Adding and Using Apple’s iPod Remote

Some iPod models include Apple’s iPod Remote. This clever gadget is a control that you plug into the iPod’s Headphones port and Remote port and then plug your headphones or speakers into it. When you do this, you can use the controls on the remote to control your iPod. This is particularly useful when you are carrying your iPod in a belt case or in another way such that its controls aren’t easily accessible. Because the remote is on a wire, you can place it in an accessible location using its clip, such as on your clothing.

The controls on the remote work just like those on the iPod itself. One exception to this is that you can use the Volume control on the remote to change the volume regardless of what screen is currently being displayed. The other is that you don’t have a Scroll pad or Click Wheel on the remote, so you will choose your music using the iPod’s controls and then control its playback using the remote.

Monitoring an iPod’s Battery

Even though the iPod’s battery lasts a long time, it will eventually run out of juice and your music can come to a crashing halt. To prevent this, keep an eye on your iPod’s Battery icon. As your battery drains, the shaded part of the battery will decrease to indicate how much power you have left. When ¼ or less is shaded, you should think about recharging your iPod.

Creating and Using an iPod On-The-Go Playlist

Working with playlists that you create in iTunes is very useful, but you can also create a single playlist on the iPod and listen to that playlist as much as you’d like. This enables you to create a playlist when you are away from your computer in order to listen to a specific collection of music. To add a song to your On-The-Go playlist, view a list, such as the list of songs on an album, on which the song is listed. Highlight the song you want to add and hold the Select button down until the highlighting on the song flashes. Continue adding songs using the same process until you have selected a group of songs.

To see the contents of your On-The-Go playlist, choose Main menu, Playlists, On-The-Go. You will see the contents of the On-The-Go playlist that you have created. You can play this playlist just like any other playlist on your iPod.

If you want to clear the On-The-Go playlist, choose Main menu, Playlists, On-The-Go, Clear Playlist, Clear Playlist (no, that isn’t a mistake, you choose this command twice, but each is on a different screen). All the songs that were in the playlist will be removed, and it will become empty again. (The songs that were in that playlist are not removed from your iPod; the playlist is just cleared of those songs.)

Playing the iPod Way

The basics of listening to music are cool. Now let’s take a look at some of the cool iPod playback features that aren’t so obvious.
You can move around menus while music is playing just like you can when it isn’t. As you choose other menus, the music will continue to play until you pause it or choose different music and play that instead.

At the top of the screen, you see information about the number of the current song out of the total you selected. For example, if you are playing the first song in a playlist containing 50 songs, this will be 1 of 50. This information helps you know where you are in the selected source.

In the center of the screen, you will see information about the song currently selected, including song title, artist, and album. If any of this information is too long to be shown on one line, it will begin scrolling across the screen a second or two after a song starts playing.

At the bottom of the screen, you will see the Timeline bar. In the normal mode, this gives you a visual indication of the song’s length and how much of the song you have played so far (represented by the shaded part of the bar). Under the left edge of the bar, you will see the amount of time the current song has been playing. At the right end of the bar, you will see the time remaining to play (this is a negative number and counts down to zero as the song plays). If you click the Select button one time, the Timeline bar changes to indicate that you can now rewind or fast-forward using the Scroll pad or Click Wheel. When the Timeline bar is in this mode, you can drag the Scroll pad or Click Wheel clockwise to fast-forward or counterclockwise to rewind the music. As you drag, the Current Location marker moves to its new location and the time information is updated. When you release the Scroll pad or Click Wheel, the Timeline bar will return to its normal mode in a second or so.

If you click the Select button twice, the Timeline bar is replaced by the Rating display. If the song currently playing has been rated, you will see the number of stars for that song. If the song hasn’t been rated, you see five dots instead. You can rate the current song by dragging the Scroll pad or Click Wheel clockwise to give the song more stars or counterclockwise to reduce the number of stars. A second or so after you stop touching the Scroll pad or Click Wheel, the Timeline bar will return to its normal mode.
The neat thing about this is that the next time you connect your iPod to your computer, the rating information you set on the iPod is carried over to that music in your iTunes Library. So, you need to rate a song in only one place.

Playing the Basic Way

Here are the basic controls you can use:

• Play/Pause button—When music is paused, pressing this button causes it to play again. When music is playing, pressing this button causes the music to pause.
• Previous/Rewind button—If you press this button once quickly, you will jump back to the start of the song. If you press this button twice quickly, you will jump back to the start of the previous song. If you press and hold this button down, the music will rewind; release the button when you get to the point at which you want it to start playing again.
• Next/Fast-forward button—Press this button once and you will jump to the start of the next song. Press this button down and hold it, and you will fast-forward the song; release the button when you get to the point in the song where you want to be.
• Scroll pad/Click Wheel—When the Now Playing screen is shown, drag a digit clockwise to increase the volume or counterclockwise to decrease the volume.

When you touch the Scroll pad or Click Wheel, the Volume bar will appear on the screen to visually indicate the current volume level; the shaded part of the bar represents the current volume level. As you change the volume, the shaded area will expand or contract, depending on whether you increased or decreased the volume. When you release the pad or Wheel, the Volume bar will disappear.

You can only change the volume using the Scroll pad or Click Wheel when the Now Playing screen is shown. That is why the Now Playing option is listed on the Main menu. You can quickly jump to this screen to change the volume when you need to.

How to Browse Your iPod’s Music?

Choosing music with playlists is great, and you might often find that method to be the one you end up using most because it gets you to specific music quickly. However, some music stored on your iPod might not be in a playlist, you might want to listen to all the music by a specific artist, and so on. In these cases, you can browse the music stored on your iPod to choose the music to which you want to listen.

You can browse your music by the following categories:
■ Artists
■ Albums
■ Songs
■ Genres
■ Composers
To browse your iPod’s music, do the following steps:

1. Choose Main menu, Browse. You’ll see the Browse menu, which contains the categories listed previously.
2. Highlight the category by which you want to browse your music, such as Artists to browse by artist, and press the Select button. You will see the menu that shows you all the music that is associated with the category you selected in step 1. For example, if you choose Artists, you will see all the artists whose music is stored on your iPod
3. Browse the resulting list of music that appears until you find a category in which you are interested; then press the Select button. You will see the list of contents of the category you selected. For example, when I was browsing by artist and chose B.B. King, the list of my B.B. King music was displayed.
4. To move down to the next level of detail, select an item on the current list and click the Select button. The resulting screen will show you the contents of what you selected. For example, I selected the B.B. King album called “Spotlight on Lucille” and saw that album’s contents.
5. To play everything shown on the screen, starting at the top, press the Play/Pause button. To start with a specific song, select it and press the Play/Pause button. The Now Playing screen will appear, and the first song or the song you selected will start to play.Although the previous steps used the Artists category as an example, you can browse and select music in any of the other categories in just the same way.

Selecting Music with Playlists

When you transfer music from your iTunes Library to an iPod, the playlists you have created and that are shown in the iTunes Source List come over, too. You can select music to listen to by choosing a playlist using the following steps:

1. Choose Main menu, Playlists. You’ll move to the Playlists menu. In order to play music on an iPod, you must have some stored on it. You do this by loading music into your iTunes Library and then transferring that music to the iPod. For help with the first part.
2. Highlight the playlist you want to listen to and press the Select button. The songs in that playlist will be shown.
3. If you want to play the entire playlist, press the Play/Pause button. If you want to start with a specific song, highlight it and press the Select button. The Now Playing screen will appear, and the first song in the playlist or the one you highlighted will begin playing .