W henever, wherever
we're meant to be together
I'll be there and you'll be near...
These
words aptly describe iPods.So what are iPods.Insimple wors its an device for holding song but has many functions.Cassettes hold 10-12 songs. Compact discs hold 16-20 songs. An iPod, depending on its memory capacity, holds at least 500 songs! Get the drift?The iPod refers to a class of portable digital audio players designed and marketed by Apple Computers. It stores and plays music, but without the aid of cassettes or discs.
You can attach a set of headphones to your iPod and listen to music like you would listen to your Discman or Walkman. And, like your computer, this device also stores music and
information. The amount of music you store in an iPod is directly related to the memory of its hard drive or flash drive and can vary according to the model. But more on that later.
Let's get back to our definition of an iPod. In a nutshell, it's a music player that is big enough to hold your music and small enough to slip into your shirt pocket or even into a chewing gum packet!
Features iPods are more than just music players. They have a host of features that effectively act like a portable hard drive and can store a lot of information. These include:
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Music Store and listen to music all day long or as long as your battery lasts. From 100 songs to more than 10,000 songs, the iPod's capacity varies but the fun doesn't! Connect your ear phones or head phones to the iPod and start grooving.
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Podcasts Download and listen to music from podcast directories. Podcasting is a method of publishing audio broadcasts via the Internet, allowing users to subscribe to a set of new files (usually MP3s). It allows users to subscribe to a feed and receive new files, usually free. Podcast directories are a list of songs and other radio like shows that have been uploaded on to the Iinternet which can be downloaded to your iPod and heard.
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Photos Store photos transferred either directly from your camera or your computer. This way, the memory cards in your digital cameras will not get flooded with pictures. For more on how to do this, and a number of features mentioned below, your iPod manual is an extremely user-friendly guide.
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Calendar and contacts Keep a tab on all your dates and appointments and also maintain a directory of your phone numbers.
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World clock Stay abreast of the time around the world. Personalise your iPod to show different country timings and zones. The clock feature also lets you set alarms to ensure you are on time for all your chores.
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Games
Play games if the music doesn't satisfy your appetite for fun.
How does all this work? When you buy an iPod, it is empty space that you have purchased. This space can be utilised for the features supported by the iPod.
i. The concept of iTunes comes in here. iTunes is the software provided by Apple to transfer music from your computer to the iPod. The iTunes installer CD is provided by Apple free of cost when you buy an iPod.
The iTunes software is like a music manager installed on your computer. It stores all the songs your computer has and makes it easy to transfer them to your portable device, the iPod. This is the only way to transfer music from your computer to your iPod.
ii. Now that the music is on the computer, let's see how to transfer it to the iPod. This happens through your computer's Universal Serial Bus port 2.0, a plug-and-play interface between a computer and add-on devices (such as mobile phones, audio players, scanners and printers). The USB acts as a buffer between the computer and the iPod and facilitates transfer of information.
In essence, the iPod has to be connected to some other device for it to gain information.