iLounge

Q: What are the best speakers to use with my iPod? (15, 76-79, and 90-92)

Q: What are the best headphones to use with my iPod? (10, 72-75, and 90-92)

Q: I really want to get a nice case for my iPod. Do you have any suggestions? (36-37, 54-67, and 90-92)

Q: How can I connect my iPod to my car stereo? (14, 32-35, 68-71, and 90-92)

Q: Are there any batteries that I can use to extend my iPod's battery life? (82-83 and 90-92)

A: Answers to these and many other questions can be found in two places. Our Free iPod Book 3.3 provides a complete report card to all of the iPod accessories we've reviewed as of summer 2007, as well as over 125 iTunes and iPod tips & tricks. Further, our new 2008 iPod & iPhone Buyers' Guide has accessory tutorials at the page numbers listed in parentheses above. These and other publications in our Library are free downloads, developed by the editors of iLounge!

Q: The Home Dock Deluxe is not compatible with my new iPod classic. Are there any other docking devices that could display my music and movie library directly from my iPod classic to my TV?

- Youssef

A: Unfortunately, not at this time. The new iPod classic and iPod nano models now require a special Apple authentication chip in any connected accessories in order to enable the video output feature on the device itself. At this time, there are no third-party video accessories that have this necessary authentication chip support.

This new requirement means that manufacturers are going to need to redevelop their products to use the Apple authentication chips. It will therefore take third-party accessory manufacturers time to adapt to this new technology. We will hopefully see some compatible third-party accessories appearing very late this year and early in 2008.

Until such time as this happens, there are not any compatible iPod docks with on-TV menu support. Basic video playback can be enabled via the Apple Universal Dock, or by using an older video playback Dock Connector accessory and one of the workaround methods discussed in last week’s Ask iLounge column.

Q: How much space does a song take up on an iPod nano 2G?

- Kelsey

A: The amount of storage space that a given music file will take up on any digital music player is actually a function of the length of the song and the bitrate at which it is encoded.

Essentially, digital music formats specify a bit-rate measured in kilobits per second, abbreviated kbps. This specifies how much digital data is used to reproduce a single second of audio. For example, looking at a commonly-used bit-rate of 128 kbps, for each second of audio on the track, 128,000 bits of data are used. Higher bit-rates mean larger files, since more data is stored for each second of audio, but this also means additional quality, since there is more data present to reproduce a higher level of fidelity in the resulting audio.

Keep in mind that in this case we are talking about measurements in terms of computer bits rather than the more commonly-used storage measurement of bytes. There are eight bits in a byte, so these numbers can be divided by eight to determine approximately how many kiloBYTES of data each second of audio will take up. So a 128 kbps audio file would take up approximately 16KB for each second of audio (this is not an exact measurement due to some unit differences, but will do fine for the purpose of getting an approximate measurement).

So, by applying some basic math, you can easily calculate the file size of any given audio track after conversion to an MP3 or AAC file. Simply take length of the track in seconds, multiply it by the bit-rate, and then divided by eight to get the result in kbps.

So if you have a 5 minute song, encoding at 128kbps, you would do this as follows:

5 minutes = 300 seconds
128kbps * 300 seconds = 38,400 kilobits of data
38,400 kilobits / 8 = 4,800 kb

To take this one step further, you could then convert this into megabytes simply by dividing the result by 1,024.

Note that the key here is the bit-rate that you are encoding at, rather than the format itself. There are no significant size differences between MP3 and AAC formats inherently, for example—a 128 kbps MP3 and a 128 kbps AAC should result in files that are approximately the same size. There will be some additional space taken up in each file to store metadata such as track, album, artist, genre, and things like album artwork, but this is generally insignificant compared to the size of the audio data itself.

Further, the ratios between the bit-rates can be used to determine the approximate size differences. 256 kbps tracks will naturally take up twice the storage space as 128 kbps files.

One other important consideration to keep in mind is that the above formula will only work for “Constant Bit Rate” or CBR files. There is another type of encoding, known as “Variable Bit Rate” (VBR) which uses an average or variable bit-rate throughout the file. Since these files may have some sections at 128 kbps and others at 192 kbps, it’s difficult to determine exactly how much space these will take up, although the average bit-rate can still be used as an approximation. Note that most files downloaded from online sources will be in a CBR format, so this is seldom an issue unless you are encoding music yourself into a VBR format.

More detailed information on these calculations can be found in the thread Calculating File Size from Bitrate in our iLounge Discussion Forums.

It should also be noted that the capacity specifications that Apple publishes for the various iPod models are based on 128 kbps files at four minutes per song. An iPod that is listed as holding “4,000 tracks” will hold significantly less if you are encoding at a higher bit-rate.

For a nice quick calculation of how many tracks each iPod can be expected to hold at various bit-rates, be sure to check out our iPod Storage Calculator:

Q: Any service that I try to access on my iPhone shuts down within 1-5 seconds. I cannot access Safari, camera, iPod, phone, calendar, etc. I do not want to reset my phone from iTunes because I am afraid I will lose all my information that I have configured on my phone. What are my options at this point? Will I lose all info if I reset to default?

- Michael

A: As with any such problem, the first recommended step is to always try a “Restore” to factory settings to ensure that some aspect of your iPhone’s operating system or data stored on it is not causing the problem.

The good news is that assuming that your iPhone has been syncing properly to your computer, most of the information stored on your iPhone is actually backed up by iTunes itself and can be restored to the iPhone after a full “Restore” operation, or in the event that your iPhone is replaced with a new unit. If you are running the latest v1.1.1 firmware, you will in fact find that pretty much everything gets restored back to the iPhone after an iTunes restore.

You can confirm that your iPhone is being backed up, and the time of the last backup by going into your iTunes Preferences, and selecting the “iPhone” tab:

This will show the names of all iPhones that have been backed up to this computer, as well as the time of the last backup. You can also remove backups from this dialog box, should you desire to do so (ie, in the event that you have an older iPhone backup, or somebody else synced their iPhone to your computer).

This backup includes pretty much everything stored on your iPhone that is not otherwise synced with iTunes. So, while obviously media content would not be included, the backup does include such information as your SMS messages, call history log, phone favorites, your phone’s configuration and settings, and even your Safari browser cache and history. Some information is not included in this backup simply due to the fact that it is already stored elsewhere: For example media content will simply be re-synced from iTunes as it would for an iPod, and your mail messages can be re-downloaded from your mail server (mail account settings are backed up and restored, but the messages themselves are not). The settings for which content is synced to the iPhone do form part of the backup, however, so it is not necessary to reconfigure synchronization settings after a restore.

Note that if you are using the v1.0.x iPhone firmware, there is some information that is specifically not backed up or restored that may be of concern. Most significantly this includes photos you have taken with the iPhone’s camera. Photos can be transferred from the iPhone using any number of photo transfer applications, but are not backed up by iTunes itself. If you are using the v1.0.2 firmware, always ensure that you transfer any photos that you wish to keep off of your iPhone prior to restoring it or sending it in for service. Further, auto-lock settings, passwords for mail accounts and WiFi networks, and YouTube bookmarks are also not backed up in the v1.0.x firmware. Passwords will simply need to be re-entered manually, and YouTube bookmarks will simply be lost.

The good news is that the v1.1.1 firmware addresses this, and now all of this additional information is backed up, even photos taken with the iPhone’s built-in camera will be included in the backups from an iPhone running v1.1.1.

Making use of this backup is really as simple as performing a “Restore” on your iPhone and waiting for it be restored back to factory settings. Once the iPhone has finished restoring and restarts, it will appear in iTunes with a note that there is a backup available, and provide you with the option to either restore the iPhone from backup, or set it up as a new iPhone:

Simply select the backup to restore and choose “Continue.” iTunes will restore the backup files to the iPhone, displaying its progress as it does so:

After which the iPhone will be restarted with your restored settings:

Once the iPhone is re-detected by iTunes, it will commence an initial sync to reload with any other content such as music and video files. The content selected for synchronization in iTunes previously is also restored and iTunes will therefore sync the same content to the iPhone that was stored on it before the restore operation.

In all, the backup process makes restoring an iPhone almost entirely seamless, particularly if you’re using the v1.1.1 firmware. An iPhone that is backed up properly can have a full wipe-and-restore run on it and be back up and running with all of its previous settings in a matter of a few minutes, with the only significant delay being the time required to re-transfer the media content itself. This same method also applies if you were purchasing a new iPhone or getting a replacement unit under warranty—all of the backed up settings can be restored just as easily to a brand new iPhone, making it identical to the unit that you may have previously been using.

Of course, if you are in fact having problems with your iPhone’s performance, there is always the possibility that some corrupt data on the iPhone is the cause of this problem. In this case, restoring the iPhone from backup may not actually solve the problem since the corrupt data may also exist in the backup itself. It may be advisable to test the iPhone prior to performing a restore of your backup (simply do not reconnect it to iTunes after performing the factory restore operation) to see if it exhibits the same behavior. If so, you should consider contacting Apple to have the unit serviced.

Q: I just bought an iPhone and I find it doesn’t have enough memory to hold my entire iTunes library. I don’t see any instructions on how to manually put songs into the phone from the library. How can I copy my music (some, not all) into the iPhone?  Please be patient with me, I’m an old guy ad not that computer savy. I just stumbled upon this site.

- Anonymous

A: Unfortunately, unlike the various iPod models, the iPhone does not have a “Manual” mode for managing content. All content must be synchronized automatically with the iPhone.

Many iPod users with large iTunes libraries have traditionally chosen to use manual management and simply drag-and-drop their selections to their iPod rather than using any form of automatic synchronization. However, this is not the only way to manage your iPod content with a large library, and in fact there are some advantages to using automatic synchronization, particularly when coupled with iTunes’ powerful Smart Playlists feature.

The solution in this case is to set iTunes to only automatically synchronize selected playlists from your iTunes library, rather than simply synchronizing ALL of your iTunes content to the iPhone. This is accomplished by connecting the iPhone to your computer and then selecting it from the iTunes source list on the left-hand side. You will see an iPhone summary screen in the main window with a number of tabs for the various types of content that you can synchronize to your iPhone:

Simply select the appropriate tabs for the type of content, and you will be able to customize the automatic synchronization settings. For example, selecting the “Music” tab will display a screen allowing you to customize your options for synchronizing Music content to your iPhone, including a setting to turn the synchronization of music on or off completely, and a setting to either synchronize “All songs and playlists” or simply “Selected playlists.”

To synchronize only some of your content, you would select the playlists that you wish to have synchronized to your iPhone, and then simply click the “Apply” button to save these settings.

In the simplest form, you could even just create a single playlist with a name like “iPhone” and place any content you want stored on your iPhone into this one playlist. Once these settings are configured, you would then just manage the content of these playlists, adding and removing content from the playlist to determine what gets transferred to or removed from your iPhone during the next sync.

When combined with iTunes’ Smart Playlists feature, this can be a very powerful way of managing content on your iPhone, since the iPhone and iTunes can also track information such as how many times you’ve played a song and when the last time you played it was. So you could, as a simple example, have a playlist that selects 500 MB of music from your “Jazz” genre that you have not listened to recently and that has not been given a low rating:

You would then simply choose this as one of the playlists to sync to your iPhone, and this playlist will be updated as you listen to your music and sync your iPhone back to iTunes, removing songs as you listen to them, and then eventually re-adding them back when they have not been listened to for more than a week. This can allow you to always keep relevant and/or fresh content on your iPhone automatically, despite the limited storage capacity.

Similar options are available for video content as well, although you can choose to select content by specific Movie or TV Show if you prefer, rather than having to build playlists:

For TV Shows, you can either use playlists or make a selection based on a specified number of episodes of a specific TV Show. For Movies, you simply select which specific movies you would like to transfer to the iPhone.

Q: I have the old Universal Dock (the one with the circular IR reciever). I plan to buy an iPod classic soon, and I was wondering if I can play video through my dock? I hope I don’t have to upgrade my dock. If not through my dock alone, is there an accessory I could use to make it work?

- Kyle

A: The original Apple Universal Dock does in fact provide video out support for the new iPod models, as it incorporates the standard Apple authentication chip. Note, however, that unlike the new iPod video cables, the original Universal Dock does not incorporate a video-specific authentication chip but rather merely a generic authentication chip.

At this point, the iPod classic and iPod nano will enable video output with any Dock Connector accessory that contains any form of authentication chip, so they will work with the original Universal Dock. However, this could change with a future firmware update.

Note that the iPhone and iPod touch do require a video-specific authentication chip, so at this point only the Apple video cable accessories can be used to output video from either of these devices until such time as new third-party compatible accessories begin to appear.

Q: I download podcasts frequently, yet add them to my iPod infrequently. At the moment, I do this manually by dragging all the podcast files onto the iPod icon. However whenever I do this, all podcasts previously listed as played become listed as unplayed, so I lose track of where I was up to. Is there a way to set up iTunes to read your iPod to show which tracks have been played and which haven’t, and update accordingly? I would prefer not to automatically sync the podcasts, I prefer to do it manually to keep favourite episodes on the player.

- Jaymes

A: Unfortunately, when managing your iPod in manual mode, information such as ratings, play counts, last played times, and bookmarked positions are not transferred back to the iTunes library. As a result, if you re-transfer any existing content from your iTunes library to your iPod, playback positions and played status will be overwritten based on the settings in your iTunes library.

The best workaround to avoid this situation is to go back to automatically syncing your podcasts, but in this case do so based on playlists rather than using the “Podcast” settings in iTunes. In other words, you would leave the sync settings on the “Podcasts” tab disabled, and instead create a playlist or set of playlists containing the podcasts that you wish to have on your iPod. You would then set your iPod to sync these selected playlists on the “Music” tab, where they will be handled in the same manner as any other audio files.

You could then simply add and remove podcasts from within these playlists to control which ones are stored on your iPod. Podcast episodes added to the playlist will be added to your iPod during the next sync, and podcasts removed from these playlists would be removed from the iPod. Further, as you listen to podcasts on the iPod, playback positions and play counts will synchronize back to your iTunes library, allowing you to retain your playback positions and keep track of which podcasts you have listened to.

There are a couple of caveats to this method, however: Firstly, not all iPod models will display these Podcasts under the “Podcast” menu. This is particularly true of the newer iPod classic and iPod nano. In this case, you will simply have to access the Podcasts via the playlist(s) that you have created, which unfortunately will not provide indications on which episodes you may have already listened to (ie, no blue dots).

Secondly, this method will not work for video podcasts, as these are treated differently than audio podcasts by iTunes. Our testing has shown some limited success with syncing these through the “Movies” tab by using video playlists, but this behavior seems inconsistent at this point.

Ask iLounge Archives:

5-16-08: Using the iPhone with integrated in-car Bluetooth, Problems with iPods and depleted batteries, Transferring content to a new iPod, iPod displays audio but no video, Removing photos and album artwork from iTunes, Overdrive Media and iPods

5-9-08: About iPod battery life and charging, Using Apple FM Radio remote on older iPod models, Scan and Fix dialog using iPod on Windows Vista, Preserving iTunes metadata when reinstalling Windows, Importing multiple tracks into iTunes, About iTunes and ID3 tags

5-2-08: Transferring digital camera movies to iPod, Reordering and shuffling playlists, Transferring playlists between iTunes libraries, Importing audiobooks, Correcting tags on CD import, Burning CDs with longer gaps

4-25-08: Finding Duplicates in iTunes, Setting files to open in iTunes automatically, Resetting authorizations, 1G iPod nano and voice recording, Syncing a library larger than your iPod capacity, Grouping multi-disc albums

4-17-08: Ripping CDs to external hard drive, Zeppelin speakers and USB port, Bluetooth stereo on iPhone, Converting TV shows to iPod, Audio recording on iPod touch, Wireless security on iPod touch

See the rest of the Archives...