iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

Other Menus: Shuffle Songs and Now Playing

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

Shuffle Songs

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.

Now Playing

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.

Press the iPod's center button quickly when you're on the Now Playing screen to get a new mini-menu each time you hit the button, like the scrubber bar (page 43) or the chance to rate the song (Chapter 5).