iLounge iPad 2 Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 10-3-08

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By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, October 3, 2008
Category: Ask iLounge

Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-, iPhone-, iPad-, iTunes-, or Apple TV-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.

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And now, for this week's Ask iLounge column:

Q:

How do I get lyrics on my iPod touch? I know you’re supposed to go to the track information and paste the lyrics in there, but they’re supposed to come up when you tap the song on the iPod touch and for some reason mine doesnt work. Any suggestions?

- Jay

A:

Firstly, ensure that you are using a recent iPod touch firmware version. Lyrics support was not introduced until v1.1.3, so if your firmware version is older than that then your iPod will simply not display lyrics under any circumstances. You can confirm your iPod touch firmware version by selecting Settings, General, About on the iPod touch itself, or looking at the version number in the “Summary” screen which appears in iTunes when you connect your iPod.

If you’re running v1.1.3 or later and you have pasted the lyrics into the lyrics field for the track under the iTunes track information and they’re not showing up on your iPod, the most likely problem is that the track has not yet been re-transferred onto the iPod.

If you are using managing your iPod content manually, you will need to drag-and-drop the updated tracks from your iTunes library back onto the iPod. In manual mode, changes made in the iTunes library do not sync to the iPod in any way—the iPod and the iTunes library are treated as two distinct libraries. In this case, if you make changes to tracks in the iTunes library, you must re-copy those tracks onto the iPod for the information to be updated there.

If you are using automatic synchronization and you are certain you have synchronized your iPod after adding lyrics, then it is possible that the track information simply was not transferred to the iPod for whatever reason. In this case, the easiest solution is to remove the affected tracks from the iPod and then re-transfer them on. If you are syncing specific playlists, simply remove these tracks from those playlist(s) that you sync with your iPod, perform an automatic sync, and then re-add those tracks back to these playlists and sync again.

Alternatively, you can set your iPod to “Sync only checked” items (found on the main “Summary” screen when your iPod is connected to iTunes), and then UNcheck those tracks that you would like to remove from your iPod, sync the iPod (to actually remove them), and then RE-check them and sync the iPod again (to put them back on). This will ensure that these tracks and any related track information such as lyrics is updated on the iPod itself.

Q:

After searching for an hour or so, I can’t seem to find out how to PREVIEW the amount of space required by selected playlists that I want to transfer to my iPod. iTunes 8 only looks at available space AFTER I try to sync, at which point it tells me that I do not have enough space and refuses to sync. Is there a way I can find out how much space my selected playlists are going to take up before I try to sync my iPod? Any help would be appreciated!

- Chris

A:

iTunes will show you total size of items in a given selection at the bottom of the iTunes window, so if you select a specific playlist, the total size of the items in that particular playlist is shown.

To add up the size of several playlists, simply use a folder in iTunes to group them together into a single folder. You can do this by selecting File, New Playlist Folder from the iTunes menu, and then dragging the playlists into that folder.

Once all the playlists are grouped together, selecting the top-level folder will show an aggregate listing of all of the tracks contained in all of the playlists within that folder, with a summary of the total size of all of the displayed items at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Note that this total size will only sum up unique items, so if you have the same song in multiple playlists, it is only counted once, which will yield more accurate results than simply adding each of the individual playlist sizes together.

As an added bonus, once you’ve grouped your playlists into a single folder, you may find it much easier to manage those playlists for synchronization to your iPod, as you can simply select the entire folder for synchronization.

Q:

I am unable to rip tracks from my iTunes library to my iPod. I can copy and drag tracks from the library to my iPod under devices, but nothing happens when I do this—I do not get a plus sign when I hover over my iPod and no copying takes place. This is driving me crazy. Please can you help me?

- Michael

A:

The first thing to do is to ensure that your iPod actually is set for manual management from iTunes. You cannot drag and drop content to an iPod that is set to use automatic synchronization.

To check this, connect your iPod to your computer and then select it from the iTunes Devices listing at the left-hand side of your iTunes window. On the main “Summary” screen which appears, ensure that the box for “Manually manage music and videos” is checked:

If you are in fact in manual mode (the box is checked) and you still cannot drag-and-drop tracks onto your iPod, ensure that the files themselves are actually accessible. The simplest way to do this is to attempt to play the track in question. If you have tracks stored on an external hard drive or a network location that iTunes cannot currently access, you naturally will not be able to transfer these tracks onto your iPod.

If you are using an older version of iTunes 7, you may also need to expand the iPod content in your Devices listing by clicking the small triangle which appears to the left to display the categories and playlists on your iPod. Once you’ve done this, try dragging and dropping your items directly onto the “Music” section. Note, however, that this issue was fixed in later versions of iTunes, and is not a problem in iTunes 8, so if you are using an older version this may be a good reason to upgrade to something more current.

Q:

I have an 80 GB iPod that is almost full, and I’m interested in getting the 160 GB iPod classic. Is it still being supported? Does it still come with a warranty? Do the remaining models (you can still order it, apparently, from Apple’s web site) still have the problems associated with the first ones to come out last year? Also, does the 160 GB model’s Search feature include numbers? They seem to have inexplicably removed the numbers from the 120GB iPod.

- Jay

A:

Any earlier iPod models, including the 160 GB iPod classic that are still being sold by Apple or other authorized retailers continue to be supported by Apple under the same terms and conditions as when they were originally sold, including the same one-year warranty. Since the warranty is based on the end-user purchase date, ensure that your purchase your iPod from Apple themselves or an authorized Apple reseller and keep your receipt to prove your date or purchase. Purchasing iPods from non-authorized resellers or sources such as eBay may be more questionable for warranty purposes, even if the iPod is being sold as brand new, since the date of the seller’s purchase of the iPod may be used to calculate the warranty date.

Most of the problems that were encountered with the 2007 iPod classic models were due to earlier firmware versions, rather than problems inherent in the hardware itself. Since the firmware has now been through several revisions, it has become considerably more stable. Simply ensure that you update your iPod to the latest firmware version (v1.1.2 as of this writing).

Unfortunately, the 2007 iPod models do not include numbers in the Search feature either. Numeric searching was limited to the 2006 fifth-generation iPod (sometimes referred to as the “5.5G” iPod) and the second-generation iPod nano.

Q:

I bought an iPhone but had to deactivate it because I had to get a BlackBerry for work (I am still in mourning). So now I just want my beloved iPhone to act as a regular iPod but iTunes insists that I sign up for AT&T before I can sync it with iTunes. I need to bypass that but it won’t let me. I love my iPhone and would be disappointed if I had to start over and buy a new iPod now. Do you know how I can get my iPhone to stop wanting to be a phone and just be a nice iPod? It’s a first generation, but the Apple Store wiped it clean tonight and installed the latest software.

- Dave

A:

The solution in this case is to “jailbreak” your iPhone to bypass the activation requirement. This was frequently done with the first-generation iPhone by users outside of the United States where the iPhone was not otherwise available to them. Many of these users also “unlocked” the iPhone to use with other cellular carriers, however the “unlocking” process is distinct from the “jailbreaking” process (although there are tools available that can perform both functions in a single step).

“Jailbreaking” simply refers to the process of opening the iPhone operating system to allow access into the iPhone OS by the end-user and by numerous third-party applications available outside of the iTunes App Store. Unlike unlocking an iPhone to use on another carrier, the process of jailbreaking is completely reversible since it only involves software-based changes. Simply connecting the iPhone to iTunes and doing a full “Restore” operation on it will restore the original iPhone firmware and return it to normal operation (again requiring AT&T activation to be used).

To jailbreak an iPhone with the newer firmware versions, search for a tool called “PWNAGE” (Mac) or “WINPWN” (Windows), which will allow you to update your iPhone with a custom firmware version that does not require the iTunes-based activation. Once you have “jailbroken” your iPhone, you can continue to use it with iTunes in much the same way as you would be able to use an iPod touch, and iTunes itself should neither know nor care that you have jailbroken your iPhone in this manner.

Note that jailbreaking technically voids your iPhone warranty, and the other catch is that you will not be able to update your iPhone immediately when new firmware versions come out through iTunes. Instead you will need to wait for the Pwnage/Winpwn software to be updated for the new firmware versions.

Q:

When in shuffle mode my iPod will get “stuck” on a certain artist or album and then continue to shuffle only after all the tracks in that certain group are finished. Is there a fix for this?

- Joe

A:

The most likely cause of this is that you have set your iPod to Shuffle Albums rather than individual songs. In this mode, the iPod will play all of the tracks in a given playlist that are from the same album before randomly moving on to the next album.

To view or change this setting, simply go to the Settings menu on your iPod and select the “Shuffle” option. Pressing the centre button will toggle the Shuffle setting between OFF, SONGS and ALBUMS. Ensure that it is set to SONGS.

On the 2007 and 2008 Click Wheel iPod models, you can also access the shuffle setting from the “Now Playing” screen by pressing the centre button a few times until the OFF/SONGS/ALBUMS menu appears. Use the click wheel to select the appropriate mode and press the centre button to confirm.

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Ask iLounge Archives:

2-3-12: Deleting pictures from Photo Stream, Transferring Apps to a new iTunes library, Apple Universal Dock and iPhone 4S, Getting Track Names after CD Import, Video Playlists on the iPad

11-25-11: Removing music after activating iTunes Match, Smart Playlists and iTunes Match, Backing up data from an iPhone, Syncing MP3s to an iPod nano, Migrating Playlists to a new Computer

11-11-11: Configure Apple IDs on family iOS devices, Recovering lost audiobooks, Unable to disable passcode lock on iOS devices, Buying an iPod for audio-only use, Preventing deleted tracks from coming back from an iOS device

11-4-11: iPhone 4S storage capacity doesn't match, Transferring HD video from iPhone 4S to a computer, Recovering photos from iPod touch, Notification Center and iMessage in iOS 5

10-21-11: Using iCloud's Find My iPhone on older devices, Batch deleting photos in Camera Roll, Using iTunes Gift Cards internationally, Audiobooks and iCloud, Merging contacts from two devices into iCloud

See the rest of the Archives...

« iPhone Gems: Games With Balls, and One with Blasting

Instant Expert: Secrets and Features of Apple TV 2.2 »

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Comments

1

My ipod is corupted but i can put music on it sometimes i have tried everything updating it
and restored it alot what else can I do?

Posted by Donald Wayne Gray III on October 5, 2008 at 8:07 PM (PDT)

2

if you are on a mac, use disk utility to completely erase the iPod. Try writing zeros to disk to make sure all existing data is gone. Then reinstall the iPod software.

Posted by mike in boston or toronto on October 6, 2008 at 6:49 AM (PDT)

3

Re: Lyrics support on the Touch.  This didn’t start until the “January Update” bundle with e-mail, maps, etc.  I’m pretty sure that 1.1.3, 1.1.4, and 1.1.5 do not support lyrics, you have to get the 2.x release if you don’t have the January update.

Posted by rockmyplimsoul on October 9, 2008 at 1:43 PM (PDT)

4

I just found one CD that did not transfer from my computer to my Ipod when I synced it. It was a CD that I manually loaded from the drive. It is still in Itunes but not on my pod. WhY? I’m sure I’m doing something wrong but I cannot seem to find out what.

Posted by Bob Whaley on October 12, 2008 at 11:34 PM (PDT)

5

my daughter has an older honda accord.  The transmitter to play the ipod over the car stereo sounds awful.  I have a co-worker that has a pair of portable speakers that plug into the cigarrette lighter fo the car and they sound great.  She bought them on e-bay but I cannot find any.  Do you have any suggestions.

Posted by patty church on October 15, 2008 at 7:46 AM (PDT)

6

I had bought my sister a jacket with cloth controls for the iPod. It said that it was compatible with the iPod nano 3G or higher. My sister has an iPod nano 2G. I did not realize my mistake until yesterday. Is there anything that I could get that would allow her to use her iPod nano 2G on the jacket? Any kind of cord or converter that might work? I am open to any suggestions.

Posted by Theresa Howard on December 22, 2008 at 8:16 AM (PDT)

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