2010 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 2-6-09

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, February 6, 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’m wondering if it’s possible to have my fourth generation 16 GB iPod nano save voice memos in WAV format instead of M4A. I recorded my first voice memo before it was connected to my PC and I’m wondering if that’s why it uses M4A or if this is the only format the new iPod nano uses for voice memos. Everywhere I look on the net I read that iPod use the WAV format for voice memos, but my nano is using M4A.

- Bill

A:

Traditionally, the iPod has always stored its voice recordings in WAV format. The iPod nano 4G is the exception to this, which saves recordings in Apple Lossless format in order to make more efficient use of the limited space available on the iPod nano. As the name implies this is a lossless audio compression format that takes up about 50-80% of the space of a raw WAV file without sacrificing any actual audio quality.

This is the standard audio format on the 4G iPod nano and there is not any way to change this. In fact, unlike other iPod models, the iPod nano does not offer any additional quality settings either; all recordings are saved in the highest possible quality.

Voice memos recorded on the iPod nano are automatically synchronized back to iTunes, and can be burned to a CD or transferred to another iPod or iTunes library in the same way as for other audio tracks. However, if you really need them to be in WAV format for compatibility with other devices, iTunes can easily convert them to WAV for you.

To do this, go into your iTunes Preferences and choose the “Import Settings” button from the General tab. From this dialog, set your default import format to use the WAV encoder.

Once you’ve set the default format, you can select the track(s) in question from your iTunes library and convert them into the WAV format by choosing Advanced, Create WAV version from the iTunes menu. This will create a copy of the selected track(s) which you can then copy out of the iTunes library and use in any other application which supports the WAV format. Note that you can also convert these M4A files into the MP3 format in much the same manner—simply choose MP3 Encoder as your default encoder, and then Create MP3 version from the iTunes Advanced menu.

Once you have finished converting these files, be sure to return to the iTunes Preferences and set your default import format back to its original setting, as this will also affect any CDs that you import into iTunes.

Q:

I live in the UK and I’m about to go on holiday to the U.S. I’m thinking of buying an iPod nano while I am there, but I am unsure if it will still work in the UK when I return or if I will have to do anything special with it?

- Joe

A:

This is not a problem at all. Although there will be packaging differences in iPods sold in different countries, the iPod hardware itself is basically identical. The only actual difference to be concerned with are the obvious power and charging adapter differences between North America and the UK. However, since no current model of iPod includes any form of AC charger, this is not as much of a concern as it once was. You can charge your iPod nano from your computer with the included USB cable, and if you’re really concerned about purchasing an AC charger, you would likely be best to wait until your return to the UK to do so.

This generally applies to any other accessories as well. There are no international compatibility issues except for power adapters, so if you’re purchasing accessories such as speakers, you will want to ensure that they either come with power adapters that are UK-compatible, or that the use generic adapters that can easily be swapped out for UK versions.

The only other caveat concerns iTunes Gift Cards: You may be tempted to pick some of these up on your travels to the U.S. but should be aware that iTunes Gift Cards can only be used in the iTunes Store for the country where they were purchased.

Q:

I have a 120GB iPod Classic, and I have a question about the “Shuffle” settings. I have almost 4500 songs thus far, and a tenth of it is jazz that I would rather not listen to all the time. I have created a jazz playlist containing all of those songs, but the songs still come into the rotation when my iPod is on “Shuffle Songs” mode. Is there any way to tell my iPod to shuffle all songs EXCEPT the ones in my jazz playlist?

- Emily

A:

Although the iPod itself cannot exclude an entire playlist from the global shuffle mode, there are a couple of different ways that you can work around this problem.

Firstly, you can tag any individual track to be skipped when you are shuffling songs on your iPod. This is done through iTunes, and can be done either for an individual track, or a selected group of tracks. To do this, simply select the track(s) you would like to be skipped when shuffling, and choose File, Get Info from your iTunes menu.

The disadvantage to this approach, however, is that it must be set on a per-track basis, so while you can set every track in your Jazz playlist to be skipped when shuffling, this setting will not automatically be applied to any new tracks you may add - you’ll have to modify these manually as you add them.

Another option is to build a Smart Playlist that includes all of the music on your iPod except for your Jazz playlist, and then shuffle your playback from within that playlist, rather than using the Main Menu “Shuffle Songs” option. A Smart Playlist similar to the following would do the trick:

You could then simply turn on Shuffle on your iPod from the Settings menu, and begin playing music from this playlist, rather than choosing “Shuffle Songs” from the main menu. Note that on the newer iPod models like the iPod classic you can also toggle Shuffle mode while listening to any given playlist right from the “Now Playing” screen by pressing the center button until the Shuffle options appear.

Q:

The listener can slow down the reading speed of an audiobook. Is it possible to slow down the speed of a song. I am trying to be able to play a violin along with a classical music piece to practice for my symphony. Is there a way I can do this with a song?

- Anonymous

A:

Although the iPod does not provide any method for varying the speed of normal music tracks, you can easily designate a music track as an Audiobook to gain access to this feature.

Simply select the track in iTunes and choose File, Get Info and then select the Options tab. From here you can change the Media Kind to “Audiobook” and then click the OK button.

Once you’ve done this, resynchronize the track to your iPod if you’re using automatic sync mode, or copy it back if you’re managing your iPod content manually. Once you have done this, the track will appear in the Audiobooks section on your iPod and playback speed will be varied according to your Audiobook speed settings on your iPod.

Q:

I have purchased 13 TV shows from iTunes. The first time I synched my iPod classic, only 12 of the shows transfered to my iPod. As I continue to sync my iPod, fewer and fewer TV shows transfer to my iPod. I am now down to 4 of the 13. How do I get my computer/iPod/iTunes to download all of the shows to my iPod?

- Greg

A:

By default, iTunes only synchronizes unwatched episodes of TV Shows to your iPod. This means that once you have actually watched one of your episodes, not only will it not be transferred to your iPod, but in fact will actually be removed during the next sync.

You can access and change this setting by connecting your iPod to your computer and selecting it from your iTunes Devices list, and then selecting the TV Shows tab from the main iPod summary screen.

At the top of this screen, change the setting beside the “Sync” heading from “All unwatched” to “All” episodes. You can also choose to sync only selected playlists or selected TV shows to your iPod from the same window. Once you have finished adjusting these settings, click the “Apply” button in the bottom-right corner of your iTunes window. iTunes should then sync all of the episodes of the selected TV Shows, whether you have watched them previously or not.

Q:

On iTunes, there is a box next to the song title. This is used to determine whether a song is synched or not to an iPod. Is there a way to highlight select a group of songs and check or uncheck en masse instead of one song at a time?

- George

A:

You can easily check or uncheck ALL of the displayed items by holding down the CTRL key (Windows) or CMD key (Mac) while clicking on any one of the checkboxes. The checkboxes of ALL of the displayed items will be simultaneously checked or unchecked.

Note that this affects all of the displayed items, and not merely those items that you have highlighted in iTunes. If you want to restrict your selection, you can either use the iTunes Browser to choose a specific Genre, Album or Artist, or filter based on a Search criteria or a playlist.

One other point worth noting: The checkboxes are not used only to determine whether a song is synced to your iPod, but will also affect whether or not a song is played in iTunes. Unchecked tracks will never be played by iTunes unless you specifically select them, so if you have any tracks in a playlist that are unchecked, these tracks will also be skipped when playing back your music from this playlist.

If this is a concern for you, then you may want to consider managing the music on your iPod based on selected playlists, rather than based on checkboxes.

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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: Fifteen Word Games, Reviewed

Previous: iPhone Gems: X-Plane Airliner, Helicopter and Extreme

Comments

1

As a follow on to the answer about “Skip when shuffling” vs. a smart playlist, how can I show which songs have the “Skip when shuffling” flag set?  The only solution I’ve found so far was: 1) Create a standard playlist of all songs to be skipped, 2) Create a smart playlist of songs *not* to be skipped, 3) periodically select all songs from both playlists and set the skip flag to the correct value all at once.  This wasn’t a problem for the first several hundred songs but as I rip my entire CD collection this has really gotten out of hand.  And it updates the music files every time I run the manual update.  Is there no way to show the “Skip” value in the the same way you can show the “Kind” or “Bitrate” values?  Can I somehow export that data?

Posted by John_B on February 8, 2009 at 11:00 AM (PDT)

2

Regarding the question about slowing down the speed of the song, I’m not sure the method mentioned will work. I think changing the file to Audiobook in Media Kind is not enough to get the file to play at variable speeds. I believe you have to change the file extension name from .m4a to .m4b. There are AppleScripts that will do this for you from Doug’s Applescripts—the Make Bookmarkable script and the Quick Convert script.

When Apple added the ability to change files to Audiobooks within the Get Info window, I was excited because it would mean less work for me to get my files to play at a faster speed. But when I tried it out, on my 4th gen iPod, it didn’t work for me—the files would be bookmarkable like an audiobook, but I wasn’t able to get them to play at different speeds.

If someone has tested this and it does work, please post here to let me know. I’d be more than willing to test it out again to see if something has changed or there was something I missed.

Posted by Plan K on February 9, 2009 at 1:50 PM (PDT)

3

will the batttery for the 4th Gen Ipod photo like this one at amazon:

fit in the 4th gen mono-chrome click wheel.

Posted by tim on February 12, 2009 at 5:31 PM (PDT)

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