How to Get More Life Out of an iPod’s Battery?

The iPod uses a lithium-ion battery. Any battery, including the iPod’s, will eventually wear out and no longer provide the power it once did. In my research, most lithium-ion batteries are rated for 300–500 charges. In this context, a charge can’t be precisely defined, but it does include a full discharge and then a full recharge. A partial charge doesn’t “count” as much, but the precise relationship between amount of charge and how much that charge “counts” can’t be specified. Batteries like that in the iPod actually last longer if you don’t let them fully discharge before you recharge them. Frequent “topping off” will not reduce the battery’s life and in fact is better for your battery than letting it run very low on power before you recharge it.
Every 30 recharges or so, do run your iPod until it is completely out of power and then perform a full recharge. This will reset the battery’s power gauge, which tends to get more inaccurate if the battery is never fully discharged.
It doesn’t hurt the battery to do frequent and short recharges, such as by placing the iPod in a Dock every day after you are done using it.
However, you should make sure to run the iPod on battery power for significant periods of time. If you constantly run the iPod from the power adapter or while it is in the Dock connected to a power source, the iPod’s battery’s performance will degrade.

Tips for charging iPod battery

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to charge your iPod’s battery, including the following:

• Use the included FireWire power adapter.
• Connect the iPod to a six-pin FireWire port either directly with a cable or via a Dock.
• Use a power adapter designed for 12-volt sources, such as the power outlets in your vehicle.

There are two different ways that the iPod lets you know it is charging. When your iPod’s battery is charging via a FireWire connection to a computer, the Battery icon will include a lightning bolt symbol and will include a filling motion from the left to the right of the icon. When the battery is fully charged, the icon will be completely filled and the motion will stop.
When you charge your iPod’s battery through a separate power adapter only, the battery icon fills the iPod’s screen and flashes. When the process is complete, the battery icon remains steady.
According to Apple, it takes only an hour to charge a drained battery to 80% of its capacity. It can take up to four hours to fully charge a drained battery.

How to Maximize and Monitor iPod Battery Life?

The Battery icon in the upper-right corner of the screen always tells you what your battery’s status is at any point in time.
When your iPod is running on battery power, the amount of shading within the icon provides a relative—and I do mean relative—indication of your battery’s current state. As you use battery power, the “filled in” part of the battery will decrease until your iPod runs out of gas. When it does, you’ll see an icon of a battery with an exclamation point that indicates your iPod is out of power, and the battery will have to be charged before you can use the iPod again.
To maximize your iPod’s playing time per battery charge, you can do the following:

• Keep the iPod’s software up to date.
• Use the Hold switch to prevent your iPod from being unintentionally turned on when you carry it around. You’d be amazed how easy it is for the iPod to be turned on and start to play without you knowing it, especially if you carry it in your pocket, backpack, or computer bag. (It’s no fun trying to listen to tunes only to find out your iPod’s battery has been accidentally drained—not that this has ever happened to me of course.)
• When you aren’t listening, don’t keep your iPod playing. Use the Pause button when you aren’t listening to music. Playing music uses power at a greater rate than not playing music.
• Put your iPod to sleep by turning it off when you aren’t using it. The Sleep, or Off, mode uses the least amount of power. (You can press and hold the Play/Pause button to turn the iPod off. You can also add the Sleep command to the Main menu if you prefer to use that instead.)
• Keep backlighting at a minimum level. Backlighting is very helpful to be able to see the iPod’s screen, especially in low-light conditions. However, it does use additional power, so you should use it only as needed to maximize battery life. When you don’t need it, such as in daylight conditions, turn it off. When you do need it, set it such that it remains on only a few seconds when you press a control.
• Minimize track changes. Each time you change tracks, the iPod uses more power than it would just playing tracks straight through.
• Turn the Equalizer off. The Equalizer uses more power than playing music without it.
• Every 30 recharges or so, fully drain and recharge the battery.
• Keep the iPod at a comfortable temperature. Using the iPod in very cold or very hot conditions lowers its battery life.

Moving Images from an iPod to a Computer

To move images that you have stored on the iPod to your computer, connect the iPod to the computer on which you want to place the iPod’s images. Open the DCIM folder and you’ll see subfolders that contain the images you have downloaded. Open the folder containing photos you want to work with and you’ll see those photos.
You can then open them or import them into the application you use to work with digital images. After you have moved the images from your iPod onto your computer, delete the images from the iPod to free up disk space. You can do that by using the Delete command on the iPod’s Roll Information screen or by deleting the image folders from the iPod from your computer’s desktop.

Storing Photos on an iPod

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

1. Use a digital camera to capture images.
2. Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
3. Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
4. Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
5. Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
6. Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
7. Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
8. When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
9. To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
10. When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Storing Photos on an iPod

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

1. Use a digital camera to capture images.
2. Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
3. Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
4. Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
5. Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
6. Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
7. Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
8. When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
9. To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
10. When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Choosing Card Reader for Your iPod

To be able to store images on an iPod, you need some way to move the images from the camera’s memory card onto the iPod’s hard drive. At press time, there is only one device that allows you to do this: the Belkin iPod Media Reader. This very versatile device enables you to read files from the most common types of memory cards used in digital cameras, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard.