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How do I use an iPOD?

Soapy Sam said:
A work colleague here in Kazakhstan just got a 120GB iPOD.
Having loaded some mp3 files onto it from her pc, she is unable even to find them on the beast. She asked me for help, but I know nothing of iPODs or Apple hardware of any sort.

I know there is software named iTunes, which seems to act as an OS / advertising agent / sales agent for apple gadgets. Surely this is already installed on a new iPOD? If so, we couldn't find it.

Do these things play any music files like mp3 or wav- or must it have a proprietary Apple format?

There seems to be no manual with the thing, either printed or electronic.
Is all Apple hardware this user-hostile?

Anyone out there with some basic help for two total iPOD virgins?
Click to expand...

iTunes is the software that runs on your Mac or PC for managing an iPod. It can also update the firmware that runs on the iPod itself. There are also third party applications that can manage an iPod if you don't like iTunes.

An iPod can play files in MP3, AAC and several other formats, but not the proprietary formats used by Microsoft Windows.

The iLounge tutorials have detailed instructions on how to do just about anything with an iPod.
 
Rolfe said:
Huh? It appears in "My Computer" just like any other external disc drive and you can drag and drop anything you like onto it.
Click to expand...

This is true for all iPods with the specific exception of the Touch and iPhone. Those are stupidly and intentionally blocked from being used as mass storage devices. They show up as a camera(?!?!) and WIA target when plugged into a machine without iTunes.
 
And if you don't like the iPod there's the Zune{:p} and many other portable MP3 players. No matter what player you use, you don't need to buy songs from the iTunes store if you don't want to; Amazon.com has a good selection and they're all DRM-free.
 
I second songbird as being the current #1 media plaer/manager. For some ipoddy things it's just not as good as itunes though (audiobooks and podcasts being the main offenders, which it can't put into the right sections on the ipod)

If you want to use your ipod as a drive, for it to appear in My Computer, you have to select the "enable disk access" and probably "manage this thing manually" (I may be paraphrasing, no itunes here) options from the screen you get when you select "jo bloggs' ipod" from the source list on the left.

As to the problem with not finding files, if the songs you had in itunes have missing information (Album name, genre or artist name) they often copy to the ipod fine, but never appear in the menus, even if you select "all songs". Make sure they have something in all those fields, even if you set Album to "apple suck".

If you have a 120Gb ipod and 121Gb of media, btw, itunes will not have a clue what to do, will copy randomly what it can and then throw errors.Every time you plug in the ipod. This is clearly ideal. It's much more of a problem if you have a nano, of course. This is why I always manage music manually. A way around it is to manually make a playlist with what you want to sync, then just update that.

They don't give you a manual with the product deliberately. It's to make you realise how little you need a manual for Apple products, to reinforce how obvious everything is.
 
rjh01 said:
It is a very expensive memory stick.
Click to expand...


Well, there's spare capacity on it, so if I've left my memory stick behind and I want to swipe a file, then it doesn't cost me anything to do that. Just copy the file to where I want it then delete it from the iPod again. No sweat.

Also (and this was the expensive bit) I put my original iPod through the washing machine. Its screen no longer functions. It would cost about £50 to get this fixed, which doesn't seem to be worth it, but without the screen it's extremely difficult to navigate the menus.

At least it still functions as a memory storage device though.

Rolfe.
 
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You can use the iPod as a memory stick, as people have said. But the iPod OS won't show you any of those files. It only plays media put in through iTunes.

This means it's not possible to easily use an iPod/iTunes to share music around, which made the RIAA happy, I would guess.

So back when music from iTunes had DRM, iTunes kept track of that. One iPod could sync to one iTunes, but one iTunes could sync to any number of iPods. That meant you could buy music, and your whole family could have it on each iPod. But since you can't then take that iPod to another iTunes and upload, the record companies were ok with the license system.

Personally I've been very happy with the system, with the exception of when I stream music from my Mac to my PS3. The PS3 won't play the DRM stuff. So most of the time, I thought it was fine.

Since I'm a power user, I stripped the DRM so I could play my stuff on the PS3. :)
 
What, no one pipped up with a useless "get a real player" comment yet? Yinz are slacking!
 
jimtron said:
Have you tried Songbird? You can use an iPod without using iTunes.
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So what does Songbird offer that iTunes doesn't? It looks very similar to iTunes, but apparently without the ability to handle podcasts or rip CDs (that latter can't be right surely? Do they expect everyone to download all their music?)
 
richardm said:
So what does Songbird offer that iTunes doesn't? It looks very similar to iTunes, but apparently without the ability to handle podcasts or rip CDs (that latter can't be right surely? Do they expect everyone to download all their music?)
Click to expand...

Incorrect. They're not called "podcasts" but you can subscribe to any RSS fed audio or video feed.

Go to 'File' >> 'New Subscription . . .' >> Type in the URL of a website or add an RSS feed >> Point to a folder >> Hit 'OK'

Podcasts are handled. You can rip cd's. The plugin architecture allows for many things itunes can't do, like last.fm, etc. Plugins extensively cover anythng you want, and on mac or windows machines can even use the existing itunes install to play your itunes DRM music.

In fact, here's 10 things Songbird does that iTunes can't:

http://blog.audiojungle.net/resources/10-things-songbird-does-that-itunes-cant/
 
Rolfe said:
Well, there's spare capacity on it, so if I've left my memory stick behind and I want to swipe a file, then it doesn't cost me anything to do that. Just copy the file to where I want it then delete it from the iPod again. No sweat.
Click to expand...
But you don't have an iPod touch or an iPhone, right? As far as I can tell, Yalius is right. They designed them to make sure that you won't be able to use them as memory sticks. That's the second most annoying thing about the iPhone. The most annoying thing is that it won't let you download maps in advance. This makes the GPS and the maps useless when you're in a foreign country, which is the only time you really need them.
 
Mmm, I'm glad I decided I'd wait till I found out what the drawbacks were before I considered buying either of these....

I'm pretty happy with my iPod, but I find iTunes non-intuitive. I also have trouble with the file naming, which is wildly inconsistent and things can be in any forder or none. Then if you try to rationalise this, the files don't recognise the album titles or artwork. Sigh.

But it plays the music and that's the main thing.

[Goes back to the B minor Mass, smiling blissfully....]

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Mmm, I'm glad I decided I'd wait till I found out what the drawbacks were before I considered buying either of these....

I'm pretty happy with my iPod, but I find iTunes non-intuitive. I also have trouble with the file naming, which is wildly inconsistent and things can be in any forder or none. Then if you try to rationalise this, the files don't recognise the album titles or artwork. Sigh.

But it plays the music and that's the main thing.

[Goes back to the B minor Mass, smiling blissfully....]

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

To fix mp3 tagging/artwork, I use this to great success:

http://musicbrainz.org/
 
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richardm said:
Then I'm confused as to why their development roadmap says:

CD Ripping Allows users to import music from CD directly into Songbird Not Started
Podcast Support Full support for podcast downloads and subscriptions Not Started
Thanks :) I should probably just download it and have a play.
Click to expand...

The podcast thing is out of date, I'd imagine. I use the rss function for several podcasts.

As for CD ripping...start looking at plugins. There's tons of them. I do remember seeing one that rips cds.
 
Songbird can understand podcasts, but can't save them to an ipod _as_ a podcast. They just appear under "music" as an mp3, so you lose out on the categorisation and bookmarking and speed settings.
 
Now I know you can save a YouTube clip to an iPod, because my accursed mate did one for me when I first got the thing. However she failed to show me how it was done.

I want this. Badly.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
Now I know you can save a YouTube clip to an iPod, because my accursed mate did one for me when I first got the thing. However she failed to show me how it was done.

I want this. Badly.

Rolfe.
Click to expand...

You can use the Firefox add-on, Download Helper. Then you'll probably have to convert the file, which you can do with Quicktime Player (maybe) or the free Mpegstreamclip or the free Handbrake.
 
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