2010 iPod + iPhone Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 4-27-07

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By Jesse David Hollington

Contributing Editor
Published: Friday, April 27, 2007
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:

My husband and I share a computer but use separate iTunes libraries. He recently purchased a CD from the iTunes Store that I really want to add to my library. Is there an easy way to do this?

- Cathy

A:

Although the term “easy” may be subjective in this case, you can simply transfer the tracks out of your husband’s iTunes library and import them into your own.

The simplest way to do this is to use an intermediate folder that you both have access to, and drag the tracks out of his iTunes library into that folder. You can do this directly from within iTunes itself by highlighting all of the tracks in question (you may want to build a playlist of them to make this process easier), and simply dragging them out of the iTunes window and dropping them into a Windows Explorer folder. This will copy the selected tracks into that folder.

You can then log out of his iTunes library and into your own and import the tracks from that folder either by dragging them back in, or by using the File, Add Folder to Library menu option and selecting the folder containing the tracks that you previously copied out. Note that this will, by default, copy these tracks into your iTunes folder, so you will have to remove them from the intermediate folder when you have finished importing them. Alternatively, if you’re comfortable with Windows Explorer or Finder, and don’t mind browsing through the file system, you can import the tracks directly from your husband’s iTunes music folder itself, rather than taking the intermediate step of copying them out of iTunes. By default, each of your music folders should be located in your user profile’s “My Music” folder, in the iTunes subfolder, under “iTunes Music.”

Another option, if you’re both using iPods and iTunes 7 is that you can simply connect his iPod to your iTunes library. iTunes will prompt you with a warning indicating that the iPod is already synced to another iTunes library, but will also provide you with the option to transfer purchases from his iPod back to your iTunes library. Keep in mind that this will transfer all of the iTunes Store purchased music that is on his iPod that is not already in your iTunes library, however.

You can also access this option once his iPod is connected by right-clicking on the iPod itself and choosing “Transfer Purchases.” If the “Transfer Purchases” option does not appear when you connect his iPod, it is most likely because your own iTunes library is not authorized with the same iTunes Store account as his. You can manually authorize your library to play these songs by selecting Store, Authorize Computer from the iTunes menu. 

Keep in mind that either of these methods will create multiple copies of these tracks, since they will be imported into your own iTunes music folder. If you want to actually share the same music files between different libraries to conserve disk space, you may want to consider either storing them in a common folder on your hard disk for both iTunes libraries, or in the very least importing them and accessing them directly from your husband’s iTunes music folders. You can accomplish this by turning OFF the Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library option, which can be found in iTunes’ advanced preferences under iTunes/Edit, Preferences, Advanced, and then adding the tracks to your library directly from the location where they are originally stored. You will still have separate libraries in terms of the “metadata” such as ratings, playlists, play counts, and so forth, but will be using the same underlying music files, avoiding the need for two different copies to be stored on your computer.

Q:

My brother has my old eMac and he wants to get a new 5G iPod video. Unfortunately, the eMac he has is limited to USB 1 speeds. Eforcity makes a Firewire adapter (1394 / USB-B Adapter for Apple iPod). Will this allow him to connect an iPod video via Firewire and transfer songs with his eMac?

- Matt

A:

Unfortunately, no. This adapter and others like it are designed to provide a dual interface, and convert a standard FireWire cable into the Dock Connector, but do not actually do any conversions of the interface standards themselves.

In other words, a dock adapter such as this one will only work for iPod models that already support FireWire (the 4G iPod models and prior). The iPod nano and fifth-generation iPod do not support syncing using FireWire connections.

The reality is that FireWire and USB are very different standards, and a device that could convert one to the other would be as complex and therefore as costly to produce as a USB or FireWire expansion card. As a result, devices that will actually convert Firewire to USB or vice-versa are extremely rare.

The only real solution for fast sync performance with a 5G iPod is to obtain an actual USB 2.0 adapter card. Unfortunately, this may be more of a challenge for computers such as an eMac that do not provide room for this kind of expansion.

Q:

Does anyone offer an external battery that an iPod can dock into offering extended playback times?  My 30 GB 5G iPod gives me acceptable battery life, but nowhere near what’s needed for extended uses like airport terminals and longer flights.

- Al

A:

Yes, there are a number of viable options for iPod battery packs, almost all of which simply connect to the Dock Connector on the iPod and provide power in much the same way as an external AC adaptor or USB cable would.

These battery packs generally fit into two broad categories: Those that are an external rechargeable battery, and those that simply provide an interface for normal consumer replaceable (AA/AAA) batteries. For most purposes, the AA and AAA battery chargers are the most practical, as you can simply buy batteries at any number of convenient locations to replace them with, rather than having to find somewhere to charge an external battery pack.

The extended life offered by these devices varies, of course, but for video playback, a standard four AA battery pack adapter will generally provide an additional 10 hours of audio playback or 3-4 hours of video playback time, on top of the iPod’s internal battery.

It should also be noted that despite connecting to the Dock Connector, these battery packs do not actually charge the iPod’s internal battery, rather they only provide external power to allow the iPod to continue to operate. When using an external battery pack, the power will be drained from the external battery pack first, and the iPod will then switch back over to its internal battery once the external batteries are drained.

You can find more details on the available options in our iPod Battery Reviews section.

Q:

I wanted to know why I can’t turn off my iPod. The manual says to push down on the play/pause button, but that doesn’t work. Should I take it back to where I bought it from?

- Jason

A:

This is a fairly common problem that is normally solved by resetting the iPod. To reset a 4G or later model iPod, simply hold down the center SELECT and MENU buttons until you see the Apple logo appear (about 5 seconds).

Note that under normal circumstances, the iPod should go to sleep by itself after a few minutes of inactivity, which is exactly the same as what happens when you hold down the PLAY/PAUSE button for a few seconds. There is therefore seldom any need to manually put the iPod into sleep mode. The power savings by putting the iPod to sleep manually as opposed to allowing it to sleep by itself are negligible.

Of course, if your iPod isn’t going into sleep mode by itself, and still refuses to do this after a reset, then your last resort is to try restoring the iPod to its factory defaults by using the “Restore” option in iTunes.

Q:

My mother has an iPod shuffle and my sister just received an iPod for her birthday. Can they both use the same computer to house their music? If so, should they download a second itunes library to it or is there a way to share the same application and just register both to the one library?

- Becky

A:

You definitely can share more than one iPod on the same computer. Some of us here at iLounge in fact use as many as four or five iPods on a single computer.

Basically, iTunes identifies each iPod as a distinct device, and you can set your synchronization preferences for each one separately. You could, for example, have one iPod that syncs all music content from your library automatically, another that synchronizes only selected playlists, and a third on which you manage the music manually.

This method can work best if you find that your tastes in music are appropriate enough to share the same iTunes library, and you don’t mind sharing information like ratings, playlists, and last played times and counts. Although you can choose which playlists to sync to each iPod, information like ratings, last played times, and play counts for each song will be shared across all iPods, which can affect your smart playlists if different people regularly listen to the same music. Of course, if your musical tastes are completely different, then there’s still no reason you can’t share the same library, since it’s unlikely that you would be listening to the same tracks; in this case simply sync different sets of playlists to each iPod to maintain separate collections.

If you do want to maintain completely separate libraries for each iPod there are two ways that you can do this.

Firstly, you can set up multiple user accounts on your computer through your operating system. Each user account or “profile” has its own iTunes library database and content folder. So when you log in as a different user and start iTunes, you will effectively be starting a brand new library as if you had just installed iTunes for the first time. Note that you don’t actually need to reinstall iTunes to accomplish this, but simply log on as a new user and run iTunes as you normally would.

The second method, if you’re using iTunes 7, is to use the new multiple library feature. This is accessed by shutting down iTunes and then restarting it while holding down the SHIFT key (Windows) or OPT key (Mac). You will be presented with a dialog box similar to the following:

To create a new library, simply choose the appropriate option and then tell iTunes where you want it to be stored. A new, blank library will be created separately from your existing one. To switch back to your previous library, simply restart iTunes, again holding down SHIFT or OPT, select the “Choose Library” button and browse to the location of your other library.

Note that when using multiple libraries, each library also has its own folder for your music content. This means that you may have multiple copies of the same track if you import it into multiple libraries.

Q:

When I import a CD into iTunes the playlist automatically shuffles the songs around from their original order. Then when I burn a CD or listen to my iPod I have no idea of the original order. How do I stop this from happening?

- Kelly

A:

The most likely cause of this is that the “Shuffle” setting is turned on somewhere in iTunes, either for the CD import itself or within the playlist that you are creating from the content. This is normally indicated by the “Shuffle” button in the bottom-left corner of the iTunes window. This button will turn blue when shuffle mode is enabled, and remain black if shuffle mode is not enabled.

This can be enabled on a playlist-by-playlist basis, but iTunes will tend to remember the previous settings for a given playlist or CD. To turn the shuffle setting OFF, simply click the shuffle button, or select “Shuffle” from the Controls menu to toggle the option.

The other possible cause for this is that you may be sorting your CD tracks by a different order than the normal track number. The current sort order is indicated by the blue column heading when viewing a playlist, and if sorting by a field such as the track name, this will naturally not reflect the natural order of the tracks on the CD.

To solve this, either sort by track number, or return to the manual sort order by clicking on the left-most column heading (the one with no title). When in the natural sort order, you can also manually re-arrange the tracks within a playlist into any order you prefer simply by selecting a track and dragging it up or down in the list (note that you cannot do this for a CD - you will need to import the tracks into a playlist and then adjust the sort order within the playlist itself).



Ask iLounge Archives:

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

10-16-09: Moving iTunes to a new computer, Transferring contacts from Blackberry to an iPhone, Disabling iPhone Backups, Using AV cables for audio only, Problems syncing photos to iPod touch, Memorex iFlip and iPhone compatibility

10-9-09: iPhone OS and external keyboards, Adjusting ratings in a remote iTunes library, Excluding tracks from Genius Mixes, Moving iTunes library out of My Documents, Playlist folders on iPod touch, Refreshing random Smart Playlists

9-25-09: iTunes 9 and Shopping Cart, Restoring iTunes to an external hard drive, Using an HTTP Proxy over 3G, Problems transferring movies from iTunes to IPhone, iPod touch shuffle mode, Using an iPhone without a SIM card

See the rest of the Archives...

Next: Ask iLounge 5-3-07

Previous: Bad Days Ahead for FM Transmission

Comments

1

Can someone give me specific instructions on how to get my music and video’s to work from my pc again after it crashed ? I got the itunes back but not the music from other sources ?

Posted by DTsound on April 30, 2007 at 2:41 PM (PDT)

2

Got the same problem in shutting down the iPod by holding the click wheel.

Simply extend your main menu by adding the ‘sleep mode’ entry. Can be found at ‘extras/main menu’ or similar - sorry, I’m using the German menu.

Posted by schmittan on May 3, 2007 at 8:06 AM (PDT)

3

my ipod nano completely froze up. i cant turn it off and it is not recognized when i plug it into the computer i have tried everything i can think of but nothing is working

Posted by kristin on May 2, 2008 at 8:05 PM (PDT)

4

I have iTunes on my PC and recently put it on my laptop. They are two separate accounts and I am having trouble moving songs from my laptop iTunes (purchased songs) to my iPod. How do I do this?

Posted by Rob Rash on May 7, 2008 at 3:20 PM (PDT)

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