iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, Fourth Edition

Chapter 11. Hot Hacks and Cool Tools

If you’ve read this book from the beginning, you know that you can do a lot more with your iPod than just play music on it. You can use it as an alarm clock, stopwatch, or portable game player. You can make it do double-duty as a music player and a portable hard drive, as well as wire it up to be your portable jukebox for the car and home stereo.

But did you know that most iPods of recent vintage can serve up recipes, display your email, and even tell you how to get to Albuquerque? Or that you can turn your computer into a recording studio to whip up your own podcasts to play on your (and anybody’s) iPod? And you can make your iPod even more useful with dozens of AppleScripts designed to automate and augment certain iPod-related tasks. This chapter takes your iPod skills—and your iPod—to the next level.

The AppleScripted iPod

AppleScript is a simple programming language that lets Mac fans write mini programs to perform certain tasks. For instance, you could rig AppleScript to make iTunes play “We Will Rock You” at 8:03 every morning. Or you could use an AppleScript to send an email every three hours to your co-workers telling them how many shopping days are left until Christmas.

There are plenty of frivolous uses for AppleScript, too.

Installing the Script Menu

Mac OS X comes with a handful of ready-made AppleScript programs (called scripts), including one that checks the current temperature in your Zip code and one that lets you count messages in ...