iLounge iPad 2 Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 3-6-09

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By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, March 6, 2009
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:

I have an iPhone 3G and sync to iTunes on a Vista laptop at home, where all my music and other media content is. I would like to be able to play my music through my Windows XP’s computers speakers at work, how can this be done? Currently, my setup is using MediaMonkey, but it seems to mess up the iPhone’s music database file, because when I go back home and sync, iTunes acts like it has to reload half of my music library onto my iPhone as if it had been deleted. Is there any other way of doing this, or something I can do to fix the current situation? Thanks for your help in advance!

- Victor

A:

Although there are several other third-party applications that can be used to listen to your iPhone content on other computers, they seem to all exhibit similar problems with regard to the iPhone’s media content database. This issue appears to be specifically related to the more recent iPhone firmware versions and how third-party applications interact with them. Further, information such as last played dates and play counts from songs played through these applications do not get updated in your main iTunes library, but are instead overwritten by iTunes during the next sync.

It is important to note that Apple does not officially support any of these third-party solutions, so these tend to be developed by reverse-engineering the protocols that are used by iTunes to communicate with the iPhone and iPod, and this can sometimes be a moving target for developers. Therefore, even if a third-party application works with a given iPhone firmware version, Apple is under no obligation to ensure that future firmware updates do not break features in these applications.

Unfortunately, this can be even more frustrating with the iPhone, since Apple does not permit you to manually manage your iPhone from more than one iTunes library. With iPod devices, including the iPod touch, you could simply put your device in manual mode and listen to it through iTunes on any computer you connect it to. The iPhone, however, will not appear in manual mode on secondary computers.

That having been said, however, manual mode can give you a possible workaround to the problem you’re having. If your iPhone is in manual mode, then naturally iTunes will not recopy your content when you reconnect to your home computer, since it is not syncing anything automatically. The downside, of course, is that you will have to add and remove content on your iPhone manually rather than having it automatically synced with your iTunes library.

The other obvious workaround is simply to take the computer out of the equation when listening to your iPhone at your office. If your computer uses external speakers, you could simply connect these directly to the iPhone’s headphone jack, or you can connect your iPhone from the headphone jack to the line-in port on your computer if it has one. In this case, you would control playback from the iPhone itself as you normally would, but the sound would be directed through the computer speakers. Note that if you’re using the headphone jack, any other iPhone audio such as phone calls will also come through these speakers.

Q:

Is it possible to sync the built-in iPod Games such as Klondike and Vortex from an iPod classic to a fifth-generation 30GB iPod?

- Keith

A:

Unfortunately, the built-in games on the iPod classic are included as part of the iPod operating system and cannot be easily transferred off. Even if it were possible to copy these off and transfer them onto a fifth-generation iPod, they would simply not play on this model as it uses a completely different chipset and the two devices are not directly compatible.

All of the Click wheel iPod Games that are now available for purchase from the iTunes Store will play on both the fifth-generation iPod and the newer iPod models, however this is due to the fact that Apple has specifically compiled them for both the 5G and iPod classic platforms and bundled them together, so there are actually two different executable programs built-in to the same game bundle, and the appropriate one is selected for the iPod model that you are using. Games that were originally released for the 5G iPod needed to be upgraded by Apple before they could be played on the iPod classic. Further, Apple required 5G iPod owners to repurchase the same games if they wanted to use them on the iPod classic.

As the games that are pre-installed on the iPod classic were only intended to be played on the iPod classic, these do not include 5G-compatible versions. Unfortunately, while the three built-in games on the iPod classic were previously available from the iTunes Store in 5G iPod versions, they have since been removed from the iTunes Store with the release of the iPod classic models.

Q:

I have the majority of my music stored on iTunes. When I want to burn a CD that works fine, but I would also like to be able to write to a device other than a CD burner. My particular requirement is to be able to write to a Sandisk memory card because my new car has 2 SD slots and I have two 16 GB cards that I would like to fill. I can do it from Windows Media Player - it recognises the SD cards, but most of my music is stored on iTunes. Any alternative suggestion other than re-loading all of my CD library onto WMP will be appreciated.

- Jim

A:

iTunes does not provide any specific ability to “burn” your media to devices other than CD, however this is simply because no special features are required to accomplish this; While audio CDs use a special format that requires specific “burning” software, media cards normally simply require the raw files themselves to be present on the device. Windows Media Player’s “support” for this feature is actually just a file copy tool.

Therefore, all you really need to do is copy the files onto your SD cards using Windows Explorer. Although you can do this simply by going into the iTunes Music folder with Windows Explorer and tracking down the files, iTunes itself has a often missed feature that makes this even easier, particularly if you’re trying to copy a playlist of files from several different artists or albums.

You can copy tracks directly from within the iTunes application to any other folder on your computer simply by dragging and dropping tracks from the iTunes window to a Windows Explorer window. Multiple tracks can be copied by highlighting them first and then dragging and dropping the group.

So in your case, simply create playlists of the tracks that you would like to transfer to each of your SD cards, open a Windows Explorer window to the specific removable drive, and then select all of the tracks in your playlist within iTunes and drag-and-drop them to the Windows Explorer window. These tracks will be copied from your iTunes library directly to the destination folder.

You can also check the size of each of your playlists to ensure that they will fit on the destination SD card simply by looking at the total playlist size at the bottom of your iTunes window, or you can use Smart Playlists for this purpose to automatically limit your playlist size to the size of your SD card.

Q:

My original iPod has a feature to group compilations so that I don’t see all of the artists from compilation albums listed individually. Where is this feature on my iPhone? I can’t find it for the life of me.

- Jared

A:

Unfortunately, the iPhone and iPod touch do not have the group compilations feature at this point. This feature remains limited to the traditional click wheel iPod models.

About the only workaround to avoid having a lot of obscure artists listed in this case is to change the “Artist” field within your tracks themselves in iTunes to something like “Various Artists.” Note that you can still list the actual artist somewhere else, such as in the “Comments” field, although you would not be able to access this information on the iPhone itself as the comments field is not available on the device. However, at least you could avoid having the “one-hit wonders” clutter up your artist listing while still allowing you to keep track of the actual artists within iTunes itself.

If you would like to see a proper compilations feature come to the iPhone in a future firmware update, it may also be worth submitting a feature request to Apple at their iPhone Feedback Page. There’s no guarantee that Apple pays any attention to these requests, but it certainly can’t hurt to submit your feedback.

Q:

I am currently using iTunes 8.02 with an external hard drive. A year ago I went through moving my library from my hard drive to external without an issue. Now I’m running out of room on my current external, and I want to move to a bigger external. This time, however, I’m running into problems. I tried to use the same technique I used before to go from internal to external, but I can’t seem to get it to work. I went into my iTunes advanced preferences tab and checked off ‘Keep iTunes organized’ and ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’ and then I changed the music folder to my new external drive. It allows the drive change, but does not copy all the music over to the new drive, as it had when I switched from internal to external. What am I missing here?

- Chris

A:

You’re actually missing one step in the process. Changing the iTunes Music folder path simply tells iTunes to place anything new that you add into this folder from that point on, but you still need to transfer your existing content into this folder by using the Consolidate Library function. To add to the confusion, this has moved in iTunes 8, where it is now located under the File, Library menu instead of the Advanced menu.

See our tutorial on Transferring your iTunes Library for more specific information.

Q:

I was recently reading your article, The Complete Guide to iPhone Car Integration. I have a car with an auxiliary in port. I was wondering if you could tell me how the phone feature will work if I set it up this way.  Will the caller come through on my car speakers, and will the mic on the actual phone still work, and will it pick up my voice?

- Jeremy

A:

If you connect your iPhone to the AUX in port on your car via the iPhone’s headphone jack, then all of the audio from your iPhone will come through your car’s speakers in much the same way as it would through a set of headphones. This includes your iPod playback, phone call audio, and other sounds emitted by the iPhone such as ring tones, alarms, e-mail notifications, and so forth. In this configuration, the iPhone volume controls are also applied, so you may need to adjust the volume on both your iPhone and your car stereo for optimal listening levels.

When connecting an output-only device such as speakers, headphones, or an AUX cable to the iPhone headphone jack, the iPhone’s normal microphone remains active during phone calls, so you can in fact listen to your phone call through the car speakers and speak through the iPhone mic. Note, however, that the iPhone is not designed to handle echo cancellation in this configuration, so your callers on the other end may hear an echo of their own voice being fed back to them as a result of the audio from your car speakers also being picked up by the iPhone mic. Further, how well the actual iPhone mic picks up your voice will depend largely on the ambient noise of your car and where you choose to place the iPhone. Enabling speakerphone on the iPhone will improve the mic range, but will also direct your call audio out via the iPhone’s internal speaker rather than your car stereo. Keep in mind that actual car handsfree kits are specifically designed to address these type of issues with features like echo and noise cancellation.

Note that if you’re using the iPhone’s Dock Connector to tie into your car stereo system, then only your iPod audio will play through the car stereo at a fixed volume level output from the iPhone. In this configuration, phone calls still come through the iPhone handset, speakerphone, or via any Bluetooth hands-free accessory that you might be using. This is generally the recommended configuration, ideally paired with a handsfree Bluetooth accessory such as a headset or in-car kit like the Counter SurfaceSound Compact (iLounge Rating: A-). With this setup, your iPod audio will play through your car stereo system, and when a call comes in, the iPod audio is automatically faded down and muted by the iPhone and the incoming phone call is handled by the Bluetooth accessory. When you complete your phone call, the iPod music is resumed by fading back up to its previous volume.

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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: Tap Tap Revenge 2, DanceDanceRevolution S, iNinja, Magnetic Joe + Sky Force Reloaded

Weird + Small Apps: Tissue Apps, Derzle, Mental Blocks + Maths, and Puppet Animation »

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Comments

1

My ipod started off my freezing but then it worked again but now it is completly frozen and no buttons work.i have tried to reset it but this does nothing.Can you help?

Posted by christina bell on March 12, 2009 at 9:22 AM (PDT)

2

I have an ipod hooked up to my Kenwood car deck using the Kenwood ipod connector. But when playing, all that shows on the ipod screen is the Kenwood logo. I’d like to see CoverFlow. Any workarounds?

Posted by Craig Walker on March 18, 2009 at 4:50 PM (PDT)

3

You’ve stated above that the iphone mic works when plugged into a car stereo auxiliary input. I have just that arrangement in my car. I can hear the caller through the car speakers but the caller can’t hear me through the iphone (3Gs) mic. If I pull the aux jack out of the iphone then they can hear me through the mic. So I’m puzzelled.

Posted by Christopher Byrne on August 14, 2009 at 9:16 AM (PDT)

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