2010 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 2-20-09

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, February 20, 2009
Category: Ask iLounge

Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-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.

The most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I copy music from my iPod onto my computer?

Click here for the answer.

The second most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I put DVDs on my iPod?


For converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and home movies to your iPod, iPhone or Apple TV, we have a three-part series outlining the best formats, settings, and various tools to use for converting all types of video content for use on these devices.

The Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Mac)

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Windows)

Top five questions most recently asked by iLounge readers:

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!

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

Q:

I want to buy a docking station that can be connected to my TV, so that I can watch videos and DVDs that are on my iPod. Which models/brands are compatible with my fifth-generation iPod?

- Kandra

A:

The good news is that despite the confusion that surrounds video accessories with the newer iPod models such as the iPod classic, the fifth-generation iPod remains compatible with all of the iPod video accessories that are presently available, at least at the basic level of displaying your video output onto your TV.

Note that some of the more advanced features on the newer docks such as on-screen menu display may only work with the newer iPod models, but any iPod-compatible video dock should have no problem simply displaying your video output from your iPod, as the fifth-generation iPod models had no restrictions on video accessory compatibility—only the newer iPod models are locked down in this regard.

You can find more information on some of the products available in our reviews section, specifically under our categories for Docks with on-TV menuing and Docks with video-out.

Q:

I have an iPod, probably 4 years old or so. My original PC is sitting in a box, unavailable. I am trying to connect my iPod to a new laptop and get a message providing me with two options: ‘Erase and Sync’ or ‘Transfer Purchases’ I’m not sure what to do, as I do not want to lose any songs on my iPod. I installed iTunes on my new laptop but am stuck. Can your recommend the correct next step?

- Sean

A:

In this case, the option you actually want is the third one: Cancel. Selecting Cancel will leave your iPod connected to your computer, but iTunes will not attempt to sync anything with it.

If every track you wanted to recover from your iPod was purchased from the iTunes Store, then the Transfer Purchases option could be used to copy your iPod’s content back to your computer. Since you likely have content acquired from your own CDs or other sources, this is not usually a viable option.

Fortunately, there are other methods for recovering your content from your iPod back to your computer. Check out our tutorial Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer for more information on how to accomplish this.

Q:

I just bought a new 120 GB iPod classic and my problem is that I can’t download iTunes 8 because my Internet connection is down. Is there anywhere else where I can iTunes 8, like copying it from a friends computer?

- Damian

A:

Sure. You can download iTunes 8 from Apple’s web site at http://www.apple.com/itunes from any computer and then save it to a USB memory key or burn it to a CD to transport it back to your own computer and install it from there. If you’re already running an older version of iTunes, the installer package will happily update your older version for you in the same way as downloading it directly onto your computer would.

If you cannot find another Internet connection to download iTunes from, you may want to see if you can find a local Apple Retail Store or Apple retailer who might be able to help you.

Q:

I just bought a used iPod and I am trying to find out how to erase all the music and everything else from it so I can start fresh.

- Anonymous

A:

You can return any iPod to its original factory settings by connecting it to your computer, running iTunes, and choosing the “Restore” option found on the iPod’s “Summary” page.

This will basically reformat the iPod, removing all of the content from it, and reinstall the iPod firmware. Your device will effectively be returned back to its original out-of-the-box factory configuration, and iTunes will then run the normal iPod Setup Assistant as if you were connecting a brand new iPod.

Q:

I have my boyfriend’s iPod which has old pictures on there that we want to get off. He doesn’t have the computer that his iTunes was on or the computer that originally had the pictures. We have tried to use my copy of iTunes to copy them off. All that showed was his iPod on my screen but nothing showed up for photos on that main menu on the left side. What are the steps in getting all these pictures off from his iPod to my iTunes?

- Leslie

A:

iTunes itself does not provide any way to transfer photos from your iPod back to your computer, nor really any means for directly managing your photos on your iPod—it merely acts as a conduit to transfer your photos to your device.

If your boyfriend had opted to store full resolution copies of the photos on the iPod when he first transferred them over, then you can access these through Windows Explorer or Mac Finder simply by setting your iPod to enable disk use and then browsing it as an external hard drive. The photos will be located in the /Photos/Full Resolution folder, and you can just copy them off in the same way as you would any other file.

On the other hand, if the full resolution photos were not originally saved to the iPod, then you will need to look for third-party recovery software to retrieve the photos from the thumbnail databases that iTunes stored them in. Note that in this case you will be limited to recovering a 640 X 480 version of the photos in question, as iTunes would have resized the original photos to more appropriate resolutions for the iPod itself.

You can find more information on recovering photos from the iPod in our iPod 201 article, Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer. Page 4 provides detail on recovering photos from your iPod.

Q:

In the left pane of my iTunes, I suddenly have the SAME number of songs and music videos in my PURCHASED listings as I do in my LIBRARY listings. How do I get my PURCHASED icon to show ONLY my PURCHASED items as it used to?

- James

A:

Despite the shiny green icon, the “Purchased” playlist in your iTunes library is actually just a standard playlist, and you can add and remove tracks from it like you would any other playlist. In this case, it’s likely that at some point you or somebody else using your computer inadvertently added all of the tracks in your library into this playlist.

Since the Purchased playlist is a standard playlist, it doesn’t magically track which items you have purchased in the past. iTunes automatically drops newly-purchased items into this playlist, but it doesn’t not keep track of just any purchased item in your library.

To create a listing of all of the purchased tracks currently in your iTunes library, your best bet is to create a Smart Playlist that looks for information unique to purchased tracks. Specifically, a Smart Playlist that looks for a “Kind” that begins with either “Protected” or “Purchased” will generally do the job.

This Smart Playlist will include all of the purchased tracks in your iTunes library, and will dynamically update as you purchase new tracks. You can refine this Smart Playlist even further if you want to track only purchased items of a certain type (ie, only music or movies).

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Ask iLounge Archives:

11-20-09: Sharing iTunes libraries between two user accounts, Enlarging text on iPhone 3GS, Transferring an iPod to a new user, iPhone shuffles when walking, New 8GB iPod touch models, Transferring purchases from a remote iTunes library

11-13-09: Syncing different contact info with two iPhones on the same computer, iPod shows no content, Syncing music and videos in playlists, Exclamation marks next to tracks in iTunes, Playing podcasts on 3G iPod shuffle.

11-6-09: Storing iPod software updates, Playing an iPod continuously, Transferring play counts to a new iTunes library, iPhone backups, Klipsch S4i earphones

10-30-09: Authorization problems with iPod touch, Changing Grid View background in iTunes, iTunes library and Music Folder are different sizes, Older iPods and firmware updates, Reconciling two different iTunes libraries, Syncing multiple devices to one iTunes library

10-23-09: Using a laptop with an iTunes library on an external hard drive, Transferring YouTube videos to iPod, iPod touch accessibility settings, Disabling Shake to Shuffle on iPod nano, Purchased songs fail to download from iTunes Store, Charging and powering off iPhone

See the rest of the Archives...

Next: iPhone Gems: Aqua Moto, Biplane, iDracula, Monospace, Radio Flare, Tower Bloxx + Vector Tanks

Previous: Weird + Small App Reviews: Arcade Bowling, CompareMe, IQ Test, SkyCoaster 3D, Yo Mama + More

Comments

1

How do I find out how many songs, not gigabyte volume, are on my iPod 3rd generation?  Thank you.

Posted by David Pearlman on February 24, 2009 at 12:58 PM (PDT)

2

Any apps that convert voice to text to email?

Thanks

Posted by Steve Gayer on February 24, 2009 at 9:48 PM (PDT)

3

I have a windows 2000 professional computer.. recently my computer crashed and I had to reformat my whole system. My Ipod is a 5G 30 gig. I had Itunes 7.6 running and now I am not able to update it but to a 7. I can not put the games that i purchased in Itunes back on to my pod without updating. But it tells me it won’t work with a 2000 it has to be a xp. My question is How do i fix this. I know it works it worked for over 2 years but I can’t remember how to fix it. Could you give me some pointers or point me to someone who might know how to fix the problem? Thank you

Posted by Chris on March 26, 2009 at 12:53 PM (PDT)

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