iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

Importing Contacts with iTunes

Even though the iPod has been able to display contact lists and calendar info for years now, it used to require a lot of human interaction to get all the info moved over properly so you could see it on the small screen. The latest version of iTunes makes moving contacts cheerfully automatic—that is, if you use Microsoft Outlook or Outlook Express on the Windows side of the world, or the Mac OS X Address Book on your Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) system.

If you don’t use those programs on your system, skip ahead to Section B.3.1 for information on moving contacts from Palm Desktop and other programs.

Syncing Outlook/Outlook Express Contacts

Devotees of Microsoft’s two Outlook siblings—Outlook 2003 and the free, less powerful junior edition Outlook Express—can synchronize nicely with the iPod. As described on Section B.7.1, the iPod can also grab your electronic date book. The calendar synchronization works only with Outlook 2003, though, mainly because Outlook Express doesn’t do calendars. (It’s just an e-mail freebie that comes with most new PC’s.)

To get your iPod revved up for data entry, hook it up to the computer. Once it shows up in the Source list, choose Edit → Preferences → iPod. Once you’re in the iPod Preferences area, click the Contacts tab (Figure B-2).

Figure B-2. Once you arrive in the iPod Preferences box on your PC, just tell iTunes which flavor ...