iPhone: The Missing Manual, 5th Edition

Chapter 6. The iPhone as iPod

Of all the iPhone’s talents, its iPoddishness may be the most successful. This function, after all, is the only one that doesn’t require the participation of your cell network. It works even on planes and in subways. And it gets the most impressive battery life (30 hours of music playback on the 3GS, or 40 hours on the iPhone 4 and 4S).

This chapter assumes that you’ve already loaded some music or videos onto your iPhone, as described in Chapter 13.

To enter iPod Land, open the Music app. On a new phone, it’s at the lower-right corner of the screen. (And why did Apple change the name from iPod to Music? One reason: In iOS 5, Videos is now a separate app.)

Tip

A reminder: There’s another way to get to the iPod mode. Just double-press the Home button. That opens the task switcher at the bottom of the screen. One swipe to the right, and you’re viewing the music playback controls, along with the icon for the Music app itself.

List Land

The Music program begins with lists—lots of lists. The first four icons at the bottom of the screen represent your starter lists. You can rearrange or swap them, but you start out with either Playlists, Artists, Songs, Albums, and More—or, if you’ve turned on the Genius feature described on Genius, you have Genius, Playlists, Artists, Songs, and More. Here’s what they all do.

Playlists

A playlist is a group of songs you’ve placed together, ...