iPod: The Missing Manual | O'Reilly Media

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If you're like most people, you don't want to waste time getting your spiffy new iPod up and running. You probably don't want to wade through anything longer than a couple of paragraphs. oh, and you'd like some color pictures, too.

Sure, Apple thoughtfully tucks a little pamphlet of starter info in with every iPod it sells. it's nicely designed as far as pamphlets go. But you may find that it doesn't go far enough. You want more help than a few line drawings and some haiku-like instructions.

This book—especially this chapter—can help you out.

You won't get bogged down in oceans of print here. You'll learn a bit about your iPod and how to get it whistling sweet tunes in your ear in a minimal amount of time. If you want more information on in-depth iPodding or getting the most out of iTunes, you can find that stuff in chapters farther down the road.

But for now, it's time to get rolling with your new iPod. Ready?

In just a few short years, Apple has transformed the iPod from a humble little 5-gigabyte music player with a black-and-white screen into a full color, gorgeous portable media system that can play movies, TV shows, and video games—all while still fitting comfortably in the palm of your hand. And it's come a long way from those first 5 gigabytes: now you can stuff 80 gigabytes of music, photos, videos, and more onto the biggest iPod.

In those 80 gigabytes, you can fit 20,000 songs or 100 hours of video. And you don't have to stock up on the Duracells, either, because the iPod's rechargeable battery can play audio for 20 hours or last for 6.5 hours if you're glued to your video library.

Figure 1-1:

But if 80 gigabytes is too much for your needs, you can get the 30 GB model that does everything the big Podzilla model does, but just has a smaller hard drive. You can still store up to 7,500 songs or 40 hours of video on the device, which is plenty for many people. Battery life can last up to 14 hours for audio and 3.5 hours for video.

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In just a few short years, Apple has transformed the iPod from a humble little 5-gigabyte music player with a black-and-white screen into a full color, gorgeous portable media system that can play movies, TV shows, and video games—all while still fitting comfortably in the palm of your hand. And it's come a long way from those first 5 gigabytes: now you can stuff 80 gigabytes of music, photos, videos, and more onto the biggest iPod.

In those 80 gigabytes, you can fit 20,000 songs or 100 hours of video. And you don't have to stock up on the Duracells, either, because the iPod's rechargeable battery can play audio for 20 hours or last for 6.5 hours if you're glued to your video library.

Figure 1-1:

But if 80 gigabytes is too much for your needs, you can get the 30 GB model that does everything the big Podzilla model does, but just has a smaller hard drive. You can still store up to 7,500 songs or 40 hours of video on the device, which is plenty for many people. Battery life can last up to 14 hours for audio and 3.5 hours for video.

Both iPod models come in either black or white. If you're a diehard fan of a particular Irish rock band, you can also get the black 30 GB U2 Special Edition iPod with a sassy red click wheel front and center.

Along with the click wheel—think of it as the iPod's mouse—the 2.5-inch color screen is the player's other main element. Capable of displaying more than 65,000 colors at a resolution of 320 by 240 pixels (translation: high-quality), the iPod's a great place to store and show off your latest vacation photos, catch up on that episode of The Daily Show you missed, or play a few rounds of solitaire while listening to your favorite music.

Figure 1-2:

The iPod comes with everything you need to hook it up to your Windows PC or Macintosh: USB 2.0 cable, earphones, and even a slim case to keep the scuff monster at bay. Once you get up and iPodding around, you'll find that everyone and their grandmother wants to sell you other accessories for your iPod—all you have to do is stroll down to your favorite computer store and browse the offerings of fancy cases, cables, battery chargers, and more.

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The iPod Nano is Apple's mid-sized music player, but it doesn't just look like a regular iPod that got shrunk in the wash. The Nano has its own sleek, stylish design that brings a touch of fashion to your music experience. Like the big iPod, the Nano has a color screen and it plays songs, podcasts, and audio books. It can also display photos, text notes, contacts, and calendars. You navigate through all these goodies using the smooth, touch-sensitive click wheel.

Figure 1-3:

There are, however, a few key differences between Nanos and regular iPods: you can't play videos or iTunes Store games like Pac-Man on it. But the Nano's great for workouts because it uses a flash memory chip to store music and photos. That means it's much more tolerant of jumping and flying around than a regular iPod, with its big ol'hard drive tucked inside.

Figure 1-4:

The Nano comes in three sizes: 2-gigabyte, 4-gigabyte, and 8-gigabyte, all wrapped in sturdy, scratch-resistant anodized aluminum. You're not just stuck with a black-or-white decision when buying a Nano, either—you can get the 4 GB model in silver, green, blue, or pink. Oh, and if you like your music flowing all day long, you'll be glad to know the Nano's battery lasts up to 24 hours—you'll probably conk out before it does.

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The latest version of the iPod Shuffle is even smaller than the original white-stick edition. And you don't have to worry about losing the new silver Shuffle, because it clips right to your lapel or pocket—it's like jewelry you can rock out with. Like the first Shuffle, this iPod doesn't have a screen, and its 1-gigabyte memory chip holds about 240 songs. And just because it's called the iPod Shuffle, doesn't mean you have to shuffle your music; you can play your songs (or audio books) in order with the nudge of a button.

Figure 1-5:

This silver surfer is so small, it doesn't even have room for the USB jack that its predecessor used to plug into the computer for music-loading and battery-recharging. The new Shuffles, which offer about 12 hours of playing time, now include a tiny dock that connects the player to your computer's USB port. In addition to the dock, you also get:

Those trademark white Apple headphones, all ready to plug into the headphone jack on the top of the Shuffle.

Figure 1-6:
A handy control ring on the front of the player to adjust your volume and skip over songs you're not in the mood to hear.

Figure 1-7:
Little silver switches on bottom of the Shuffle to turn it off and on and to flip between shuffling your songs and playing them in order.

Figure 1-8:

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Before you can have hours of iPod fun, you need to install the iTunes program on your computer. With iTunes, you also get Apple's QuickTime multimedia software—a video helper for iTunes. iPods once came with a CD packing all this software, but these days you have to download it yourself:

Fire up your Web browser and point it to http://www.apple.com/ipod/start.
Click the "Download iTunes" button. (Turn off the "Email me…" and "Keep me up to date…" checkboxes to spare yourself future marketing missives.) Wait for the file to download to your computer.
When the file lands on your hard drive, double-click the iTunesSetup.exe file. If you use a Mac, double-click the iTunes.dmg file and then open the iTunes.mpkg file to start the installation. But if your Mac's younger than five years old, you probably already have iTunes installed. Go to Menu → Software Update and ask your Mac to look for a newer version just in case.
Follow the screens until the software installer says it's done.

Figure 1-9:

You may need to restart your computer after the software's been installed. Once iTunes is loaded, you're ready to connect your new iPod to the computer.

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If you haven't torn open the package already, carefully take the iPod out of its box. The items you'll find inside vary depending on which iPod you purchased, but all of them come with:

The classic Apple white headphones.

Figure 1-10:
A USB cable to connect the iPod to your computer. The iPod and iPod Nano use the same white USB cable with the flat dock-connector port, while the iPod Shuffle has its own little USB dock.

Figure 1-11:
A little pamphlet of basic quick-start information that's not nearly as fun or as colorful as this book.

What you want right now is the USB cable. Connect the small end to the computer's USB port and the large, flat end (or the dock, if you have a Shuffle) to the iPod. The first time you connect the iPod to the computer, the Setup Assistant walks you through a few steps to get your iPod ready to go.

The next step, if you want to hear some music, is to get some music on your iPod.

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Once iTunes is installed on your computer, you can start filling it with music. Chapter 3 has info on digital audio formats and technical settings you can tweak, but if you've got a brand new iPod, odds are you don't care about that right now. No, you'd probably just like to get some music on your iPod. Here are three simple ways:

If you've had a computer for longer than a few years, odds are you already have some songs in the popular MP3 format already on your hard drive. When you start iTunes for the first time, the program asks if you'd like it to search your PC or Mac for music and add it to iTunes. Click "Yes" and iTunes will go fetch.

Figure 1-12:

Now, many Windows fans, if they do have existing music, may have songs in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format. The bad news here is that iTunes can't play WMA files. The good news is that iTunes, when it finds WMA files, can automatically convert them to an iPod-friendly format.

You can also use iTunes to convert tracks from your audio CDs into iPodready digital music files. Just stick a CD in your computer's disc drive after you start up iTunes. The program asks if you want to import the CD into iTunes. (If it doesn't, just click the "Import CD" button at the bottom of the iTunes window.)

Figure 1-13:

Once you tell it to import the music, iTunes gets to work. If you're connected to the Internet, the program automatically downloads song titles and artist information for the CD and begins to add the songs to the iTunes library. You can import all the tracks from a CD, but if you don't want every song, then turn off the checkbox next to those titles and iTunes skips them. Chapter 3 has more about using iTunes to convert CDs.

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You don't have to do much to keep your music and video collection up to date between your computer and your iPod. That's because the iPod has a nifty autosync feature, which automatically synchronizes your iTunes library to the iPod when you connect it to the computer.

The first time you plug in your new iPod (after you've installed iTunes, of course), the iPod Setup Assistant leaps into action, asks you to name your iPod, and asks if you'd like to "Automatically sync songs and videos to my iPod" right there. If your answer's "yes," just click the Finish button. iTunes loads a copy of everything in its library onto your iPod. That's it. Your iPod's ready to go.

If you like autosync but want more control over what goes onto the iPod, check out Chapter 3.

Figure 1-16:

if you have an iPod shuffle, you may already have more music than can fit on the small player. if that's the case, your automatic option is the Autofill button at the bottom of the iTunes window. Click that and iTunes decides what to put on your iPod. If you want to be the boss of your music, read the next page.

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If you don't have enough room on your iPod for your whole iTunes collection, or plan to load music onto your iPod from more than one computer, (say your work and home PCs), you'll want to manually manage your songs and other stuff. To put your iPod on manual right from the get-go turn off the checkbox on the iPod Setup Assistant screen next to "Automatically sync songs…" (If you've already done the Setup Thing, see Chapter 3 for how to come back to Manual Land.) iTunes now refrains from automatically dumping everything onto your iPod. "But," you ask, "How do I get the music on there by myself?" It's easy. You just drag it:

In iTunes, click the Music icon under Library. All your song titles appear in the main window. Click the eyeball-shaped icon (down at the bottom) to reveal your collection grouped by Artist or Album.
Click the album name or song titles you want to copy to the iPod. Grab multiple song titles or albums by holding down the Control (⌘)key.
Drag your selection onto the iPod icon. The number of songs you're dragging appears inside a red circle.

You can manually place any items in your iTunes library—audio books, movies, whatever—onto your iPod this way.

Figure 1-17:

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Got iTunes installed? Check.

Got music in the iTunes library? Check.

Got the iPod connected and the music you want copied onto it? Check.

Next up: disconnect the iPod from your computer so you can enjoy your tunes. Resist the impulse to yank the USB cable out of the iPod without checking the iPod's screen first. If you see a big " Do Not Disconnect" sign on the screen, don't unplug just yet. (If the iPod's showing its menus or the battery charging icon, then you can safely unplug it.)

Figure 1-18:

If you see the red Disconnect warning or you've opted to manually manage your iPod (as explained on the previous page), you need to manually eject the iPod from your computer. iTunes gives you two easy ways to do this:

Click the little Eject icon next to the name of your iPod in the iTunes Source list.
If your iPod's already selected in the Source list, click the Eject iPod button down on the bottom-right corner of iTunes.

With either method, once the "Do Not Disconnect" screen goes away, you can safely liberate your iPod.

Figure 1-19:

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Right out of the box, your iPod's battery probably has enough juice to run for a little while without having to charge it up. When it comes time to charge the battery, all you need to do is plug the iPod back into your computer with the USB cable (the iPod charges itself by drawing from your Mac or PC's power). Just make sure the computer is turned on and isn't asleep.

It takes only a few hours to fully charge your iPod's battery, and even less time to do what Apple calls a fast charge, which fills up 80 percent of the battery's capacity. That should be plenty of gas in your iPod's tank for a quick spin.

Figure 1-20:

Here's how much time each type of iPod needs for both a fast charge and a full charge:

	Fast Charge	Full Charge
iPod	2 hours	4 hours
iPod Nano	1.5 hours	3 hours
iPod Shuffle	2 hours	4 hours

If you're traveling and don't want to drag your laptop with you just to charge your iPod, you can buy an AC adapter for it. Chapter 2 has more information on that.

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Smack in the iPod's belly is the click wheel, your way around the iPod's contents. It's called a click wheel because you can actually click down on the four buttons evenly arranged around the ring. The menus onscreen spin by as your thumb moves around the circle. There's also a big button in the wheel's center, which you'll be pushing a lot as you use your iPod. Here's what each button does, going clockwise from the top.

Figure 1-21:

Menu. Tap this button to return to any screen you've just viewed. For example, if you've visited Music → Playlists → My Top Rated, then press Menu twice to return to the Music menu. If you keep tapping Menu, you eventually wind up on the main iPod menu.
Fast-forward/Next. Press this button to jump to the next song in a playlist (Chapter 4), or hold it down to advance quickly within a song.
Play/Pause. Like on a CD player, this button starts a song; push it again to pause the music.
Rewind/ Previous. Press this button to play the song directly before the current track (or hold it down to "rewind" within a song).
Select. Like clicking a mouse button, press Select to choose a highlighted menu item. When a song title's highlighted, the Select button also begins playback.

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On the outside, the iPod isn't a very complicated device. There's really just a Hold switch and two jacks to plug in cords. Here's what you do with each one.

Hold Switch. At the top of the iPod, over on the left side, is a little sliding switch marked Hold. This is a control that deactivates all the iPod's front buttons. Turning on the Hold switch can stop your iPod from popping on if the buttons accidentally get bumped.
Headphone Jack. Your new iPod comes with its own bright white headphones, and they plug in right here. If you don't like Apple's headphones, you can use another style or brand, as long as the other headphones use the standard 3.5-millimeter stereo miniplug.

Figure 1-22:
Dock Connector. The flat port on the iPod's bottom is called the Dock Connector. This is where you plug in the USB cable so you can connect iPod to computer for battery-charging and music- and video-fill ups.

Figure 1-23:

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Now that you've got some songs on the iPod, you're ready to listen to them. Plug your headphones into the headphone jack and press any button on the front of the iPod if you need to turn it on.

The first time you turn on your iPod, it asks you what language to use for the iPod menus. If you're reading this book, you probably want English, which is at the very top of the list.

After you pick a language, the first menu you see says iPod at the top of the screen. Here's how to start playing your tunes:

Figure 1-24:

On the iPod menu, highlight the Music menu. Run your thumb over the scroll wheel to move the blue highlight bar up and down.
Press the round center button to select Music.
On the Music menu, scroll to whichever category you want to use to find your song. Your choices include Artist, Album, Song, Genre, and so on. Scroll to the one you want and press the center button to see your songs sorted by your chosen method.
Scroll through the list on the iPod's screen. Say you decided to look for music by Artist. You now see a list of all the singers and bands stored on your iPod. Scroll down to the one you want and press the center button. A list of all the albums you have from that artist appears on screen.
Scroll to the one you want to hear. Press the Play/Pause button to start playing the album.

Figure 1-25:

You can find anything on your iPod by scrolling around and pressing the center button to select the item you want to hear, watch, read or play. If you end up on a screen where you don't want to be, then press the Menu button to retrace your steps. In fact, you can keep pressing the Menu button to reverse course and go all the way back to the iPod's main menu.

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The iPod is a very simple device to operate—five buttons and a click wheel quickly take you to all your songs, movies, games, audio books, and everything else parked on your 'Pod. Even though it doesn't have a mouse, the player's controls work just like a desktop computer: you highlight an item onscreen and click the center button to select it.

Performing this action either takes you to another menu of options or starts a function—like playing a song, calling up your calendar, or checking the time in Paris. This chapter shows you what lies underneath all the menus on your iPod or iPod Nano and what each item does. Shuffle owners will find special coverage of their screenless wonders sprinkled throughout the chapter.

The iPod has only five buttons and one switch—and none of them are labeled Off or On. It's not hard to do either, even without official buttons.

To turn the iPod on, just tap any button on the front and it wakes right up, ready to play music or movies.
To turn the iPod off, press the Play/Pause button for a few seconds until the screen goes off. To preserve battery power, an inactive iPod automatically shuts itself off after a couple of minutes.

However, if its front buttons get bumped, say, in a purse or backpack, the iPod can turn on and run its battery down without you knowing it. Then you end up with a drained iPod right before that long commute home.

That's where the Hold switch on the top of the iPod comes in handy. Just slide it over so the orange bit underneath shows, and your iPod's front buttons are deactivated and won't respond to inadvertent taps. Flicking the Hold switch is good for preventing accidental battery drains; it's great if you have the iPod in your pocket and don't want to jump to the next song every time you inadvertently graze the click wheel.

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The iPod has only five buttons and one switch—and none of them are labeled Off or On. It's not hard to do either, even without official buttons.

To turn the iPod on, just tap any button on the front and it wakes right up, ready to play music or movies.
To turn the iPod off, press the Play/Pause button for a few seconds until the screen goes off. To preserve battery power, an inactive iPod automatically shuts itself off after a couple of minutes.

However, if its front buttons get bumped, say, in a purse or backpack, the iPod can turn on and run its battery down without you knowing it. Then you end up with a drained iPod right before that long commute home.

That's where the Hold switch on the top of the iPod comes in handy. Just slide it over so the orange bit underneath shows, and your iPod's front buttons are deactivated and won't respond to inadvertent taps. Flicking the Hold switch is good for preventing accidental battery drains; it's great if you have the iPod in your pocket and don't want to jump to the next song every time you inadvertently graze the click wheel.

Figure 2-1:

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Like any modern computer program, the iPod's user interface is made up of a series of menus and sub-menus. The top-level, or main menu, just says iPod at the top of the screen. No matter how deeply you burrow into the player's submenus, you can always get back to the main iPod menu by pressing the menu button on the click wheel.

In fact, think of iPod navigation like this: Press the round center button to go deeper into the menus and press the Menu button to back out and retrace your steps.

The contents of your iPod menu varies a bit depending on which model you have—except for the Shuffle, which doesn't have a screen or menus. Here's the basic lineup:

Music
Photos
Videos (full size iPod only)
Extras
Settings
Shuffle Songs

Figure 2-2:

The next few pages give you a little more information about each menu. And just as the iPod and iTunes give you choices about your music, you can also decide for yourself what you want displayed on your main menu. If you like the sound of that, check out "Customizing Your iPod's Menus" later in this chapter.

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In the Music menu you'll find a one-stop shopping center for your iPod's audio-related options, including tunes, audio books, and podcasts.

Playlists.A playlist is a customized list of songs you create. Chapter 4 has loads more info on creating playlists.
Artists. This menu groups every tune by the performer's name.
Albums.Your music, grouped by album.
Songs.All the songs on your iPod, listed alphabetically.
Podcasts.All your prerecorded radio-style programs.
Genres.Your music, sorted by type: rock, rap, country, and so on.
Composers.Your music, grouped by songwriter.
Audiobooks.Your iPod's spoken-word content.
Search. When you have a ton of tunes and don't feel like scrolling through your collection, use the Search function to scroll-and-click in the first few letters on a tiny onscreen keyboard. Songs that match pop up in their own list.

Figure 2-3:

Even without using the Search function, the Music menu's sub- menus make it easy to find specific music. For example, to see a list of all songs on your iPod sorted by artist, select Artists from the Music menu. The next screen presents you with an alphabetical list of bands and singers.

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Turn your iPod into a pocket photo viewer. Once you stock your iPod with images (Chapter 7 has instructions), the Photos menu lets you adjust picture-viewing preferences—including slideshow settings for picture collections—and call up your actual pix. (The TV-related settings aren't available on the Nano.)

Time Per Slide. Linger up to 20 seconds on each photo or manually click through each picture.
Music. Select a playlist as your soundtrack, or choose silence.
Repeat. As with playlists, slideshows can repeat—if you want 'em to.
Shuffle Photos. Toggle the setting to On to randomly display each photo in a slideshow.
Transitions. Options here include a classic Hollywood wipe, a dissolve, and many more.
TV Out. To display your slideshow on a connected TV, select On or Ask. For slideshows on the iPod, choose Off or Ask. (Off does what it says; Ask nags you to pick between TV and iPod before the show starts.)
TV Signal. When connected to a TV in North or South America, or East Asia, select NTSC; most other places use the PAL standard.

Figure 2-4:

Click here to view your iPod's entire photo library; individual albums are listed below the Photo Library menu. Chapter 7 shows you how to summon your pictures onscreen.

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That full-sized iPod is also a personal movie player. Before you grab the popcorn, here's what you'll find on its menu of video-setting and sorting options:

Video Playlists. Just like music, you can create playlists of videos in iTunes.
Movies. Go here to find full-length feature films from the iTunes Store and your own home movies.
Music Videos. A list of your collected music video clips.
TV Shows. A menu for iTunes Store-purchased episodes and personally recorded shows.
Video Podcasts. Some podcasts have pictures now; look here when they do.
Video Settings.You can configure your TV playback options just like the TV Out and TV Signal choices listed on the previous page. You can also set the iPod to play video in widescreen format or adjust it for full-screen viewing.

Figure 2-6:

Playing a video works just like playing a song: browse, scroll, and select. Chapters 5 and 6 tell you how to buy, sort, and organize your iPod's video collection from the iTunes side of the fence.

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Here lies all the goodies that make the iPod more than just a music player:

Clock. With its built-in clock and ability to display multiple different time zones, the iPod is probably the most stylish pocket watch you'll ever see.
Games. You can play the historic Brick game and you also get Parachute, Solitaire, and a Music Quiz. Games from the iTunes Store, like Tetris and Mahjong, also land here.
Contacts. Any phone numbers and addresses you've ported over from your computer reside here.
Calendar. This menu holds a copy of your personal daily schedule from iCal or Microsoft Outlook.
Notes. The iPod has a built-in text reader program that you can use to read short documents and notes.
Stopwatch. The iPod can serve as your timer for keeping track of your overall workout or multiple laps around the track.
Screen Lock. With all your stuff that's nobody's business—address book, schedule, photos, etc.—you may want to password protect your 'Pod.

Figure 2-7:

Check out Chapter 8 for more information on turning your iPod into a timekeeper, a handheld organizer, and more.

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The Settings menu has more than a dozen options for tailoring your iPod's look and sound.

About. Look here for your iPod's name; the number of songs, videos, and photos on it; your model's hard drive capacity; and how much free disk space you have.
Main Menu. Customize which items appear in your iPod's main menu here.

Figure 2-8:
Shuffle. Turn this feature on to shuffle songs or albums.
Repeat. Repeat One plays the current song over and over; Repeat All repeats the current album, playlist or song library.
Volume Limit. Keep your (or your child's) eardrums from melting by setting a maximum volume limit—and locking it.
Backlight Timer. Specify how long the backlight stays on each time you press a button or turn the dial—from 1 Second to Always On.
Brightness. If your iPod movies seem a bit dim (and not just because of Hollywood's standards), use this setting to brighten the screen.
Audiobooks.This setting lets you speed up or slow down the narrator's voice.
EQ. Apply more than 20 different equalizer presets for acoustic, classical, hip hop, and other types of music. Chapter 3 has more on equalization.
Compilations. Turning this setting to On lets you add a Compilations submenu to the main Music menu so those hard-to-sort soundtracks, allstar albums and other group efforts show up as one album.

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One—sometimes two—other items live down at the bottom of the iPod's main menu.

The mystical, magical qualities of the iPod's Shuffle Songs setting ("How does my little PeaPod always know when to play my Weird Al Yankovic and Monty Python songs to cheer me up?") have become one of the player's most popular features since the early days of iPodding. So Apple moved Shuffle out to the main menu. Just scroll and select if you want to shuffle your songs.

When you have a song playing—but have scrolled back to the main menu to do something else while jamming—the Now Playing item appears at the very bottom of the screen. Highlight this command and press Select to call up your song's Now Playing screen and get back to the music at hand.

Figure 2-10:

iPod shuffle owners, this one's just for you: To jump back to the very first song on your shuffle's playlist, flip the shuffle switch to Play in order (which looks like two arrows chasing each other's tails). Then click the Play/Pause button three times fast.

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Changing the iPod's onscreen language to an unfamiliar alphabet is a favorite trick of jealous co-workers and older brothers. Fortunately, you have a couple of ways to get the iPod back to English.

First, click the Menu button until you get back to the iPod's main menu screen. You'll see "iPod" in English at the top, and the menu listings in whatever language your wisenheimer pal picked out for you. Then follow these steps:

Figure 2-11:

Scroll down to the fifth line on your iPod—or the fourth line if you have a Nano. You've just highlighted the Settings menu; click it.
Scroll down to the last entry: "Reset All Settings," which conveniently appears in English. Here, you can make a decision:

Option 1: The third menu item from the bottom (picture above) is the Language setting. Scroll up there to get to the language list and then choose English.

Option 2: If you're tired of your iPod settings, you can wipe them out and start over. Click Reset All Settings. The next screen gives you a choice: Cancel or Reset.
Scroll down to the last entry: "Reset All Settings," (also in English) to get back to the Language menu, where you can select "English" for the iPod.

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The iPod has a handy personalization feature: the ability to arrange your iPod's Main Menu screen so that only the items you like show up there. For example, you could insert the Calendar option onto the iPod's opening screen so that you don't have to drill down through the Extras menu to get at it.

To customize your iPod's Main Menu, start by choosing Settings → Main Menu from the main iPod menu. You see a list of items that you can choose to add or eliminate from your iPod's main screen: Music, Playlists, Artists, Albums, and so on.

As you scroll down the list, press the Select button to turn each one on or off. You might, for example, consider adding these commands:

Clock, for quick checks of the time.
Games, for quick killing of time.
Contacts, to look up phone numbers and call people to pass the time.

Figure 2-12:

To see the fruits of your labor, press Menu twice to return to the main screen. Sure enough, in addition to the usual commands described in this chapter, you'll see the formerly buried commands right out front, ready to go.

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When you choose Clock from the iPod's Extras menu, you can set up live clocks tracking multiple cities. This little timekeeper comes in handy if you forget your watch. To create a clock, choose Clock → New Clock and pick the location you want on the Region menu; then choose a city on the next screen. Each clock comes with its own submenus:

Alarm Clock. Set up an audio alert—no headphones required—to wake you up.
Change City. This menu takes you back to the Region menu when you need to relocate.

Figure 2-13:
Daylight Savings Time. Press the Select button to turn Daylight Savings Time off or on.
Delete This Clock. Get rid of any clock with one click.
Sleep Timer. Just as the iPod can awaken you, it can send you off to Dreamland (with the music of your choice). The next page has more information on doing both.

You can ask iPod to display the current time in its title bar whenever music's playing. Just choose iPod → settings → Date & Time → Time in Title. Press the select button to toggle the "Time in Title" display on or off.

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The alarm clock can give you a gentle nudge when you need it. To set your iPod's alarm:

Choose Extras → Clock → [Location Name] → Alarm Clock → Alarm. Press the Select button. The Alarm chnges to On.
Scroll to Time, press Select. On the Alarm Time screen, as you turn the wheel, you change the time the iPod displays in the highlighted box. Press the Select button as you pick the hour, minutes, and so on.

Figure 2-14:
Press Select again to set the time. It's time to decide whether you want "Beep" (a warbling R2-D2-like noise that comes out of the iPod's built-in speaker) or music. If you choose music, it plays through your headphones, assuming they haven't fallen out—or an external set of speakers if you have some.
Scroll to Sound and press Select. Choose Beep or highlight the playlist you want. Press Select. The Alarm Clock's set (a bell appears on the main clock screen). When the alarm goes off, just press the iPod's Pause button to stop it.

If you wake up early and want to turn off the alarm, go to Extras → Clock Extras → Alarm Clock Extras → Alarm and press the Select button to toggle it off.

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