides options for turning the alarm on and off, setting the time for the alarm to go off, and specifying the sound the alarm will play (a simple beep or the contents of one of the playlists on your iPod). This function is not available on the first- and second-generation iPods.

If the iPod's alarm clock goes off while you're listening to music with headphones, you're likely to miss the alarm if it's set to beep. Unlike alarms tied to calendar events, the alarm clock issues no visual displayit beeps or plays a playlist; that's it. If you think you'll be listening to music when the alarm is configured to perform its lowly job, choose a playlist as an alarm rather than a beep. When the iPod suddenly changes playlists, you'll know that the alarm has gone off.

Sleep Timer

To save battery power, the iPod includes a sleep function that powers down your iPod after a certain time has elapsed. The Sleep Timer settings allow you to determine how long an interval of inactivity has to pass before your iPod takes a snooze. The available settings are Off, 15 Minutes, 30 Minutes, 60 Minutes, 90 Minutes, and 120 Minutes. On older iPods, this command is in the Settings screen.

Date & Time

The Date & Time command is your means for setting the time zone that your iPod inhabits, as well as the current date and time. On older iPods, this command is in the Settings screen.

Set Time Zone

Click this command, and in the resulting Time Zone screen, choose your time zoneanything between and including Eniwetok to Auckland. This function is not available on first- and second-generation iPods.

Set Time & Date

Select and click this command to set the iPod's date and time. Use the scroll wheel to change the hour, minutes, AM/PM, date, month, and year values, and use the Forward and Previous buttons to move from value to value. This function is not available on first- and second-generation iPods.

Time

Use this command to display a 12- or 24-hour clock. This function is not available on first- and second-generation iPods.

Time in Title

This command allows the iPod to display the time in the iPod's title bar. This function is not available on first- and second-generation iPods.

On third-generation and later iPods, the Set Time Zone, Set Date & Time, Time, and Time in Title commands are also available in the Date & Time screen that's accessible from the Settings screen.

Contacts

The capability for the iPod to store and view contacts was introduced in the iPod Software 1.1 Updater. I'll discuss how to create contacts elsewhere in the book. In the meantime, you need to know only that to access your contacts, you choose Contacts in the Extras screen and press the Select button (Figure 1.33). Scroll through your list of contacts and press Select again to view the information within a contact. If a contact contains more information than will fit in the display, use the scroll wheel to scroll down the window.

If you haven't placed any contacts on your iPod, clicking the Contacts command will reveal two entries on the Contacts screen: Instructions and Sample. You can probably guess that selecting Instructions provides you directions on how to move contacts to your iPod. The Sample command shows you what a complete contact looks like.

Calendar

The capability for the iPod to list your appointments came with version 1.2 of the iPod software. I'll address calendar creation later in the book, so for now, just know that when you click the Calendar entry on a third- or fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, or iPod mini, you'll see options for viewing all your calendars in a single calendar window, viewing separate calendars (your work or home calendar, for example) if you've created your calendars on the Mac with Apple's iCal, viewing calendars you've created with applications other than iCal under an "Other" heading, viewing To Do items, and setting an alarm for calendar events.

When you select a calendar, the current month is displayed in a window with the current day highlighted (Figure 1.34). If a day has an event attached to it, that day displays a small black rectangle. Use the scroll wheel to move to a different day; scroll forward to look into the future, and scroll back to be transported back in time. To jump to the next or previous month, use the Fast Forward or Rewind buttons, respectively. When you want to see the details of an event, scroll to its day and press the Select button. The details of that event will be displayed in the resulting screen.

Older iPods have more limited calendar functions. Although you can view all your calendars, individual calendars created with iCal, or "Other" calendars created by applications other than iCal, you can't view To Do items. On these iPods, you configure calendar alarms in the Settings screen. The three available settings are Off (no alarm is issued), On (a little tinkling sound erupts from the iPodthe iPod itself, not the headphonesand an alarm screen that describes the event is displayed), and Silent (the alarm screen appears without audio accompaniment).

Calendar alarms for the third- and fourth-generation iPod, iPod Photo, and iPod mini appear in the Calendars screen. The three alarm options on these iPods are Off, Beep (the same thing as On for older iPods), and Silent.

Notes

New with the third-generation iPods was a Notes feature that allows you to store text files (4 KB or smaller, or about 4,096 characters) on your iPod. To add notes to your iPod, mount the iPod on your computer (the iPod must be configured to appear on the Desktop), double-click the iPod to reveal its contents, and drag a text file into the iPod's Notes folder. When you unmount your iPod, you'll find the contents of your text file in the Notes area of the Extras screen. The first- and second-generation iPods don't have this function.

Photo Import (third- and fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo only)

One of the recent spiffy additions to the iPod's compendium of features is the capability to store digital photographs on third- and fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo (this feature is currently not supported on the iPod mini). You can accomplish this with the help of a compatible media transfer unit. ( Belkin's $99 Media Reader for iPod is the only such unit as we go to press.) When you plug such a device into a third- or fourth-generation iPod or iPod Photo's data port, the iPod displays a screen indicating that the device is attached. When you insert a media card (such as a SmartMedia card), the iPod tells you how many pictures the card holds and offers you the option to download those pictures to your iPod.

Chapter 3.

Belkin offers another photocentric device: the $79 Belkin Digital Camera Link for iPod. It currently works with the third- and fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo and will download pictures from a digital camera via the camera's USB cable.

Voice Memos (third- and fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo only)

Another nifty original iPod addition is the device's ability to record voice memos. When you plug a compatible recording device into the Headphone jack and remote control port, the Voice Memos command appears in the iPod's Extras screen. Currently, only Belkin's Voice Recorder, Universal Microphone Adapter, and Griffin Technology's iTalk devices are compatible with the iPod voice-recording function, and voice memos work only with third- and fourth-generation iPods and the iPod Photo. (This feature is incompatible with the mini.)

Click the Select button, and you're taken to the Voice Memos screen, where you can choose to record a new voice memo or play back memos you've already recorded (Figure 1.36). You'll find more information about Voice Memos in the Accessories chapter.

Games

Once upon a time, the iPod had a single hidden game that you could access only if you held down the Select button for several seconds in a particular screen. With the iPod Updater 1.2, Apple decided to reveal this secret gamea form of the classic Breakout game called Brick (Figure 1.37)by placing the Game command in the Extras screen.

Apple includes three additional gamesMusic Quiz, Parachute, and Solitairewith the third- and fourth-generation iPods, iPod Photo, and iPod mini. (Regrettably, the iPod Software 1.3 Updater and later doesn't add these games to older iPods.) When you choose the Games option in the Extras screen of iPods that carry the Dock connector, you'll see listings for Brick, Music Quiz, Parachute, and Solitaire.

To play Brick, just select it and press the Select button. Press Select again to begin the game, and use the scroll wheel to move the paddle.

Maybe it's just my perception, but it seems that Brick is a harder game on the mini than it is on the original iPod. With the mini's smaller screen, it seems that the wall of bricks is closer to the paddle, making less travel time for the ball and, therefore, a faster game.

Music Quiza game that comes with the iPod Software 2.1 Updater and lateris a "needle drop" game. For the benefit of my younger readers who question why in the world anyone would want to drop a needle and what could possibly be so sporting about it, allow me to explain.

The needle I refer to is the one you find on a phonograph. To play the game, you place a phonograph's tone arm at a random location on a spinning phonograph recordusually, in the middle of a song. The point of the game is to try to guess, in the shortest time possible, which song is playing.

The iPod's Music Quiz replicates this gay diversion by playing a random portion of a song stored on your iPod and displaying five titles on the iPod's screen (Figure 1.38). Your job is to scroll to the correct title and push the Select button as quickly as your fingers allow. If you fail to perform this function in 10 seconds, you lose. The more swiftly you correctly identify the song, the more points you earn. At the seven-second mark, one of the titles disappears. At five seconds, another vanishes, and so on until just one title remains and your time expires.

Although some may consider this game to be a not-terribly-productive way to drain your iPod's battery, it could have some practical application in a music class. Students enrolled in music history classes are often required to identify a piece of music based on hearing just a snippet. An iPod loaded with the right music could be a helpful study aid.

Parachute, on the other hand, has little practical value (but you may find it more fun than Music Quiz). After you've selected the game, press Select to begin (Figure 1.39). Your job is to rotate the cannon (using the scroll wheel) and blast helicopters and parachutists out of the sky. You lose the game when a certain number of parachutists land safely or one lands directly on your cannon emplacement.

Solitaire is an implementation of the classic Klondike card game (Figure 1.40). To play, arrange alternating colors of cards in descending sequencea sequence that could run jack of hearts, 10 of spades, 9 of diamonds, 8 of clubs, and so onin the bottom portion of the screen. In the top portion of the window, you arrange cards in an ascending sequence of the same suitace, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of hearts, for example. In other words: classic solitaire.

Navigating this game is not completely intuitive. Use the scroll wheel to move the hand pointer to the card you want to move. Press Select to move the selected card to the bottom of the screen. Then move the pointer to where you want to place the card and press Select again. The game tries to be helpful by moving the pointer to the place where you're most likely to place the card.

The other difficulty with Solitaireat least when played on any iPod other than the iPod Photois that the writing on the cards is so tiny; it's nearly impossible to play the game without the iPod's backlight switched on. This is not the game you want to play when you're running on battery power.

You'll still want to play Solitaire with an iPod Photo's backlighting switched on (heck, you'll want to do nearly everything with this iPod's backlighting engaged because it looks so cool), but you'll find the cards much easier to read in color than they are in an older iPod's grayscale.

Settings

The Settings screen (Figure 1.41) is the path to your iPod preferencesincluding backlight timer and startup-volume settings, EQ selection, and the language the iPod displays. The following sections look at these settings individually.

About

The About screen is where you'll find the name of your iPod (changeable within iTunes and such Windows players as Musicmatch Jukebox and XPlay), the number of songs the iPod currently holds (and, where applicable, the number of photos), the total hard-drive space, the amount of available space, the software version, and your iPod's serial number. If you have the Windows iPod, you'll also see the Format Windows entry. (The Mac version of the iPod doesn't bother to tell you that it's formatted for the Macintosh.)

On iPods running iPod Software 1.2 Updater and earlier, this command is in the iPod's main menu.

Main Menu

This command was introduced with the third generation of iPods.The Main Menu command offers you a way to customize what you see in the iPod's main screen. Choose Main Menu, and press the Select button. In the resulting screen on the fourth-generation iPod, you can choose to view the following commands: Music, Playlists, Artists, Albums, Songs, Genres, Composers, Audiobooks, Extras, Clock, Contacts, Calendar, Notes, Photo Import, Voice Memos, Games, Shuffle Songs, Backlight, Sleep, and Reset Main Menu (Figure 1.42). To enable or disable a command, press the Select button to toggle the command on or off. To return the main menu to its default setting, choose the Reset Main Menu command, press Select, choose Reset in the Reset Menus screen, and press Select again.

The iPod Photo adds Photos and Photo Import to this list.

The iPod mini and third-generation iPod do not include the Music, Audiobooks, and Shuffle Songs options on their Main Menu screens. This option is not available at all on first- and second-generation iPods.

Shuffle

Selecting Shuffle and pressing the Select button toggles you through three settings: Off, Songs, and Albums. On iPods made prior to the fourth-generation iPod, when Shuffle is set to Off, the iPod plays the songs in a playlist in the order in which they appear onscreen. The Songs setting plays all the songs within a selected playlist or album in random order. If no album or playlist is selected, the iPod plays all the songs on the iPod in random order. And the Albums setting plays the songs within each album in order but shuffles the order in which the albums are played.

The fourth-generation iPod and iPod Photo shuffle a bit differently. As you'll see in a few pages, the fourth-generation iPod and the iPod Photo's main screens include a Shuffle Songs command. How the Settings screen's Shuffle command is configured has some effect on how this Shuffle Songs command works. See the "Shuffle Songs" section later in this chapter to learn more.

Repeat

The Repeat setting also offers three options: Off, One, and All. When you choose Off, the iPod won't repeat songs. Choose One, and you'll hear the selected song play repeatedly. Choose All, and all the songs within the selected playlist or album will repeat when the playlist or album has played all the way through. If you haven't selected a playlist or album, all the songs on the iPod will repeat after they've played through.

Backlight Timer

The iPod's backlight pulls its power from the battery, and when it's left on for very long, you significantly shorten the time you can play your iPod on a single charge. For this reason, Apple includes a backlight timer that automatically switches off backlighting after a certain user-configurable interval. You set that interval by choosing the Backlight Timer setting.

On iPods prior to the iPod Photo, settings available to you are Off, 2 Seconds, 5 Seconds, 10 Seconds, 20 Seconds, and (for those who give not a whit about battery life or who are running the iPod from the power adapter) Always On. The iPod Photo includes one additional setting15 Seconds.

Audiobooks (fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo only)

One of the unique features of the fourth-generation iPod and iPod Photo is their ability to slow down or speed up the playback of audiobooks without changing the pitch of the narrator. When you select Audiobooks in the Settings screen, you're offered three options on the resulting Audiobooks screen: Slower, Normal, and Faster (Figure 1.43). The Slower and Faster commands slow down or speed up playback by about 25 percent, respectively.

You're likely thinking that it would take a minor miracle to pull this off without the book's sounding odd. You're right; it would. And so far, Apple has failed to achieve this miracle. When you slow down an audiobook, the resulting audio sounds like it was recorded in a partic ularly reverberant bathroom; you hear a very short echo after each word. Files that have been speeded up appear to have lost all the spaces between words, making the book sound as though it's being read by an overcaffeinated auctioneer.

EQ

Ever since the 1.1 software update, you've been able to assign specific equalization (EQ) settings to your iPod. And what, exactly, is equalization? It's the process of boosting or cutting certain frequencies in the audio spectrummaking the low frequencies louder and the high frequencies quieter, for example. If you've ever adjusted the bass and treble controls on your home or car stereo, you get the idea.

The iPod now comes with the same EQ settings as iTunes 4. Those settings include:

Off

Acoustic

Bass Booster

Bass Reducer

Classical

Dance

Deep

Electronic

Flat

Hip Hop

Jazz

Latin

Loudness

Lounge

Piano

Pop

R & B

Rock

Small Speakers

Spoken Word

Treble Booster

Treble Reducer

Vocal Booster

Although you can listen to each EQ setting to get an idea of what it does, you may find it easier to open iTunes; choose Equalizer from the Window menu; and, in the resulting Equalizer window, choose the various EQ settings from the window's pop-up menu. The equalizer's 10-band sliders will show you which frequencies have been boosted and which have been cut. Any slider that appears above the 0 dB line indicates a frequency that has been boosted. Conversely, sliders that appear below 0 dB have been cut.

I'll look at the equalizer in greater depth when I examine iTunes.

EQ and the iPod

Apple was kind enough to include a configurable equalizer (EQ) as part of the iPod Software 1.1 Updater and later, but the way that the EQ settings in iTunes and the iPod interact is a little confusing. Allow me to end that confusion.

Macintosh users undoubtedly know that in iTunes 2, 3, and 4, you can assign an EQ setting to songs individually by clicking the song, pressing Command-I, clicking the Options tab, and then choosing an EQ setting from the Equalizer Preset menu. You can do the same thing in the Windows version of iTunes (EQ is not supported by Musicmatch Jukebox, however). When you move songs to your iPod, these EQ settings move right along with them, but you won't be able to use them unless you configure the iPod correctly.

If, for example, you have EQ switched off on the iPod, songs that have an assigned EQ preset won't play with that setting. Instead, your songs will play without the benefit of EQ. If you set the iPod's EQ to Flat, the EQ setting that you preset in iTunes will play on the iPod. If you select one of the other EQ settings on the iPod (Latin or Electronic, for example), songs without EQ presets assigned in iTunes will use the iPod EQ setting. Songs with EQ settings assigned in iTunes will use the iTunes setting.

If you'd like to hear how a particular song sounds on your iPod with a different EQ setting, start playing the song on the iPod, press the Menu button until you return to the Main screen, select Settings, select EQ, and then select one of the EQ settings. The song will immediately take on the EQ setting you've chosen, but this setting won't stick on subsequent playback. If you want to change the song's EQ more permanently, you must do so in iTunes.

Sound Check

New with the iPod Software 1.2 Updater, Sound Check attempts to maintain a consistent volume among songs. Before Sound Check arrived on the scene, you'd constantly fiddle with the iPod's volume because one song was too loud, the next too quiet, the next quieter still, and the next painfully loud. Sound Check does its best to produce volumes that don't vary so wildly.

To use Sound Check, you must first select the Sound Check option in iTunes 3 or 4 (iTunes 2, the version of iTunes that's compatible with Mac OS 9, doesn't carry the Sound Check feature), have iTunes 3 or 4 apply Sound Check to the music files on your computer, and then download those Sound Checked files to your iPod.

Contrast (not available on the iPod Photo)

To change the display's contrast, select the Contrast setting, press Select, and use the scroll wheel to darken or lighten the display.

The iPod Photo doesn't include any controls for changing the brightness, contrast, or color balance of the screen.

Clicker

This simple On/Off setting on all iPods, save the fourth-generation model, allows you to turn off the click that the iPod makes when you press a button or move your thumb across the scroll wheel.

The fourth-generation iPod and iPod Photo has a more advanced clicker than previous iPods. When you choose Clicker and press the Select button on one of these iPods, you have four options: Off, Speaker, Headphones, and Both. As the names imply, Speaker causes the iPod to emit a clicking sound from within the device, Headphones plays a click sound through the headphone jack, and Both channels the click sound through both the internal speaker element and the headphone jack.

Date & Time

On the third- and fourth-generation iPods, iPod Photo, and iPod mini, this command is also accessible from the Date & Time command in the Clock screen.

As I said when discussing the Clock command, this command includes options for configuring the time zone, date, and time; displaying a 12- or 24-hour clock; and placing the current time in the iPod's menu bar.

On first- and second-generation iPods, you can use this command to set only the time zone and the current date and time.

Contacts

The Contacts setting allows you to sort your contacts by last or first name and to display those contacts by last or first name.

Language

The iPod can display 14 languages: English, Japanese, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Korean, and Chinese (Traditional and Simplified). In some instances, the iPod can display multiple languages. It's possible to view American titles on an iPod that displays the Japanese language, for example. I'll show you how when I talk about iTunes.

Should someone set your iPod to a language you don't understand (one of my favorite April Fool's jokes, by the way), you can reset it. On iPods prior to the fourth-generation model, choose the fourth command from the top in the Main menu, choose the third menu from the bottom in the next screen, and then select your language in the resulting list. With the fourth-generation iPod, select the third command from the top and then the third command from the bottom on the next screen to access the Language screen. With the iPod Photo, you choose the fourth command from the top and then the third command from the bottom.

Legal

If you care to view a few copyright notices, feel free to choose the Legal setting and press the Select button.

Reset All Settings

As the name implies, selecting Reset All Settings, pressing the Select button, and selecting Reset returns the iPod to its default settings. This doesn't mean that your music library will be erased. Rather, this setting turns Shuffle off, Repeat off, Sound Check off, EQ off, Backlight Timer off, Contrast to the middle setting, Alarm on, Sleep Timer off, and Clicker on. Then it transports you to the Language screen, where English is selected by default (though this setup may be different on iPods sold in non-English-speaking countries).

Shuffle Songs (Fourth-generation iPods and iPod Photo Only)

When Apple's engineers redesigned the menu structure for the fourth-generation iPod, they decided to give iPod owners easy access to a shuffle command. The result of their work is the Shuffle Songs command in the main screen.

One might think that pressing this button simply plays all the material on the iPod in random order. Not exactly. Shuffle Songs changes its behavior based on the Shuffle setting in the iPod's Settings screen. It works this way:

If you press Shuffle Songs when Shuffle is set to Off or to Songs, the iPod will play songs at random. Note that it won't play any files it recognizes as audiobooks.

If you press Shuffle Songs when Shuffle is set to Albums, the iPod picks an album at random and then plays the songs on that album in succession (the order in which they appear on the album). When that album finishes playing, the iPod plays a different album.

Note that if you also switch the Repeat command in the Settings menu to All and press Shuffle Songs, the iPod plays through all the songs on the iPod in the order determined by the Shuffle command and then repeats them in the same order in which they were shuffled originally. For example, if you have three songs on your iPodA, B, and Cand the iPod shuffles them to be in B, C, A order, when they repeat, they'll repeat as B, C, and A. The iPod won't reshuffle them.