www.iTunes.com/download » ipod nano

What are the model numbers for all iPods?

iTunes Guru — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

All iPod models are designated MxxxxLL/A

iPod

First Generation, 1G, Original, Classic
5GB Mac: M8513LL/A
5GB Mac: M8541LL/A
5GB PC: M8697LL/A
10GB Mac: M8709LL/A

Second Generation, 2G
10GB Mac: M8737LL/A
10GB PC: M8740LL/A
20GB Mac: M8738LL/A
20GB PC: M8741LL/A

Third Generation, 3G
10GB: M8976LL/A
15GB: M8946LL/A
15GB: M9460LL/A
20GB: M9244LL/A
30GB: M8948LL/A
40GB: M9245LL/A

Fourth Generation, 4G
Black & White screen
20GB: M9282LL/A
20GB U2: M9787LL/A
40GB: M9268LL/A

Color screen (Also known as iPod photo)
20GB: MA079LL/A
20GB U2: MA127LL/A
30GB: M9829LL/A
40GB: M9585LL/A
60GB M9586LL/A
60GB M9830LL/A

Fifth Generation (Video), 5G
30GB white: MA002LL/A
30GB black: MA146LL/A
60GB white: MA003LL/A
60GB black: MA147LL/A
30GB U2: MA452LL/A

Enhanced Fifth Generation (Video, 5G)
30GB white: MA444LL/A
30GB black: MA446LL/A
80GB white: MA448LL/A
80GB black: MA450LL/A
30GB U2: MA664LL/A

iPod mini

First Generation, 1G
4GB silver: M9160LL/A
4GB blue: M9436LL/A
4GB pink: M9435LL/A
4GB green: M9434LL/A
4GB gold: M9437LL/A

Second Generation, 2G
4GB silver: M9800LL/A
4GB blue: M9802LL/A
4GB pink: M9804LL/A
4GB green: M9806LL/A
6GB silver: M9801LL/A
6GB blue: M9803LL/A
6GB pink: M9805LL/A
6GB green: M9807LL/A

iPod photo
See Fourth Generation iPod above

iPod shuffle

first-generation
512MB: MA133LL/A
512MB: M9724LL/A
1GB: M9725LL/A

second-generation
1GB silver: MA564LL/A
1GB blue: MA949LL/A
1GB green: MA951LL/A
1GB orange: MA953LL/A
1GB pink: MA947LL/A

iPod nano

first-generation
1GB white: MA350LL/A
1GB black: MA352LL/A
2GB white: MA004LL/A
2GB black: MA099LL/A
4GB white: MA005LL/A
4GB black: MA107LL/A

second-generation
2GB silver: MA477LL/A
4GB silver: MA426LL/A
4GB green: MA487LL/A
4GB blue: MA428LL/A
4GB pink: MA489LL/A
4GB red: MA725LL/A
8GB black: MA497LL/A
8GB red: MA899LL/A

See FAQ What are the differences between all the iPod models?

Palm restores Pre iTunes syncing in update

iTunes Guru — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Palm has released webOS 1.2.1 for its Palm Pre smartphone, restoring the device’s Media Sync functionality—which allows it to sync with iTunes by masquerading as an iPod—while adding the ability to sync photos. As it has done in the past, webOS 1.2.1 achieves this by identifying itself over the USB connection as an Apple product, complete with Apple’s USB Vendor ID number. This behavior was specifically mentioned and frowned upon in a letter sent last month by the USB Implementers Forum to Palm regarding Apple using its Vendor ID to restrict syncing capability to its own products. In a statement to AllThingsD, Apple said, “As we’ve said before, newer versions of Apple’s iTunes software may no longer provide syncing functionality with unsupported digital media players.” Apple first blocked the Pre shortly after its July release with iTunes 8.2.1.

Why is my iPod remote not working?

iTunes Guru — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Most likely, the remote is not pushed in all the way. Push the plug into the iPod firmly, making sure you hear it click (a slight clockwise twist while pressing it in sometimes helps). Apple has published an AppleCare Knowledge Base document on the issue: iPod: Remote Buttons Do Not Work

Updated: 12|20|02

How do I use the iPod shuffle as a portable hard drive?

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Like other iPods, the iPod shuffle can be used as a portable hard drive. The average person is more likely to use this feature with the shuffle than with other iPods, because unlike them, the iPod shuffle does not require the user to carry a connection cable, and it works equally well on Macs and PCs without drivers or reformatting.

By default, the ability to access the iPod shuffle as a hard drive is disabled. To enable it, enter the iPod Preferences page as we did above.

Here you’ll find an option entitled “Enable Disk Use.” When checked, iTunes will allow the iPod shuffle to appear in Windows Explorer (or the Mac OS’s Finder) as a detachable hard drive. The slider positioned below the checkbox instructs iTunes how much space to leave empty for data when filling the iPod via either Autofill or manual management. For example, in the photo above, we’ve reserved 128MB for non-audio use. Autofill will only fill the other 380-some Megabytes with music.

Why don’t I have the full drive capacity I paid for?

Using either Windows Explorer or the iTunes capacity bar at the bottom of the iPod shuffle page, you’ll notice that your iPod shuffle is reporting a slightly smaller total hard drive capacity than the number on the box. Don’t worry… this is completely normal for all storage media.

Contrary to popular belief, this anomaly is not caused by factory-installed programs, file system overhead, or swap space… it’s an unfortunate consequence of little more than math and marketing.

Hard drives are sold and marketed using decimal gigabytes. That is, a “GB” consists of 1,000,000,000 bytes. However, computers interpret gigabytes in binary. To a computer, 1 GB = 2^30 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.

The ratio of “actual” to “marketed” file size is the ratio of these two interpretations, or roughly 0.931.

Therefore, a 512MB iPod shuffle actually has 0.9313225*512MB, or about 476.8MB of space usable to a computer. A 1GB iPod shuffle will similarly report approximately 953.7MB.

What are “bitrates”?

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The “bitrate” refers to the level of file compression in an MP3. The larger the bitrate, the less compressed it is.

Despite what you may have read in the papers, MP3s are not exact duplicates of the files on your CDs. Instead, the MP3 is a compressed file, and the type of compression is what computer-using folks term “lossy”, which means that information is “lost” when the MP3 is compressed.

For the most part, MP3s are designed to “lose” sound information you don’t hear anyway – CD Audio replays a large spectrum of sounds, even those human beings can’t hear. So the MP3 codec ditches some of those ultra-high and low frequencies. Bitrates are the deciding factor in just how much information will get ditched. The higher the bitrate, the more sound information is preserved. One of the results of this is what’s called a “data artifact” – if you listen closely to low-bitrate MP3s, you’ll be able to hear slight glitches, especially in the treble frequencies.

Thus, a 320k MP3 has more sound information than a 128k MP3. But, a 320k MP3 is also three times as large in megabytes as a 128k MP3.

The Complete Guide to Backing Up your iTunes Library

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

The single most common question we get from our readers by far is how to recover their content from their iPod back onto their computer. These questions are usually precipitated by users suddenly discovering that their iTunes library has become corrupted or erased, or that their computer has suddenly died on them.

Although we’ve covered the process of recovering your content from your iPod extensively in our tutorial on Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer, the reality is that this remains a somewhat cumbersome and imperfect recovery process. Further, if you have not been syncing your entire library to your iPod, then you’re not going to get all of your content back, since of course you can’t recover what isn’t there.

If your music library consists of content ripped from your own CDs, you can always go back to those as a source, but this will not only be a time-consuming process of re-importing all of your content, but you will also have lost any metadata about those tracks such as ratings, play counts, and playlist entries.

As for content you may have purchased from the iTunes Store? For that you’d pretty much be relying on Apple’s good graces to allow you to re-download it—an exception that they will sometimes make, but definitely not part of their normal policy. Apple tells you flat out the first time you use the iTunes Store that you are responsible to back up your iTunes purchases yourself.

As with anything in the world of computers, the bottom line is that you are always best to maintain a proactive backup strategy for your iTunes library. This way, when Murphy’s Law takes effect and the worst happens to your content, you can simply restore it from backup and be up and running again in no time.

The good news is that this process is not as onerous as it may seem, and in fact iTunes itself has provided tools in recent versions to make things even easier for many users with simple backup needs.

The iTunes Method: Back Up to Disc

iTunes 7 introduced a built-in backup feature that allows you to backup your iTunes library to recordable CD or DVD media. Although users have always been able to burn data discs manually with iTunes to backup their content, the built-in backup feature handles this process more seamlessly for you, spanning discs as necessary and most importantly backing up your playlists, rating and play count information in the process as well.

To initiate a backup to CD/DVD in iTunes, simply choose File, Library, Back Up to Disc from the iTunes menu.

Note that if you’re still using iTunes 7, this option will be found directly on the File menu, rather than under the Library sub-menu.

After selecting this option, an introductory screen appears briefly explaining the process and asking you what you would like to back up.

The first consideration is whether you want to back up your entire iTunes library, or only those items purchased from the iTunes Store. Since many users may have imported their non-iTunes-Store content from their own audio CDs, this provides the option of creating a smaller backup of only the critical purchased items. Despite this, however, we strongly recommend backing up everything, since it will make the recovery process much easier in the long run.

The option is also provided to only back up those items which have changed since the last backup. This allows for smaller “incremental” backups that you can run on a semi-regular basis, generally when you’ve added enough new content to your iTunes library to justify running another backup.

Once you’ve made your selection, you need simply click “Backup” and iTunes will prompt you to insert a blank CD or DVD disc if you have not already done so.

Cleverly, rather than worrying about asking you what type and size of medium you plan to use, iTunes simply looks at what you put in the drive and gives you an estimate of how many discs will be required based on that.

Should you find this number to be a bit higher than you expected, you can always cancel the backup process at this point and try again using a higher-capacity medium such as DVD-R or DVD-R DL.

Note that iTunes won’t split up individual files when backing up your library, so if you are trying to backup to CD media and you have any one item in your iTunes library that is larger than the size of a CD, such as Movies or TV Shows, iTunes will notify you of this and require that you backup to larger DVD media instead.

Once you click OK, iTunes begins backing up your library. This backup includes all of your content: music, music videos, audiobooks, podcasts, movies, TV shows, and even Click Wheel iPod Games and iPod touch and iPhone applications. Library metadata such as playlists, ratings, and play counts are also backed up as part of this process. As iTunes fills each disc, it prompts you to insert the next one.

When finished, you’ll have a complete set of discs that represent your entire iTunes library. As iTunes indicates when your backup completes, restoring from these discs is simply a matter of inserting them into your computer. iTunes will detect a backup disc, and immediately offer you the opportunity to restore from it.

Note that you can also insert an individual backup disc and restore individual files or tracks from it. The backup disc will appear in your iTunes Devices listing, and you can browse the content of it and drag-and-drop individual tracks directly into your iTunes library.

Limitations of iTunes’ Back Up to Disc Feature

Although iTunes’ built-in backup feature is a handy way for users with small libraries to create quick and easy backups, it’s not without its limitations that you should be aware of:

The first and most obvious limitation is the size of your library. The highest-capacity recordable media commonly available are Dual-Layer DVD-R discs at approximately 8.5 GB per disc. For users with small libraries, only a few discs may be required, but for users capable of filling a 160GB iPod classic, there is going to be a lot of disc-shuffling involved, and higher-capacity DVD-R DL media can be expensive.
Only some of your metadata is backed up. Specifically, ratings, play counts, and playlists are backed up and restored by iTunes, but last played times, skip count, and last skipped time are not. Technically, this other information is stored in the backup, but for whatever reason iTunes does not restore this information.
When dragging content in manually from your back up discs, only the rating is restored, not the play count.
Playlists cannot be recovered manually through drag-and-drop. These are only available when performing a complete restore of your entire library from disc.
The “Date Added” for any restored content will be the date you actually restored it. As with last played dates, the original date added information appears to be in the backup XML file, but is not restored by iTunes.
Album artwork is only backed up if it has been embedded within the file itself. iTunes operates under the assumption that automatically downloaded artwork can be automatically downloaded again. Unfortunately, this is not always the case, as artwork can only be downloaded automatically for items that are present on the iTunes Store. Not only are items sometimes removed from the iTunes Store, but the tags on your music must match the tags in the iTunes Store catalogue for this to work, and it’s not uncommon for either you or iTunes to change these tags since you last downloaded album artwork.
Although play counts are backed up and restored for fully played items, bookmarks and status for partially-played items like podcasts, TV shows and audiobooks is not.
iTunes U episodes are backed up, but are not presently restored to the proper section in iTunes. They will appear simply as tracks in your “Music” section and you will have to re-assign them to iTunes U by modifying the Media type.
Podcasts and iTunes U content will be restored, but you will need to resubscribe to each podcast/iTunes U series by clicking the “Subscribe” button which appears at the top of each one in your Podcast/iTunes U listings.
If you have listed Internet Radio stations in your playlists, this information is not backed up or restored.
When doing a disaster-recovery restore of your entire iTunes library from an iTunes-created backup set, you are in essence creating a whole new library, and then restoring your content into it. The most significant issue with this is that any iPod, iPhone or Apple TV devices will see this as a different library and want to erase and re-sync all of your content. You shouldn’t lose anything in this process, since it should all have been restored from your backups, but you will be prompted to “Erase and Sync” the first time you connect your iPod and it will take time to perform this initial sync.

Using Third-Party Backup Tools

For users with larger iTunes libraries, the built-in backup procedure offered by iTunes is going to be inefficient at best and in some cases completely unrealistic.

Fortunately, your iTunes library is comprised of nothing more than a database and a collection of files, and can be backed up by any number of third-party backup utilities just like any other data on your computer.

Ideally, for users with sizeable libraries, we strongly recommend using an external hard drive or network storage location that is at least large enough to contain your entire library, accounting for future growth. This will be far more efficient than trying to shuffle through a few dozen CD or DVD discs each time you want to back up your library. Further, you will be in a much better position to incrementally back up your iTunes library to a single complete backup, rather than dealing with multiple sets of media.

There are many different third-party backup applications available, and going into each of these is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, what we will do is discuss the files and folders you need to ensure that you back up using whichever back up software you prefer, as well as some strategies for handling regular incremental backups of your iTunes library.

How the iTunes Folder is Organized

For most users, your entire iTunes library is contained in a folder named “iTunes” located within either your Windows “My Music” folder or your Mac’s “Music” folder in your home directory.

This folder is specific to your own user profile on your computer. If you have multiple user accounts on your computer and log in as another user, you will be creating a new iTunes library in that particular user’s “My Music” or “Music” folder.

By default, this folder contains not only your iTunes library database, but also all of your iTunes media content. A sub-folder, named “iTunes Media” stores not only your music, but also music videos, audiobooks, podcasts, movies and TV shows. The location of this folder can be confirmed or changed in iTunes’ Advanced preferences:

More information on changing this location is discussed in our tutorial on Transferring your iTunes Library

The iTunes Media folder was called “iTunes Music” in previous versions of iTunes, and may retain this name and structure if you have upgraded to iTunes 9 from a previous version. See Transferring your iTunes Library for more information on this and converting to the new iTunes 9 format.

The following are some other files and folders of interest that you will find in your main “iTunes” folder:

iTunes Library.itl (file)—This is your actual iTunes library database. It contains almost all of the information about your iTunes library, including your playlists, your track metadata, ratings, play counts, file locations and much more. This file is absolutely critical to back up as part of any iTunes backup strategy, as it is basically the key to your entire iTunes world.
iTunes Music Library.xml (file)—This is an XML-based version of the main iTunes library database. Although iTunes updates this file, it is not actually read by iTunes itself except in situations where the main database needs to be rebuilt. The primary purpose for this file is to allow third-party applications to easily read information stored in the iTunes database itself.
iTunes Library Genius.itdb (file)—This is a database of the Genius information for iTunes 8. This file is not critical, as it can be easily recreated by re-running the Genius setup, but there’s usually little reason to not back it up. Although this file can get rather large, it’s still small compared to your actual media content.
iTunes Library Extras.itdb (file)—This is a SQLite database containing information related to CD’s that you have previously imported and looked up on the CDDB service. Like the Genius database, this is not critical, but it’s also usually pretty small and there’s also little reason to not back it up.
Album Artwork (folder)—This contains a cache of all album artwork, both that which has been downloaded from the iTunes Store as well as artwork from the tags within your actual files. For automatically downloaded artwork, this is the only place it is stored, although you can theoretically re-download the artwork again from the iTunes Store. Ideally, however, you should include this folder in your backups.
Previous iTunes Libraries (folder)—When you update iTunes to a newer version and there are database structural changes involved, a backup of your pre-upgrade database is kept in this folder with the date appended to the file name. Over time you may have several older versions of your iTunes database stored in here. These files are relatively small, but if you’re concerned about space you can delete them as they are just backups and not actually used by iTunes itself.

If you’ve come from a version of iTunes prior to iTunes 9 there may be two other folders present here as well:

iPod Games (folder)—This contains any Click Wheel iPod Games that you have purchased from the iTunes Store.

Mobile Applications (folder)—This folder contains any iPhone or iPod touch applications that you have purchased from the iTunes Store.

If you began your library with iTunes 9, or specifically upgraded your library to the new iTunes 9 Media organization structure, then these folders will instead be located in your “iTunes Media” folder along with the rest of your media content. See Transferring your iTunes Library for more information on converting to the new iTunes 9 media layout.

Backing up the iTunes Library Database

With the above in mind, the simplest solution for backing up the iTunes library database is to simply back up the “iTunes” folder and everything in it. This will include not only the iTunes database itself, but also any Click Wheel iPod Games, iPhone and iPod touch applications, and downloaded and cached album artwork.

Note that if you’re using iTunes 9 and have updated to the new iTunes 9 Media organization, your iPod Games and Mobile Applications will be stored in your iTunes Media folder instead. See Transferring your iTunes Library for more information on this and converting to the new iTunes 9 format.

This will ensure you have a backup of your iTunes library database and related files, but whether or not it includes your media content will depend on how and where you have chosen to store it…

Determining where your media content is actually stored

One very important thing to keep in mind when planning an all-encompassing backup strategy is where your media content is actually stored. For the average iTunes user, this content will likely be in your “iTunes Music” folder located within your “iTunes” folder, but it’s important to know that this is not necessarily the case.

Obviously, knowing where your files actually are is important to being able to back them up. Within iTunes’ advanced preferences, there is a checkbox labelled Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library. This setting controls whether tracks you import into iTunes are copied into your iTunes Media folder or whether they are referenced from their original locations.

Depending on the version of iTunes that you first used to set up your library, this option may have been enabled by default if you were using iTunes on a Mac, and may have been disabled by default if you were using iTunes on Windows.

If this option is UNchecked, then chances are that any content you’ve imported into iTunes has been left in its original location. If you had specifically set or left this option off because you wanted to pre-organize your content into a single folder or set of folders before importing it, then this is not too much of a problem, since you know where that content is and can easily just back up that set of folders in addition to your iTunes folder.

However, if you didn’t realize that this setting was disabled and have simply been importing content from various locations with this setting OFF, then you will very likely have your media content scattered around your computer’s hard drive, and it may be difficult to track it all down to back it up.

In this second case, your best option is to consolidate your content into the iTunes Media folder so that it all lives within a single folder and can be backed up from there. Note that this folder can be the default iTunes Media folder or any other folder you specify. Our tutorial on Transferring your iTunes Library describes how to use iTunes’ built-in library consolidation feature to accomplish this.

The bottom line is that you should ensure that all of your iTunes media content is stored in a known location so that you can easily point your backup software at it and be assured that it’s all going to be included.

Incremental Backups

For users with a large iTunes library, full backups may take a relatively long time. In this situation it may not be practical to perform full backups on a regular basis.

Fortunately, most backup software provides the ability to perform “incremental” backups, essentially backing up only those files that have changed since the last backup. There are two basic ways that you can handle an incremental backup strategy with your iTunes library.

The first method is to simply run an incremental “update” backup to a single iTunes backup folder, essentially mirroring your existing iTunes library in a single folder during each backup. This has the advantage of reducing the amount of space required to store your backups. Since you’re only keeping a single full copy of your iTunes library, you only need as much space as your iTunes library normally takes up on your computer. Further, restoring from a single iTunes backup folder is also much easier, as you’re basically just copying all of the data back in the other direction during a restore.

Note that if you choose to use this method, you should ensure that your backup software performs a proper “mirror” update in that it should not only add and update any files that have changed, but also remove files from your backup that have been deleted from your iTunes library. Otherwise, your backup will continue to grow as old deleted files are left lying around.

The major disadvantage to the single-backup method are that you will not be able to go back to a previous version of your iTunes library, as each time you perform a backup you’re getting only a current “snapshot” of your library. Further, you will not be able to effectively use this method with CD-R or DVD-R media as you cannot update your existing backups in this case.

An alternative strategy is to perform a single full backup of your iTunes library, and then perform incremental backups to a different folders or media. This ensures that you can go back to your iTunes library at any point in time that you had made a backup, which can be very useful if you don’t discover an accidentally-deleted file or playlist until a few weeks after it was deleted. However, this also has the disadvantage of potentially requiring a lot more storage space, since you may end up keeping multiple copies of files as they change.

Keep in mind that when editing track information iTunes updates not only its own database with the new tags, but also writes these changes into the media files themselves. This means that any incremental backup that looks for changed files is going to want to re-copy these files as well. This is not a bad thing, as it’s best for your backed up files to have the most up-to-date tag information, but it’s something you should be aware of, particularly when dealing with relatively large video files. Re-tagging a whole season of a TV series, for example, could easily add several gigabytes to your next incremental backup.

The other disadvantage of keeping separate incremental backups is that when it comes time to restore your iTunes library, you must individually restore each backup session to bring your iTunes library up to date, starting with the last “full” backup session and then updating that with each subsequent incremental session. This will increase the time it takes to restore your library, as well as running the risk of lost information due to a missing or corrupted incremental session.

Note that if you are concerned about preserving an incremental history of your iTunes database you may want to consider running a separate backup plan with only the iTunes library databases themselves selected, rather than your media content. Although this will not protect you against accidental deletion of a file, it will allow you to revert back to a previous version of your iTunes database in the event that you delete a playlist or experience database corruption. Since the iTunes database is relatively small in comparison to your actual media files, incremental backups of this data will not require nearly as much storage capacity.

A Word About Time Machine

If you’re a Mac OS X Leopard or Snow Leopard user, you can easily use Time Machine to handle incremental backups of your iTunes library on a regular basis. This process is almost transparent in terms of how the backups are kept, but there are some considerations related to restoring information.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that Time Machine is not integrated with iTunes. This means that unlike other applications like Mail and iPhoto, you cannot restore an individual item such as a track or playlist back into the iTunes database. The only way to restore iTunes data from Time Machine is to do so by restoring individual files.

This means that an iTunes database restore is an all-or-nothing deal. If you have lost a playlist that you wanted to recover, you would need to roll back the entire iTunes database to a prior time, losing any other changes you have made in the process. As a workaround, you could restore the iTunes database to an alternative location, point iTunes at it, and export the playlist, but this is still a largely manual process and Time Machine offers no specific benefit in this regard over any other similar backup solution.

Further, if you have lost an individual track or set of tracks that you want to restore from your Time Machine backup, this is certainly possible, but you will need to restore the individual files through Time Machine and then re-import those tracks manually. The restored tracks will be treated as newly-imported tracks with no rating or play count data and will have to be manually re-added to any playlists that they may have been in.

Conclusion

The bottom line to all of this is that the best way to recover from a lost, damaged, or corrupted iTunes library is to plan ahead by making a backup of it in the first place. However, you should also keep in mind that backups are useless without an actual restore plan in place. Don’t just blindly run a backup process without checking on it and just assume that everything is working properly. Ideally you should do a test restore to confirm that you will be able to actually restore your backup in the event that a disaster occurs and you lose all of your data. There’s nothing worse than finding out that your backups are corrupted or incomplete after you’ve already lost the original data.

Performing restore testing is generally simple enough as long as you have adequate hard disk space on your computer, or at least on an external hard drive. The easiest method is generally to log on under a different user account on your computer and try restoring your library under that account—since iTunes keeps a separate library for each user account, this will simulate the process of creating a whole new iTunes library. If disk space is a problem and you cannot actually test a full restore, then in the very least you should perform regular verification of your backups to ensure that your data has been copied properly, and double-check to ensure that you are getting everything you need for a full restore.

In short: Don’t make a backup plan—make a restore plan.

Can I replace the iPod’s battery myself?

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Apple
Apple offers it’s own Battery Service for $59 plus $6.95 shipping. Apple will replace the battery for you and offers a 90-day guarantee on materials and workmanship.

iPod mini Battery (UK)
A Do-It-Yourself replacement battery kit for 1G, 2G and 3G iPods is available from iPod mini Battery with complete installation instructions for $29/£28 – a 3G iPod battery for $29/£25. We do not recommend opening the iPod using the included screw driver. Use a thin, sturdy piece of plastic or something similar.

iPodResQ
A Do-It-Yourself replacement battery kit for 1st -4th generation iPods (with dock) and iPod mini is available from iPodResQ with complete installation instructions and tool from $24.99 to $29.99. If you’re not comfortable with opening your iPod, they offer a 24 hour mail-in service in which they will do the installation for you for $54.

Laptops for Less
A Do-It-Yourself replacement battery kit for 1G – 4G iPods and iPod mini is available from Laptops for Less with complete installation instructions for $29. We do not recommend opening the iPod using the included screw driver. Use a thin, sturdy piece of plastic or something similar.

PDA Smart
A Do-It-Yourself replacement battery kit for 1G, 2G, 3G and 4G iPods and iPod mini is available from PDA Smart with complete installation instructions for $40 – $59 (dependent on model). If you’re not comfortable with opening your iPod, they offer a mail-in service in which they will do the installation for you for $50 – $68 (dependent on model).

For more battery info check out ‘The truth about the iPod battery and charging’ in the forums.

When running the iPod Updater, what is the difference between “update” and “restore”?

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Update simply replaces the iPod’s current firmware with the firmware version of the Updater you are running. Restore, on the other hand, completely initializes the iPod, by 1) reformatting its hard drive, 2) installing a fresh copy of the firmware version of the Updater you are running, 3) initializing the database on iPod where MP3 data and directory information is stored and 4) resetting all iPod options to the factory defaults.

Warning: When running restore, be sure you have a backup of all songs currently on your iPod! When restore is done, all songs that were on the iPod will be gone!

Updated: 09|09|02

Review: WildCharge WildCharger Bundle for iPhone

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Back in early 2008, a company called Taylor Technologies showed off an accessory called iVolta, which was designed to enable any Dock Connector-equipped iPod to recharge without wires — instead, you’d plug in a little nub, rest your device on top of a specially designed flat charging surface, and the charging would just happen. Taylor claimed it would sell for around $25, but that sounded like a long shot, and the product never wound up materializing. Flash forward nearly two years to Fall 2009: using the same inductive charging technology, a company called WildCharge has recast the accessory as a combination device-specific charging tip and case called the Skin for iPhone ($35), with a separate Charge Pad ($50), also sold together in the “WildCharger Bundle” for $80. iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPhone 3GS users with extra cash to spend on something novel will find these accessories to be worthwhile; a separate iPod touch version is also available.

The Bundle ships in two boxes, one containing the Charge Pad, a glitter-black plastic surface that’s roughly 6” by 8” and very thin; it’s topped with 12 silver charging stripes, a blue power light, and a bulging, logo-clad top edge where an included wall power adapter connects. Another box contains the semi-hard rubber Skin for iPhone, which is model-agnostic and actually does fit the iPhone, iPhone 3G, and 3GS with minimal hassles. While protective of much of the body, there’s no screen protection, and there are thin holes for the buttons, switch, headphone port, camera, microphone and speaker, which puts this case into the middle of the pack relative to the many other rubber cases we’ve tested. The only real evidence of the electronics inside comes from two things: four charging pins on the back, and a bump below the Dock Connector. That’s how WildCharger gets its juice, and where the juice goes, respectively.

As a case, the Skin for iPhone is functional. If the plain, matte-finished rubber body came with screen protection and did a little more in the button coverage department, it would be easy to use for everything except non-charging Dock Connector functionality; the nub at the bottom adds only a little to its height, just as the charging pins on the back add only a little to its thickness. It’s inoffensively designed and easy to use; the Charge Pad is the same—not high-class, but not low-class, either. One could imagine BlueLounge having a field day redesigning these elements into sexier parts.

Under virtually all circumstances, the WildCharger set works just as it should. You plug the adapter into the pad and set the pad on any flat surface; then plug your iPhone of choice into the case, carry it around, and set it on the surface when you’re ready to charge—simple as can be. Using induction charging technology, the stripes supply the electricity needed for charging, and though you shouldn’t intentionally try and short out the flat surface, you also needn’t worry about maintenance or shocks. Just drop the iPhone or a similarly WildCharge-skinned device on top, and it charges without cables. Stereo Bluetooth and Wi-Fi continued to work while the iPhone 3GS charged; an iPhone and an iPhone 3G also charged without complaint while in the case.

The only hiccup we noticed was a seemingly only one-time thing—we thought that we saw the Skin cause some inaccuracy in the iPhone 3GS’s compass in early testing, but could not reproduce the result, and it’s possible that the polar flip we saw was just a part of the compass’s less than complete stability under normal circumstances. That leaves only the larger question of whether it’s worth spending a fairly steep $80 for the privilege of charging your iPhone without wires. You can make up your own mind on this point, but from our perspective, WildCharge’s set sits right on the fine edge of a general recommendation due to its pricing. We felt that it merited one on the grounds that it takes a generally smart approach to the concept of an inductive charging accessory—case rather than large plug-in, multi-device-compatible surface—though its price makes it a luxury item, and it needn’t be. If you don’t want to spend the cash, cabled iPhone wall chargers can be had for $20; for now, this is a pricey but neat little innovation that will appeal to the mainstream when it’s more affordable.

A Note From the Editors of iLounge: Though all products and services reviewed by iLounge are “final,”
many companies now make changes to their offerings after publication of our reviews, which may or may not be reflected
above. This iLounge article
provides more information on this practice, known as revving.

Can I convert a Mac iPod to a Windows iPod or vice versa?

iTunes Guru — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Yes. You can convert either format iPod to the other.

To convert a Windows iPod into a Mac iPod, just download iPod Software Updater 1.3.1 (1st & 2nd gen.) for Mac OS X. Download Software Updater 2.1 for 3rd gen. iPods. Once the appropriate Updater has been installed onto your Mac, run it while your Windows iPod is connected to the FireWire port on the Mac. Be sure to select “Restore” instead of “Update”.

To convert a Mac iPod into a Windows iPod, connect the Mac iPod to the FireWire port on your PC and then run the Windows 1.3 iPod Updater (or 2.1 Updater for 3rd gen iPods), selecting “Restore”.

NOTE: Running Restore from the iPod Updater reformats your iPod’s HDD and will therefore delete all the MP3s stored there – make sure the MP3s you want to keep are saved elsewhere, like on your computer. Performing a conversion may violate your iPod’s warranty and/or Apple will not give you any support for your iPod after having converted it.