iPod

This is not just an iPod; it is a massively advanced update on Apple's best-selling music player that is both easier to use and better to look at than the scroll-wheel-based original. Click on the iPod button at the bottom of the iPhone's Home screen to invoke its media playback features and you will sec how much it differs from a regular iPod. Rather than dial your way through the menus using a scroll-wheel, you can interact directly with the interface. Your main options are found on the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, giving you direct access to playlists, artists, songs and videos, with the More option calling up the familiar iPod divisions of Albums, Audiobooks, Compilations, Composers, Genres and Podcasts (below).
   

Customising the toolbar

If you don't ever watch videos on your iPhone, or you arc a total podcast junkie, then your first job should be to customise the toolbar so that it works the way you want it to — not the way some Apple engineer thinks is best.

Make sure you are on the iPod Home screen and click on the More button on the toolbar at the bottom of the display, then the Edit button at the very top. This brings up a list of 10 key features, including Albums, Songs and Compilations. Let's add Albums to the toolbar and use it to replace the default Playlists option.

Hold down your finger on top of the Albums icon and drag it down the screen, hovering for a moment over Playlists at the bottom of the display. When the Playlists icon lights up, let go and it will be swapped out for the Albums function.  


Now let's reorganise things a little. Hold down the Songs icon, which is already on the toolbar, and drag it to the left. Notice how everything rearranges around it as you move it along the toolbar. When you can't go any further left, let go, and it will fix itself in position as the first entry on the toolbar.

When you are happy with the contents and order of your toolbar, click the Done button to return to the main iPod menu.
   

Natural searching

Every time you transfer a track from iTunes to your iPhone, you also send
across a lot of information about the artist and the album on which it appeared. The iPhone uses this information to file it away on its internal memory and also to allow you to find it at a later date by organising it under the artist or album name, genre and so on.

But when did you last search your music by genre? Most CD owners simply slot their CDs into a rack or dump them in a box, and then leaf through them ever)' time they want something to play.

By borrowing a trick from iTunes called Cover Flow, the iPhone allows you to flick through all the art associated with your albums in exactly the same way.

Turn your iPhone through 90° and the menu will fade away, to be replaced by all of this glorious art, stacked up side by side. Wipe a finger across them and they will ripple through like the pages of a book. When you find what you are looking for, click on the cover to flip it over - as you would with a CD — and it will display a list of that album's tracks (right). Click on the one you want and plug in your headphones as it starts to play.

 
Audiobooks

Audiobooks arc subtly different to music files. For starters, they are usually just spoken word, rather than tunes, but more importantly the way they are encoded makes them far easier to control.

Music is designed to be played back at a defined speed, which is specified by the composer. However, when it comes to books, we all read at different speeds. Apple has recognised this fact, and so the iPod enables you to speed up or slow down audiobooks. The former is great for fiction or cramming revision notes, while the latter really helps in trying to master pronunciation of a foreign language.

Rather confusingly, though, this feature has been hidden away in the iPhone's main settings screens. To try it out, set your favourite audiobook running. Use the hardware exit button on the bottom of the iPhone's fascia to return to the Home screen, and click on Settings. Scroll down to iPod, which is in the penultimate slot, and from there select Audiobook Speed, switching it to Slower or Faster, or back to Normal, as required.
   

Podcasts

Podcasts are pre-recorded radio and television programmes designed specifically for downloading at regular intervals and listening to on portable media devices such as the iPhone. The name is derived from the iPod, which was the device that popularised them, although their format is universal and they can be listened to on anything from a £\ 0 MP3 player to a £2,000 desktop computer.

They cover a multitude of subjects, including technology, relationship issues and film reviews, and by far the easiest way to subscribe is through the iTuncs Store. Once you have subscribed to a number of podcasts — almost all of which are provided free of charge - they will be automatically downloaded to your iPhone each time you connect.

Podcasts have their own entry on the iPod section's More screen, and are organised by title. Clicking on each one opens up a list of available episodes, which will start to play when tapped.

Some are presented as 'enhanced' podcasts, in which the audio stream will be accompanied by static graphics and chapter markings that allow you to skip straight to specific parts of the recording. To see whether the podcast to which you are listening has this feature, click on the Playlist button on the top right-hand corner of the scrccn (three lines beside three dots) and if it is an enhanced podcast the display will rotate to present you with a list of chapter titles. Click on one of these titles and you will jump straight to that section.
   

Uploading your music

It may share many common features with the iPod, but the iPhone differs in one crucial way: it forces you to be much more organised about the way you manage your music, podcasts and audiobooks.

With an iPod, you can simply select a range of tracks and drag them onto the iPod icon on the sidebar, and they will be copied across. With the i Phone you can't drag anything at all onto it from your music library; instead you must organise everything into playlists and then synchronise these, either automatically or manually, each time you connect your iPhone.

To specify which tracks should be downloaded to your iPhone each time you connect, plug it into your PC or Mac and start iTunes. When it appears in the sidebar, click on its icon and use the tabs at the top of the screen to navigate through each of the Music, Podcasts and, if you have any, Video tabs, and click on the Sync checkbox on each one.

By default, iTunes will now synchronise all of your media with the iPhone, downloading new additions each time your connect. However, if you would rather leave your more embarrassing tracks at home, you can tailor just the playlists you want to have downloaded by clicking on the Selected Playlists button and checking off the playlists of your choice.

If you are going down this road, you may want to create a new iPhone-specific playlist in iTunes that contains just the tracks you want to have with you wherever you go, and uncheck every other playlist.

The same principle can be applied to tailoring which videos, podcasts, contacts and photos are transferred to your phone.  
     

Sounding good

Let's face it: not all earphones arc made equal, and cheaper, weaker models often need a little helping hand before they can do your tunes justice. Fortunately, the iPhone has a built-in equaliser, which is accessed by starting at the Home screen and clicking on Settings > iPod > EQ. This features 22 presets to enhance various music types such jazz, rock, R&B and spoken word, hardware such as 'small speakers', or specific parts of a track such as those that boost vocals or reduce the bass on particularly heavy tracks. Use them wisely and they can make a £20 pair of budget earbuds sound like a set of £200 studio headphones.
 

Playing safely

Perhaps in an effort to forestall legal action brought on by irresponsible users who play their music too loudly, Apple has implemented a Volume Limit feature in the iPhone's audio system. This will limit the volume at which the iPod can play tracks to minimize damage to your cars. To activate it, click on Settings > iPod > Volume Limit from the iPhone Home screen, and ensure the slider switch beside Volume Limit is slid across to display the blue On.

You can set the level at which the volume will top out through the Volume Limit entry on the same screen. Tap this and drag the slider to the left to limit the volume to a comfortable level. Now click on the Lock Volume Limit button and enter a four-digit code, twice, to stop anyone unsetting it. This is useful for parents who want to protect their children's cars. To unlock the volume, click on Volume Limit again and then the Unlock button, and re-enter the code. It goes without saying that you should choose a hard-to-guess number and avoid such obvious options as 0000,1234, 9999 or the year of your birth.  




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