Inside iPod Menus

After you import music into the iPod, you’re ready to play music. The design of the iPod lets you hold it in one hand and perform simple operations by thumb. Even if you’re all thumbs when pressing small buttons on tiny devices, you can still thumb your way to iPod heaven.

The iPod’s unique circular scroll wheel makes scrolling through an entire music collection quick and easy. With your finger or thumb, scroll clockwise on the wheel to scroll down a list, or counter-clockwise to scroll up. As you scroll, options on the menu are highlighted.

Use the Select button at the center of the scroll wheel to select whatever is highlighted in the menu display. In full-size third-generation models, the touch-sensitive buttons above the scroll wheel perform simple functions when you touch them. (First generation and second-generation models aren’t touch-sensitive, so you need to press them.)

iPod mini and fourth-generation iPods provide a click wheel that offers the same functions as the scroll wheel and the clickable buttons. It has pressure sensitive buttons underneath the top, bottom, left, and right areas of the circular pad of the wheel. These areas tilt as you press them, activating the buttons.

The iPod main menu for the newer fourth-generation models, shown in Figure, offers the following selections:

The fourthgeneration iPod main menu with backlighting on.

  • Music: Select music by playlist, artist, album, song, genre, or composer, or select an audio book.
  • Extras: View and set the clock and alarm clock, view contacts, view your calendar, view notes, and play games.
  • Settings: Set display settings, menu settings, the backlight timer, the clicker, and the date and time.
  • Shuffle Songs: Play songs from your music library in random order.
  • Backlight: Turn on or off the backlighting for the iPod display.
  • Now Playing: This appears only when a song is playing — it takes you to the Now Playing display.

The main menu for first, second, and third generation iPods, and iPod mini, replace the Music selection above with the following:

  • Playlists: Select a playlist to play.
  • Browse: Select by artist, album, song, genre, or composer.

Pressing the iPod Buttons The buttons do various tasks for song playback:

  • Previous/Rewind: Press once to start a song over. Press twice to skip to the previous song. Press and hold to rewind through a song.
  • Menu: Press once to go back to the previous menu. Each time you press, you go back to a previous menu until you reach the main menu. Press and hold the button to turn on the backlight.
  • Play/Pause: Press to play the selected song, album, or playlist. Press Play/Pause when a song is playing to pause the playback.
  • Next/Fast-Forward: Press once to skip to the next song. Press and hold Next/Fast-Forward to fast-forward through the song.

The buttons and scroll wheel can do more complex functions when used in combination:

  • Turn on the iPod. Press any button.
  • Turn off the iPod. Press and hold the Play/Pause button. Disable the iPod buttons.
  • To keep from accidentally pressing the buttons, push the Hold switch to the other side so that an orange bar appears (the Hold position). To reactivate the iPod buttons, push the Hold switch back to the other side so that the orange bar disappears (the normal position).
  • Reset the iPod. Set the Hold switch to the Hold position, and then move it back to normal. Then, on first-, second-, or third-generation iPods or iPod mini, press the Menu and Play/Pause buttons simultaneously for about five seconds until the Apple logo appears in the iPod display; for the newer fourth-generation iPods, press the Menu and Select buttons simultaneously for six seconds.

You can reset the iPod if it gets hung up for some reason. (For example, it might get confused if you press the buttons too quickly.) This operation resets the iPod, essentially restarting the iPod’s hard drive. It doesn’t change the music or data on the iPod.

  • Turn the backlight on and off. Press and hold the Menu button (or select the Backlight option from the main menu).
  • Change the volume. While playing a song (the display reads Now Playing), adjust the volume with the scroll wheel — clockwise turns the volume up, counterclockwise turns the volume down. A volume slider appears on the iPod display, indicating the volume level as you scroll.
  • Skip to any point in a song. While playing a song (the display says Now Playing), press and hold the Select button until the progress bar appears to indicate where you are in the song, and then use the scroll wheel to scroll to any point in the song. Scroll clockwise to move forward, and counterclockwise to move backward.

Setting Language On iPod

If your iPod is speaking in a foreign tongue, don’t panic — you’re not in the wrong country. You might have purchased an iPod that’s set to a foreign language. More likely, someone set it to a different language accidentally or on purpose (as a practical joke).

Fortunately, you can change the setting without having to know the language that it’s set to. To set the language, no matter what language the menu is using, follow these steps:

  1. Press the Menu button repeatedly until pressing it doesn’t change the words on the display. If pressing the Menu button no longer changes the display, you’re at the main menu.
  1. Choose the third option from the top on the newer fourth-generation iPods, or the fourth option on iPod mini and older models (in English, this is the Settings option). Scroll clockwise until the item is highlighted, and then press the Select button. The Settings menu appears.
  1. Choose the thirteenth option from the top on the newer fourth generation iPods, or the twelfth option on older models (which, in English, is the Language option). The Language menu appears.
  1. Choose the language that you want to use. (English is at the top of the list.)

If these steps don’t do the trick, the menu may have been customized. Someone could have customized it previously, or perhaps you accidentally pressed buttons that customized the menu.

To get around this problem, you can reset all the iPod settings back to the defaults. (Unfortunately, resetting your iPod settings back to the defaults wipes out any customizations that you’ve made; you have to redo any repeat/shuffle settings, alarms, backlight timer settings, and so on.)

Follow these steps to reset all your settings, no matter what language displays:

  1. Press the Menu button repeatedly until pressing it doesn’t change the words on the display. If pressing the Menu button no longer changes the display, you’re at the main menu.
  1. Choose the third option from the top on the newer fourth-generation iPods, or the fourth option on iPod mini and older models (in English, this is the Settings option). The Settings menu appears.
  1. Choose the option at the bottom of the menu (in English, the Reset All Settings option). The Reset All Settings menu appears.
  1. Choose the second menu option (in English, the Reset option; the first menu option is Cancel). The Language menu appears.
  1. Choose the language you want to use. (English is at the top of the list.)

The language you choose now applies to all the iPod menus. But don’t go pulling that joke on someone else!

Resetting iPod

If your iPod doesn’t turn on, don’t panic — at least not yet. First check the Hold switch’s position on top of the iPod. If it’s in the locked position (with orange showing), slide it to the normal position. If it still doesn’t work, check whether the iPod has enough juice. Is the battery charged up? Connect the iPod to a power source and see whether it works. There are times when your iPod freezes up or seems confused, and it just won’t start up.

Pressing more than one iPod button at the same time might have caused this problem, or perhaps you disconnected the iPod from your computer before it had a chance to display the iPod’s main menu (or in older models, the message saying it’s okay to disconnect). In situations like this, you can reset the iPod.

Resetting the iPod isn’t the same as resetting the settings of your iPod. If all you need to do is reset the settings on the Settings menu, you can choose Settings>Reset All Settings>Reset from the main menu. All your menu and display settings return to their original values.

This section is about a different kind of reset — similar to pressing a reset button on a computer. This operation resets the operating system of the iPod and restarts the system. Sometimes when your iPod gets confused or refuses to turn on, you can fix it by resetting it. Follow these steps:

  1. Toggle the Hold switch to the locked position and then back to the unlocked position. This step is like the beginning of a secret handshake.
  1. On the new fourth-generation models, press the Menu and Select buttons simultaneously; on older models, press the Menu and Play/Pause buttons simultaneously. Hold these buttons for at least six seconds until the Apple logo appears; then release the buttons when you see the Apple logo.

The appearance of the Apple logo signals that your iPod is resetting itself, so you no longer have to hold down the buttons. Releasing the Menu and Select buttons (or Play/Pause on older models) as soon as you see the Apple logo is important.

If you continue to hold down the buttons after the logo appears, the iPod displays the low battery icon (which looks like a slashed battery), and you must connect it to a power source before using your iPod again.

After resetting, everything should be back to normal, including your music and data files.