The Internet GigaBook For Dummies

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

In This Chapter

* Opening the box

* Powering up your iPod

* Setting the language for your iPod menus

* Connecting your iPod to a Mac

In his trademark style, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the 30GB iPod with a remark about the Apple competitors: "We're into our third generation and the rest of them haven't caught up with the first."

As an iPod owner, you are on the cutting edge of music player technology. This chapter introduces the iPod and tells you what to expect when you open the box. It describes how to power up your iPod and connect it to your Mac, both of which are essential tasks you need to know how to do - your iPod needs power, and your iPod needs music, which it gets from your Mac.

Introducing the iPod

The iPod is indeed different from any portable music device that came before. The iPod is, essentially, a hard drive and a digital music player in one device. The hard drive enables the device to hold far more music than MP3 players. The 40GB iPod model (available as of this writing) can hold around 10,000 songs, which is about 9,000 more songs than can fit on a typical MP3 player. We've put enough music in an iPod to last threeweeks if played continuously, around the clock - or about one new song a day for the next 20 years.

The design of the iPod is superb. At 5.6 ounces, it weighs less than two CDs. With an LCD screen, touch wheel, menu buttons, and backlighting for clear visibility in low-light conditions, the iPod is designed for easy one-handed operation. It offers up to 20 minutes of skip protection - keeping music playing smoothly, not missing a beat even with jarring physical activity - which is twice that of other hard drive-based MP3 players on the market. And with a thickness of only 0.62 inches, the iPod fits comfortably in the palm of your hand and slips easily into your pocket.

The iPod is a music player, not a recorder (not yet anyway), but what makes the iPod great is the way it helps you manage your music. You can have your iPod do the following things:

•   Update itself automatically to copy your entire iTunes music library.

•   Copy music directly to your iPod.

•   Delete music on your iPod.

•   Update by playlist.

You'll spend only about ten seconds copying a CD's worth of music from iTunes on your Mac to your iPod. The iPod supports the most popular digital audio formats, including MP3 (including MP3 Variable Bit Rate), AIFF, WAV, and the new AAC format, which features CD-quality audio in smaller file sizes than MP3. It also supports the Audible AA spoken word file format.

The iPod is also a data player, perhaps the first of its kind. As a hard disk, the iPod serves as a portable backup device for important data files, including your calendar and address book.

The iPod is a convenient way for viewing data on the road (while listening to music, of course). It even offers a sleep timer and alarm clock that can wake you up with your favorite music.

Thinking Inside the Box

As you open the elegantly designed box (which reminds us of the awe we felt at opening the Beatles' White Album in 1968), try not to get too excited. First make sure you receive everything you are supposed to get inside the box. The box includes the following:

•   A CD-ROM with the iTunes software for the Mac (which also includes MusicMatch for the PC).

•   The cables you need to connect to a Mac:

Current models offer a dock and a special cable to connect the dock to the Mac FireWire connection.

Older models offer a FireWire cable for connecting the iPod FireWire connection to the Mac FireWire connection.

•   A FireWire-compatible power adapter for connecting either the older iPod or the newer iPod-in-dock to an AC power source.

•   A set of portable earphones.

•   A remote controller that connects to the iPod by wire.

•   You may also have a carrying case and some other goodies. Apple also provides a long list of optional accessories, many of which we describe in this book.

You also need a few things that don't come with the iPod:

•   A Mac with a built-in FireWire port, running Mac OS X version 10.1.4 or newer. You can also use the iPod with a 300 MHz or faster PC with at least 96MB of RAM running Windows ME, 2000, or XP (with at least 128MB of RAM), and a built-in or Windows-certified IEEE 1394 (FireWire) or a USB connection.

•   iTunes 4.0 or newer (provided on CD-ROM with the iPod, or downloaded directly from Apple through the Software Update feature in System Preferences). Double-click the installer on the CD-ROM (or on your desktop if downloaded) to install iTunes. For PCs, you can install MusicMatch Jukebox, also included on the CD-ROM that comes with your iPod.

•   Optional: Mac users can install iSync, a free utility program from Apple for synchronizing your iPod with your address book and calendar, and iCal for creating and editing your calendar. Both are available for free downloading from apple.com.

Powering Up Your iPod

You can take a six-hour flight from Philadelphia to Oakland, California, and listen to your iPod the entire time. The iPod includes a built-in rechargeable lithium polymer battery that provides up to ten hours of continuous music playtime on three hours of charge (playback battery time varies, however, with the type of encoder you use for the music files in iTunes - Chapter 18 has more info on encoders).

You can also fast-charge the battery to 80 percent capacity in one hour. The iPod battery recharges automatically when you connect the iPod to a power source. That power source can be either the power adapter supplied with the iPod, or a Mac connected by FireWire cable.

Older iPod models offer a Mac-like FireWire connection on the top of the iPod, but newer models use a dock that connects to the iPod and offers FireWire and USB to various devices. The dock can also connect to your home stereo through a line out connection. The dock includes a cable with a dock connector on one end and a FireWire (or optional USB) connector on the other, as shown in Figure 1-1. You can connect the FireWire end of the cable to either the Mac (to synchronize with iTunes and play iPod music in iTunes), or to the power adapter, to charge the iPod battery. The FireWire connection to the Mac provides power to the iPod as long as the Mac is not in sleep mode.

You can't remove or replace the iPod internal battery. When it goes, you need a new iPod. Don't fry the thing with some generic power adapter - use only the power adapter supplied with the iPod from Apple. Charging the battery to about 80 percent takes about an hour, and four hours to charge it fully, which is fast enough for most people. If your iPod is inactive for more than 14 days, you may have to recharge its battery - if more than 28 days, you definitely need a full recharge.

A battery icon in the top right corner of the iPod display indicates with a progress bar how much power is left. When you charge the battery, the icon turns into a lightning bolt inside a battery. If the icon does not animate, the battery is fully charged. You can disconnect the iPod and use it before the battery is fully charged.

Keeping the iPod encased in its carrying case when charging is tempting, but also foolish - the iPod needs to dissipate its heat, and you can damage the unit. The bottom of the iPod warms up when it is powered on - the bottom functions as a cooling surface that transfers heat from inside the unit to the cooler air outside. Be sure to remove the iPod from its carrying case before you recharge it.

Connecting to the Mac

Your Mac has a FireWire connection marked by a radioactivelooking Y symbol. The cable supplied with your iPod has a six-pin connector that inserts into your Mac FireWire connection.

Depending on your iPod model, that cable either connects directly to your iPod (older models) or to a dock. If you already used the cable to charge up the iPod, you can disconnect the cable from the power adapter and connect that same end to the Mac.

In fact, you can leave your dock connected to your Mac and use the Mac to also charge up the iPod battery.

When you first connect the iPod to the Mac, the Setup Assistant appears, as shown in Figure 1-2. In this dialog box, you can name your iPod, which is a good idea if you plan on sharing several iPods among several computers.

In the Setup Assistant, you can decide whether to update your iPod automatically or manually. If this is your first time using an iPod, you probably want to fill it up right away, so leave this option checked. (Don't worry; you can always change it later; see Chapter 10.) If you want to copy only a portion of your library to the iPod, uncheck this option.

The Setup Assistant allows you to register your iPod with Apple to take advantage of Apple support. When you reach the last dialog box of the Setup Assistant, click the Done button.

After you click the Done button in the Setup Assistant, iTunes automatically launches, and the iPod name appears in the iTunes Source list near the top. If you selected the automatic update feature in the Setup Assistant, the iPod name appears grayed out in the Source list, and you can't open it. However, your iPod is quickly filling up with the music from your iTunes music library.

If you have the automatic update feature turned off, the iPod name appears just like any other source in the Source list, and you can open it and play songs on the iPod through iTunes and your Mac speakers, as described in Chapter 17.

After finishing setup, the iPod icon also appears on the Finder desktop. If you leave your iPod connected to the Mac, the iPod appears on the desktop and in iTunes whenever you start iTunes.

To see how much free space is left on the iPod, click the iPod icon on the desktop and choose File[right arrow]Get Info. The Finder displays the Get Info window with information about capacity, amount used, and available space. You can also use the About command in the iPod Settings menu: Settings[right arrow]About from the main menu. The iPod information screen appears with capacity and available space.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Internet GigaBook For Dummies by Peter Weverka Tony Bove Mark L. Chambers Marsha Collier Brad Hill John R. Levine Margaret Levine Young Doug Lowe Camille McCue Deborah S. Ray Eric J. Ray Cheryl Rhodes Excerpted by permission.
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