iPod: The Missing Manual, 9th Edition

Chapter 11. Surf the Web with the iPod Touch

If you have an iPod Touch, you know that it can download and run many cool apps from the App Store (Chapter 3). But it comes with a preinstalled app that might upstage anything you can find in Apple’s online emporium: Safari, Apple’s versatile web browser, scaled down and redesigned for your Touch. Safari lets you comfortably surf the World Wide Web from wherever you can hop onto a WiFi connection.

You may already use Safari on your Mac or PC—why yes, there is a Windows version—so using it on your Touch will feel familiar. But browsing on the Touch is a little different from browsing on a full-size computer screen, with little being the operative word here. Never fear—this chapter will show you the techniques, tips, and tricks you need to get big results out of that small window to the Web in your pocket.

Get Your WiFi Connection

To jump onto the Web with your iPod Touch, you first need to get connected to the Internet. That’s pretty easy, thanks to the sheer abundance of wireless networks these days—in homes, coffee shops, airports, hotels, college campuses, libraries, and more. WiFi, like love, is all around.

WiFi is geekspeak for wireless fidelity, a networking technology that lets you connect to the Internet over radio waves instead of wires. Also known as 802.11, it’s the same technology that lets desktop PCs, laptops, game consoles, and other devices connect to the Web wirelessly. When you come across a network you can tap into, you’ve ...