iPod: The Missing Manual, 7th Edition

Chapter 11. Surfing the Web with iPod Touch

If you have an iPod Touch, you have something that no other iPod has: the power of the World Wide Web, right in your pocket. The Web on the iPod Touch looks like the Web on your computer, and that's one of Apple's greatest accomplishments. You see the real deal—the actual fonts, graphics, and layouts—not the stripped-down, bare-bones mini-Web you usually get on cellphone screens.

The iPod Touch's Web browser is Safari, a lite version of the same one that comes with every Macintosh and is now available for Windows. It's fast, simple to use, and very pretty indeed. This chapter will show you how to get online with your Touch, and then what to do once you get there.

Get Your Wi-Fi Connection

Before you can get surfin' with Safari, you need to get the iPod Touch connected to the Internet. This means you have to connect it to a Wi-Fi network. Wi-Fi, known to the geeks as 802.11 and to Apple fans as AirPort, means wireless networking. It's the same technology that lets laptops the world over get online at high speed in any Wi-Fi hot spot. Hot spots are everywhere these days: in homes, offices, coffee shops (notably Starbucks), hotels, airports, and thousands of other places.

When you're in a Wi-Fi hot spot, your iPod Touch has a very fast connection to the Internet, as though it's connected to a cable modem or DSL. In fact, if you connect your iPod Touch to your own home wireless network, it's actually using that same cable or DSL connection that ...