iPOD & ITUNES for Dummies Portable Edition

Chapter 1

Firing Up Your iPod

In This Chapter

• Introducing the iPod
• What you need to get started
• Scrolling through the iPod main menu
• Pressing the iPod buttons

As an iPod owner, you're on the cutting edge of entertainment technology. This chapter introduces the iPod and tells you what to expect when you open the box. I describe how to power up your iPod and connect it to your computer, both of which are essential tasks that you need to know how to do — your iPod needs power, and it needs audio and video, which it gets from your computer.

Introducing the iPod

An iPod is, essentially, a hard drive or flash memory drive as well as a digital music and video player in one device. An iPod is such a thing of beauty and style — and so highly recognizable by now — that all Apple needs to do in an advertisement is show one all by itself.

The convenience of carrying music on an iPod is phenomenal. For example, the new 160GB iPod classic can hold around 40,000 songs — that's more than eight weeks of nonstop music played around the clock. And with built-in skip protection in every model, you won't miss a beat as you jog through the park or when your car hits a pothole.

A common misconception is that your iPod becomes your music and video library. Actually, your iPod is simply another player for your content library, which is safely stored on your computer. One considerable benefit of using your computer to organize your content is that you can make perfect-quality copies of music, videos, ...