iLounge iPad 2 Buyers' Guide

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Ask iLounge 4-5-07

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By Jesse Hollington

Applications Editor, iLounge
Published: Thursday, April 5, 2007
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:

In previous versions of iTunes, I remember being able to play songs on an iPod through the computer when it was plugged in. However, in the newer versions, that feature has either been locked or taken off entirely. If it is merely locked, is there any way around it?

- Josh

A:

Actually, this feature does indeed still exist in iTunes, and hasn’t actually gone away from previous versions. However, to play content directly from your iPod, you’ll need to switch it, at least temporarily, into “Manual” mode.

To do this, simply select the iPod itself in the source pane in iTunes (rather than the Music sub-folder), and you should see a Summary screen. Check the option labelled “Manually manage music and videos” and click the “Apply” button in the bottom-right corner. You will then be able to go into the “Music” section and the songs will no longer be greyed out. Simply double-click on any track to play it. Switching to manual mode can be done on any computer that you connect your iPod to, and once enabled, the settings travels with the iPod itself, so it will remain in manual mode on any computer you connect it to unless you UNcheck the manual mode option.

You can re-enable automatic mode at any time after connecting back to your home computer by simply returning to the Summary screen and DE-selecting the “Manually Manage…” option. iTunes will run a quick sync and recognize that your iPod still contains mostly the same content, rather than erasing and reloading the iPod. Further, the last played time and play counts of any tracks you listened to on your iPod will actually be transferred back to your iTunes library when you return to automatic synchronization mode.

Q:

I recently bought a new iMac and Universal Dock for my iPod. I love both, but the one annoying feature of the dock is the IR receiver. I don’t have a use for this feature of the dock. If my iPod is docked when I use the Apple remote to control Front Row, however, it turns my iPod on. Is there a way to disable the IR function of the dock or make it so that it doesn’t recognize the Apple remote?

- Jason

A:

Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to actually disable the IR port on the Universal Dock, but if you have another Apple Remote, you can “pair” so that it will only accept commands from that specific remote, and then simply put that remote away somewhere else (or use it for a device in another room). The instructions on how to do this can be found in Pairing the Apple Remote with the iPod Universal Dock in Apple’s knowledge base.

Unfortunately, this determines which remotes the receiving devices listens to, as opposed to which devices a given remote will actually control. In other words, it changes the settings on the Universal Dock, not the remote itself. So pairing your existing remote with your iMac would only prevent your iMac from listening to other remotes.

Therefore, this solution will only work if you have another Apple Remote to pair the dock with. This does not have to be a remote you plan on actually using with the Universal Dock, however, and can still be used to control other Apple devices, such as a MacBook or iPod Hi-Fi.

Alternatively, if you only have one remote, a small piece of electrical tape on the front of the dock sensor will also prevent it from receiving any stray IR signals from the Apple Remote. This may seem a low-tech solution, but it works.

Q:

When i first got my iPod early last year I authorized it to iTunes on my mother’s work computer, since then she has left the job and I have no access to that computer - which is an issue because i didnt know I had to de-authorize. I now only have 1 authorization left and I want to deauthorize that first computer. How do I go about it? I went into my local iPod store today and i was recommended this site because there was nothing they could do… am i able to do this and how would i go about it? Thanks.

- Freddie

A:

Just to be clear, the concept of “authorization” only applies to content purchased from the iTunes Store, so there’s no need to be concerned with the authorization process unless you actually have purchased content that you want to retain access to.

When you purchase a track from the iTunes Store, you are only permitted to play it on up to five computers. iTunes keeps track of this by requiring that each computer be authorized to play that content, and retains a counter as part of your iTunes Store account that indicates how many computers have been authorized. Once that counter reaches five, you can no longer authorize any additional computers. iPod devices themselves are not subject to this limit, and you can place your purchased content on as many iPod devices as you like, provided it is transferred from one of your authorized computers.

Since each authorization is keyed specifically to a given computer, Apple recommends that you always de-authorize a computer before reinstalling your operating system or otherwise having it serviced. Even if you’re not reinstalling the operating system, changing a major component within the computer such as the main system board can cause iTunes to lose its authorization.

Although there’s no way to de-authorize a specific computer that you no longer have access to, Apple does provide an option to reset ALL of your authorizations. You can find this option in your iTunes Store account profile, which is accessed by selecting the iTunes Store in the source tree within iTunes, and then clicking on your iTunes account name that appears in the top-right corner of your iTunes window. This will present you with a page similar to the following:

Clicking the “Deauthorize All” button will reset your number of computer authorizations to zero. You will then need to re-authorize all of your computers individually by going to each one and selecting the Store, Authorize Computer menu option from within iTunes.

Note that the “Deauthorize All” option will only appear once you are at your limit of five authorizations. There is also a limit as to the number of times you can use this option within a given time period.

Q:

My iPod is set to sync automatically with my iTunes library at home, and this works well. Occasionally I’d like to be able to add a podcast episode to my iPod from work. How can I do so without affecting my regular iPod settings and running the risk of iTunes removing my iPod library?

- Vince

A:

Depending upon how you normally manage your iPod content and specifically your podcasts, there are some different ways to accomplish this.

If you’re only looking to add the occasional podcast from work, but still want to automatically sync the majority of your content from your home computer, including podcasts, you can simply switch your iPod into “Manual” mode when you connect it to your work computer. When you first connect your iPod to a new computer, you should be presented with a dialog box similar to the following:

This is warning you that your iPod has already been associated with another iTunes library for automatic synchronization, and asking you if you want to erase the content of your iPod and replace it with the content in the current library. Simply select the “Cancel” button, and your iPod will remain connected. Once you have done this, you can switch the iPod into manual mode by selecting the “Manually manage my music and playlists” and clicking the “Apply” button:

This will set the iPod into manual management mode, which means that it will no longer automatically sync with any iTunes library. However, this also means that you can now drag and drop any content you want to load onto your iPod directly from iTunes, including podcast episodes.

When you return home, your iPod will remain in manual mode (the setting stays with the iPod, not the computer itself), and you will therefore have to UN-check the “Manually manage music and videos” option if you want to return to automatic synchronization. Of course, since you’re automatically syncing with your home library, anything you added to the iPod while in manual mode will be removed unless you’ve also copied it to your home iTunes library. For podcasts, however, this really shouldn’t be a problem, since you can easily download it again (and if you subscribe to the same podcasts at home, your computer will probably already have a copy).

Alternatively, you can also automatically sync all of your podcasts from your work computer. If you look closely, you’ll see that the “Manually manage my music and videos” option doesn’t say anything about podcasts—this is because the manual option doesn’t include podcasts. Although you can drag and drop your podcasts to your iPod like you would any other audio file, podcast subscriptions are actually synchronized separately from the rest of your content. As we explained in last week’s Ask iLounge column about syncing Calendars and Contacts, automatic sync only applies to Music, Movies, and TV Shows. This means that you can automatically sync the main music and video content from your home computer, and sync your podcasts from your work computer. You will get the warning about being synced with another iTunes library whenever you connect the iPod to your work computer, but if you simply select the “Cancel” button and carry on, iTunes will happily sync podcasts, photos, contacts/calendars and even games from your current computer if set to do so.

Q:

What is the proper separator to use in the Composer field for ID3v2 tags? My iPod seems to treat that field as a regular text box. When I choose a composer I would like to listen to all of their songs. For example… let’s say that Bono wrote some U2 songs by himself and some others with the rest of the band. If I select Bono from composers the iPod only plays songs that he wrote himself. I want to hear every song he wrote.

- John

A:

Unfortunately, there’s really not an easy way to deal with this in the artist or composer listings themselves, as iTunes and the iPod don’t recognize any specific separators for this data.

In fact, even the search feature on the newer model “enhanced” 5G iPods unfortunately does not include the “Composer” field within its search criteria.

The one piece of good news here, though, is that you can accomplish this by using Smart Playlists, although it requires a bit of advance planning in iTunes to decide what groupings you want before you sync. Since the criteria can be selected based on a value contained within a field, a Smart Playlist that simply chooses criteria such as Composer contains Bono should do the trick.

Additionally, other criteria can be specified to further expand or limit the selection, and the results can be grouped by artist, album, rating or whether or not they have been recently played.

Q:

Is there a way to pick what order your songs play in on an iPod shuffle in normal play mode? Right now it sorts it by artist.

- Brian

A:

The iPod shuffle works a little bit differently from its larger-sized kin in the way that music is transferred and organized. Basically, when placing music on an iPod shuffle, you’re really just managing it like one big playlist of its own. You can therefore change the sort order of the music on the shuffle by any of the normal columns that you would sort a playlist by.

Simply connect your iPod shuffle and select it in the left-hand source pane in iTunes. You will see the normal summary screen, but at the top will be a tab to select “Contents” - simply choose this tab and you will see a list of all of the tracks on your iPod shuffle. To change the play order, simply choose one of the column headings to sort your tracks in that order.

Further, if you select the very left-hand column, this will return the content to a normal unsorted order. You can then drag-and-drop tracks into any order you prefer simply by highlighting a track and dragging it up or down in the playlist order.

Once you have the playlist on the shuffle organized in the way you’d like, simply right-click the shuffle in the source tree, and choose “Sync” and this play order will be transferred to your iPod shuffle.

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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...

« The Complete Guide to Apple TV Optimization

EMI/Apple: How Jobs’ Essay Shook iTunes & Industry »

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Comments

1

Hi. I’m having a problem I can’t fix. I’ve had two different ipods which were both used with the same computer. After the first one, a monochrome 30 gig got destroyed, I replaced it with a color photo ipod, also 30 gig. Whats happened recently is that somehow my computer thinks that my ipod is the old one. Itunes on the computer shows the ipod name and serial number as the original one and now it’s not showing any photos. How can I change the serial number back to the new one allowing the photos to load and display on the ipod? Thanks!

Posted by red_boxster on April 9, 2007 at 6:42 PM (PDT)

2

Hi, some one else at home already has an ipod, so all their tunes from the Itunes libary is automatically sync’d to their ipod. However i have just purchased an ipod and i dont want her songs from the libary to go onto my ipod so i put it on “manually manage” mode. But is their a way of making my own sort of libary or playlist so i import all my tunes onto their an they go straight to my ipod? rather than dragging all the tunes i want from the libary then deleting them after. please help

Posted by shiv_991 on April 14, 2007 at 4:25 AM (PDT)

3

I’ve quite recently got an Ipod Nano, and got around 200 songs on it, and a few videos, my computer had a crash and everything had to be wiped, I’ve downloaded another Itunes from Apple, is there any way that i can change it to manual sync before I connect my Ipod because otherwise it will sync and all the songs will be deleted.
Thanks

Posted by Olly on February 29, 2008 at 2:31 PM (PDT)

4

If you’re using a new iTunes library (as opposed to having deleted all of the content from your old one), then you should be able to just connect the iPod.  iTunes will recognize that your iPod is associated with another iTunes library, and prompt you with the option to either ‘Erase and Sync” or “Cancel.”

Just select “Cancel” and the iPod will not sync, but will remain connected. You can then set it to Manual mode as you normally would.

Posted by Jesse Hollington in Toronto on February 29, 2008 at 5:25 PM (PDT)

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