Results tagged “ipod” from Missing Manuals Blog

We're back with some more dips into the Twitterverse. And man, is that space large and growing. It is impossible to find everything people are talking about out there, which is our way of reminding you to follow us on Twitter (@missingmanuals), or comment below to share the Missing Features you'd like to see.

iPhone-related requests continue to dominate

Multi-tasking with Pandora What's better than an iPhone app? Multiple apps running at the same time.

We've been noticing a rise in requests for multi-tasking on the iPhone, with the online radio service Pandora being the common denominator. @pgkiran and @meg624 echo the sentiments of @kessler, who wrote "Really wish Pandora could run in the background on the iPhone. I want to listen to jams and tweet at the same time. Arghh."

Picture this The camera and accompanying software for the iPhone has motiviated some to ask for even more functionality. @samuelcotterall, after using CameraBag wants an iPhone camera that is more than 2 megapixels.
@coolgrljen wants to camera to have zoom.

Meantime, @jasonfried might have stumbled onto a business opportunity. "I wish you could order framed prints from iPhoto. Just a few simple frame options. Simple wood, simple metal. A couple colors. The basics."

Twitteriffic has a lot of fans There's many ways to tweet, but one popular service for iPhone users is Twitterific. While popular, people like @bobreturns (sync Twitterific to an iPhone and a Mac) and @forbetaorworse (make Twitterific "always scrolls to the most recent tweet") have some improvements. @ampersandee, would like Twitterific to help achieve a workaround to the lack of Flash support on iPhones. "Wish there was a *quick* way - in Twitteriffic on the iPhone - to send a tweet for later review on computer (eg. link to flash content)."

Click here to download an audio version (.m4a 5.3MB) of these tips

Now Hear This
The iPod's volume-limit controls let you lower the player's maximum loudness level to help protect your (or your child's) ears. On the Nano, set your sonic limits by choosing to Settings→Playback→Volume Limit. On the Classic, choose Settings→Volume Limit. On the Touch, choose Settings→Music→Volume Limit.

Art Collecting By Hand
To make the Cover Flow feature in iTunes look great, use the Advanced→Get Album Artwork command to have the program round up missing album covers for songs in your music library. If you get an alert box with the number of things iTunes couldn't find, click the triangle or plus icon in the box to see what's missing. Click the Save button to dump the notes into a text file that you can use as a shopping list. Now you know what art you need to snag off of the Web from Amazon.com or other cover-rich sites.

The iPod as Pocket Watch
Have your iPod Classic or Nano tell you the time on the main screen--without having to fumble down to the built-in clock. Just choose Settings→Date & Time and select the Time in Title option to always have a clock displayed in the top bar on the iPod screen.

Return to the Beginning
The iPod Shuffle has no screen to tell you what song you're on, but you can get back to the first track in the playlist by quickly pressing the Play/Pause button three times.

Playlist Shortcuts
Right-click (or control-click) any track in the iTunes library and choose Add to Playlist to instantly place that song on an existing playlist. And if you want to see just how many playlists include a particular song already, right-click (or control-click) the track and choose Show in Playlist.

A Touching Story
Turn your iPod Touch into a pocket ebook reader with Lexcycle's free Stanza program, available in the iTunes App Store. Once the app is on your Touch, you can download all kinds of free books and classic works from Stanza's online catalog. The program also lets you adjust the font size and spacing of the onscreen text to make it all easy on the eyes.

A Nano Battery Booster
Want to squeeze out all the music you can between battery charges on that new Nano? Choose Settings→Playback→Energy Saver→On. With Engery Saver on, the Nano's battery-hogging screen gets quickly turned off when you aren't actively clicking buttons or scrolling around menus.

Sort iTunes Music Your Way
Press Control-J (Command-J on a Mac) in iTunes to open up the View Options box--which gives you all sorts of useful columns you can add to iTunes. Some of these include Equalizer settings, Last Played, and Date Added. Click the top of any column in the iTunes window to sort your collection based on that factor. Sorting by Play Count, for example, lets you see which tunes are in heavy rotation and which songs you've been neglecting.

Clip and Save Time
Tired of having to go to Safari first to get to your bookmarked Web faves? The iPod Touch lets you add one-tap shortcut icons called Web Clips right to the Home screen. When you have a site you want to add, tap the + button and then on the "Add to Home Screen" button. When you tap that new icon on the Home screen, Safari opens automatically and takes you right to the part of the page that was on display when you saved it.

My Main Menu
You're not stuck with Apple's default items out on your iPod's main menu screen. If you want a shortcut to your calendar, games, or other favorite destinations, add

We've been busy at Missing Manuals, working on several upgrades. While we're still in the middle of that, we have begun using Twitter. You can follow us at http://twitter.com/missingmanuals, but you should know that we're also following many of you.

Every day, more and more people are posting feature requests for what they'd like to see their products and software contain and do. We've collected some of them and plan to periodically showcase them in this space. If you'd like to make us aware of features you'd like to see, feel free to post in our comments section or tweet @missingmanuals or #mmfeature and we'll be sure to add you to the list of candidates.

I love my iPhone, but ...

People love their iPhones, that much we already knew. But they would love them even more if they had a few enhancements.

Flash - @DogHouse is one of many who asked out loud for iPhone to support Flash, which it currently does not: "Shoot! The debate is starting and I'm not home. Glad I'm recording it. I wish iPhone supported Flash, then I could watch on myspace." Similar requests were made by @wuperruper, @adamengst, @twittem, @DrJohnnySpin and @jessejanderson.

Apps - There are a wide variety of Apps requests as well, including Google Analytics (@joshmishell), green apps (@mylifebynorules) and the ability of the iPhone to "detect how hard you tap, for a velocity-sensitive musical instrument app " (@mike3k).

@dmetzcher hopes the YouTube app can become just "Web video" in order to "support Viddler and others."

Apple's App Store has gained just as much attention as the apps themselves and @ericsuh hopes they loosen up the reigns a bit in the future, saying "I really wish the iPhone App Store had more shareware, especially since the user experience is such an important criterion."

@Javadog, meantime, is looking for a "'serious' iPhone app comparison site. Like, which one of the dozen ambient sound apps is better and why."

Etc. At least two Twitterers (@feliciaday and
@cupcakey88) are waiting to be able to play World of Warcraft in their iPhone, three requested keyboards for it (@lionchild, @kcnickerson, and @cherp) while @tdhurst had might night be available for a couple editions: "I very much wish my iPhone had a breathalyzer."

Roundup

Below are more iPhone requests, as well as hopes for Excel, Facebook, iPhoto, iPod, iTunes, Leopard, Outlook, Photoshop, Typepad, Windows Vista, and Visual Studio:

"i wish there was a google analytics app for iphone." - @joshmishell

"Wish the iPhone map app could sync my custom maps with google" - @marcusramberg

"I detest safari on iPhone/ipod touch's auto-refresh feature. With a passion. Wish I could turn it off." - @sarahintampa

"What is the first thing you say to a friend who just got an iPhone? for me "don't believe the battery meter" Wish it was something different" - @ianfinity

"@fteter iPhone is great just wish I could sync with my work calendar" - @timdexter

"Really wish iPhone would learn words that weren't in it's dictionary. It always thinks words I use are typos and auto corrects them. Rea ..." - @CompanyConvos

"I know this sounds backwards, but I wish there was someway to remotely control my iPhone's iPod via iTunes / my Mac." - @tollie

"I really wish I could easily listen to podcast on my iPhone without using iTunes or another feed reader. Come on Apple, loosen up! Sheesh." - @thepete

"I wish iTunes would show me what percent of my iPhone backup time was for each application. Someone adding an hour to my backup == DELETED!" - @joshlewis

"I wish the iPhone would save my iTunes store password. I hate continuously entering it in." - @kittygutz

"The Great iPhone wish list Having used the iPhone for about a month there’s a few things that I fin.. http://tinyurl.com/3w6637 @vkoser

"I wish I could get a lesser plan on my iPhone. 450 minutes? I used 33 this month, and my bill is coming up next week." - @kniob

"Kinda wish I could use iPhone remote to control the iPod in my glovebox" - @kitchen

"Just did a restore on an iPod shuffle. That took about 2 seconds. Wish an iPhone restore was that fast!" - @jphil301

"Wish there was an on-screen indicator that silent mode was on on my iPhone..missed some called 'cause I had forgotten to turn the ringer on." - @erlingmork

"I wish every app on the iPhone could do wide screen. Seems like safari is the only app" - @brendonvh

"i wish seesmic made a Qik style application on iPhone or something similar, cmon Loic!!!" - @alexiaco

"I wish there a mobile skype that runs on BB or iPhone that only uses your data connection" - @Shadowz

"@fraserspeirs also wish iPhone had programable text shortcuts, on my BlackBerry I coded things like "zzt" to add a "thanks" email signature" - @extraspecial

"I really wish the iPhone had a system-wide snippet insertion method. For example, typing my email address to log into every website sucks." - @fraserspeirs

"@jiparker I wish I could schedule recording stuff on TiVo via my iphone..:)" - @umaparker

"I wish I could delete tweets on the iPhone!" - @bhays81

"I wish I could type in landscape mode on the iPhone." - @freitag

"@indieradiochatt Damn I wish my iPhone had WMA streaming support for one more reason." - @ZicklePop

"Trying to decide if the iPhone is for me, already have an iPod, wish the iTouch had GPS." - @GaffR

Excel

"I wish Excel 2008 would spell check as I typed." - @TwisterMc

Facebook / Social Networking sites

"adding people's photos and additional details to my address book from facebook. i wish there was a contact export feature." - @naterkane

"One of the things I like about LinkedIn is that you can always see what "non-registered users" see. I wish all SM sites had that feature." - @gahlord

iPhoto

"iPhoto ’09 wish list • Perspective correction. </list> @ahruman

"It's my daughter's turn with the sharing bucket, so I'm building a collage for her to share. Wish iPhoto did this or that I knew PS better." - @cozthegrov

"Moving older photos out of iPhoto library onto an external drive to free up laptop drive space. Wish there was a better way." - @RandomDude

iPod

"I wish my iPod touch had copy/paste capabilities :(" - @_Darryl

"I wish ipod had a longer charging cable. Hospital bed isn't close enough to a socket to use while plugged in :(" - @wowpoetry

"i wish the iPod had a delete option for songs and a reverse sync with the album - my collection would've been a lot cleaner that ways." - @prsn

"Since I bought my iPod Touch, I've found myself using my MacBook less. Portable internet is just so cool! Wish it could display Flash, tho." - @grace2design

"I wish iPod touch could use the location feature, or at least let me SET my location. Otherwise it's a nice iTunes remote." - @Yourbrokenoven

"dear apple, next ipod wish - bluetooth, with waterproof around ear headphones." - @samirb

"It sucks being in traffic by yourself. I wish my ipod could talk to me. :(" - @ohhayitssarah

"Two things I wish the iPod touch had. 1.) iChat. 2.) A microphone. Skype any one?" - @Xela501

"I wish Loopt worked on my iPod Touch ... :(" - @laughinglizard

"I wish my ipod was synced with my brain and i would play the songs i think of. Get on it steve jobs." - @shannnon

"Wish I could script my iPod to open Wi-Fi, update Mail, Twitter and one web page. All scheduled daily, before I depart for my morning train." - @aidenkenny

iTunes

"really wish iTunes had a folder watch feature" - @shuag

"is impressed with iTunes' new "Genius" feature. Wish it included tracks beyond my library, but helpful in remembering good music I have." - @sethjames

"Really diggin' iTunes' Genius feature, but I really wish I could designate start, ending, and unlimited through- points. THAT would be nice." - @greghuntoon

"I really wish iTunes would add a Pandora client as part of their Radio feature." - @BrentN

Leopard

"in leopard i wish there was a way to hide other app windows for a *space*" - @bryanl

"Man, I really wish Leopard's finder had Drop Stacks like Path Finder." - @epilnivek

"I wish leopard's Quick Look showed all file types correctly. Don't get em wrong, I LOVE quick look, but some files just don't show up right." - @Heartagram

Outlook

"I wish outlook had an obvious "delete calnedar entries earlier than..." feature" - @MrGuilt

Photoshop

"I wish there was a way to transfer Photoshop between OS's. Offer it for download and let owners transfer like they do their licence..." - @chrisgaunt

"Wish Adobe had a small bundle with just Photoshop and Illustrator. I don't need the other crap." - @dustinwilson

"Me "I wish there was a version of Photoshop without all the filters and wizards." Dan "Yeah, like a professional version."@thebigreason

"So the new Photoshop will have a Rotate Canvas feature. I wish the new Illustrator has it as well. If not, I'll to buy a Cintiq." - @BrianDenham

"The one feature I wish Photoshop Elements had is the ability to change the space between characters." - @nestep

Typepad

"@DowntownWoman I wish Typepad had "auto-save" feature. I've had that happen to me too. And I cursed in front of my kids too. ; )" - @ParentopiaDevra

Windows Vista

"Really wish WIndows Vista could REMEMBER my dual screen configuration." - @Finja

Visual Studio

"I wish there was a zoom feature in Visual Studio's designer view. The only way I know how to do it is to lower my resolution. Bad hack." - @wusher

Meet the Genius: Your Personalized Playlist Maker

Geniuses don't just hang out at the Apple Store. With iTunes 8, you get your very own music-mixing expert. Once activated, the new Genius Playlists feature whips up instant song lists in your iTunes library that, well, play nice together. You select a song and the Genius pulls together other tunes that it thinks groove well together.

To use it, click the "Turn On Genius" button on the right side of the iTunes window, or choose Store→Turn On Genius. Be prepared to type in your iTunes account name and password, though, because Apple needs to "gather information" about your iTunes library before making Genius work for you. Once Apple's finished analyzing your collection, click a song title in your library and then click the Genius button down at the bottom of the iTunes window. In a flash, iTunes rounds up at least 25 songs it thinks would sound great with the one you clicked. You can change the number of songs in the playlist and save it for posterity by clicking the buttons at the top of the window. These new playlists now sit alongside all your other lists on the left side of iTunes.

Buy, Buy, Baby!

Having to log into the iTunes Store and get your music collection analyzed makes perfect sense when you see what else the Genius can do. In the Genius Sidebar on the right side of the window, you also get cheerful recommendations of other songs and albums for sale in the iTunes Store that Apple thinks would sound just great on your playlists. If you have an Internet connection, this list changes each time your current song does. Each track has a convenient "Buy" button next to it; if you're prone to impulse shopping but don't want to max out your credit card, close the Genius Sidebar by clicking the small square icon underneath it at the bottom of the iTunes window.

On the Grid

The new Grid view in iTunes 8 turns the main window into a catalog of album covers that you can look at and sort by Album, Artist, Genre, and Composer. Whereas Cover Flow lets you "flip" from one album to the next, Grid view gives you a nice birds-eye view of a much larger assortment of your music. (Activate this view by clicking the box-of-6-squares icon, to the left of the Search box.) Click a cover in a particular view and then click the Play Album (or Artists, Genre, or Composer) icon that appears on the cover. Your music starts up, pronto. And if you find those album covers too large or too small, make them just right by moving the slider at the top of the Grid panel to resize 'em.

Revisit the Visualizer

If you feel like you've seen all the hippie, trippy patterns in the Visualizer already after years of playing iTunes at your desk, check again. The Visualizer option under the View menu now offers an "iTunes Visualizer" submenu with new patterns -- many of which make you feel like you're flying through space while simultaneously burning up the floor at a disco. And if you miss the old laser light show, there's now "Visualizer Classic."

Shake, Rattle, and Rock

Instead of scrolling through menus to mix up your songs with the Shuffle option, just give the new iPod Nano a quick shake to shuffle up your tracks. It's a great way to randomize your music when you don't have time to even look at the iPod's menu. Just keep a tight grip before you shake things up.

Bring Your Game --And Your Movies, Music, and Photos, Too

Thanks to the iTunes App Store and the latest iPod software, the iPod Touch is now a pocket 3-D arcade. The touchscreen and built-in accelerometer let you tap and tilt your way through games so intensely that you may forget that the Touch plays music and movies, too. And you don't need to have headphones plugged in to hear the sound effects -- the new iPod Touch has its own speaker and external volume controls built right in.

J.D. Biersdorfer, author of iPod: The Missing Manual, Sixth Edition, longs for a radio component, and an in-the-box cable for her iPod that she doesn't have to spend extra money for.

Get the latest Flash Player

There are a ton of great apps out there designed to snag, convert and shovel big heaps of video onto your iPod and iPhone, and I talked about a few of them at this year's Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco. Among my absolute favorites:

QuickTime Pro. Apple's own multimedia powerhouse lets you convert a ton of different formats into iPod-ready video with just a simple menu command. It's only $30 and well worth the price.

TubeSock. This nifty little app converts your favorite YouTube videos from the Web and save 'em right into iTunes, where they're only a sync away from going with you on your iPod or iPhone. There's a free demo version that converts the first 30 seconds of video, and the full version is only $15 -- much less than a single movie ticket and a small stale popcorn in most cities.

Handbrake. If you've got a DVD movie from your collection that you'd like to take along on your iPod or iPhone, this little open-source wonder will convert it into a Pod-friendly file quite nicely.

And even though I talked about these in the O'Reilly booth at *MAC*world, all of these programs have Windows versions as well.

Talk about The Gadget Panic...driving through a strange city with NO idea how to get to a specific place and the GPS starts bugging out. Luckily, it was just a brief loss of satellite connectivity and we sort of knew it was giving us the wrong directions anyway since you can't really turn left in the middle of a tunnel. But it was enough to make me realize how reliant I'd become on that little talking box stuck to the windshield to tell me how to get from Point A to the rest of the alphabet.

Now that those handy global-positioning systems are pretty affordable for a lot of people ("affordable," meaning that decent ones cost a couple hundred bucks now instead of the equivalent of three car payments), travel can be a lot less worrisome. Just punch in the address, let the receiver find its satellites and calculate the route, and off you go with maps and guided audio directions. You may get a route that sticks to the main roads or isn't very creative, but there's no more flipping through the atlas or coffee-stained map in a panic while trying to drive, either -- and that has to make for a safer highway experience. (Of course, it's still a good idea to keep the hardcopy maps in the car-door pocket just in case.)

On many GPS units, you can even pick the type of voice you want to hear telling you where to go. We use a female British voice on ours, which vaguely sounds like a digitized Dame Judi Dench. (We even named our Garmin Street Pilot "Cecily," since it had a nice English ring to it.) But even GPS units have joined the pop-culture multimedia revolution. TomTom, for example, offers celebrity voices like Burt Reynolds and Mr. T to guide you, and there are GPS boxes can play MP3 music or double as an FM transmitter so you can blast your iPod's playlists through the car radio between turns.

If you're new to the whole GPS thing, sites like GPS Magazine and GPS Review are a good place to read news and reviews of the different receivers and services available. Because if you're thinking of investing in a GPS receiver, a little research can really, er, point you in the right direction.

The Queen has arrived! The video library of movies and TV shows is growing nicely over in the iTunes Store -- all in good time for summer and the start of vacation and maximum slacking season. I've purchased quite a few things from the Store, including most of this season's Veronica Mars. Even though the prices are reasonable, I've also been spending a lot of time on a site where the movies and music are even cheaper.

They're free, in fact.

The Internet Archive has been around for more than a decade, but since I got my video iPod, I find I've been visiting it way more often than I used to. The site -- a non-profit organization based in San Francisco -- collects all sorts of digitized audio, video and text for scholars, historians or anybody who wants to look. And being digital, you can even download some of the works.

For iPod enthusiasts, the fact that you can get lots of music in MP3 format or video in the MPEG-4 means you can take it with you (if the file has been bestowed with a "Download" link, that is). Granted, much of the content is older and in the public domain, but if you have any interest in film, music, or cultural history, it's easy to blow most of the afternoon roaming the virtual halls of the Internet archive. The usage rights vary and not everything is downloadable, but the site explains what you can do with each work you find.

Despite the number of chargers I haul around, it hadn't really occurred to me just how reliant I am on portable power until three of my most-used gadgets recently started to show that inevitable sign of lithium-based battery age: the inability to hold a charge for very long. The mobile phone and laptop are both due for upgrades this year (hel-LO, iPhone!), but I must admit I'm getting sentimental about the charge-challenged iPod.

It's not like this is my only iPod, either, or even the newest. Since we tend to update iPod: The Missing Manual at least once a year in an attempt to keep it fresh, tasty and timely, I have more than a few Pods around the house, all purchased for book-research purposes. No, the iPod in question here is an old 40-gigabyte iPod Photo model that I bought in the fall of 2004. It was the first iPod with a color screen and one of the last models to come with a huge amount of accessories (like a dock, AV cable, AC adapter, USB and FireWire cables) right in the box. Man, those where the days....

In addition to the office-job commute, This Old Pod has come along with me to London, Paris, Pensacola, Philadelphia, and Gettysburg (and holds photos from all of the above, plus iLingo's French lessons and a couple years worth of Samuel Pepys' diaries I got from Project Gutenberg). I use my video iPod and the sporty Nano when the need arises, but I fell into a habit of using iPod Photo as my daily walkabout companion. It hasn't died yet, but its battery life is noticeably shorter between trips to the wall charger.

I'm sure there are more than a few folks out there reading this who may be in a similar situation, and probably with their one-and-only iPod. So, what to do? I figure if I want to keep using my faithful gadget, I have two options: replace the battery or plant the Pod permanently in a set of speakers that keep it powered while it plays.