iPod: The Missing Manual, 9th Edition

Chapter 1. Meet the iPod: Out of the Box and Into Your Ears in 15 Minutes

If you’re like most people, you want to jump right in and get your spiffy new iPod up and running. What you don’t want to do is wade through any instructions longer than a couple of paragraphs, and you wouldn’t mind if the directions were accompanied by plenty of color pictures, too.

Sure, Apple thoughtfully includes a tiny folding pamphlet of starter info with every iPod it sells. It’s nicely designed as far as pamphlets go, but you may find that it doesn’t go far enough; you want more help than a few line drawings and some haiku-like instructions can give you.

This book—and especially this chapter—is designed for you.

You won’t get bogged down in a bland gray ocean of print here. You’ll learn how to get your iPod whistling sweet tunes in your ear in no time, and find out a bit about your particular iPod model. If you want more information on in-depth ‘Podding or getting the most out of iTunes, you can find that in chapters farther down the road.

But for now, let’s get rolling with your new iPod. Ready?

Meet the iPod Touch

Since its arrival in 2007, the iPod Touch has become the most popular member of the iPod family. It’s also the most versatile; it runs thousands of mini-programs called apps, makes and takes FaceTime video calls, keeps you on schedule, surfs the Web, handles your email, takes text and audio notes, ...