*Official* iPod thread - all iPod discussion in here

[Daragon]

No charges for Wi-fi usage I'm assuming?

[CMcK]

No charges for wireless as you don't have any form of subscription with the touch. Lot's of coffee shops and McDonalds offer free wi-fi for customers. Services like BT Openzone will likely require payment or subscription but that's the same for any device using those services.

[wakka]

It really depends on how much music you have and how interested you are in extra features. Are you buying the iPod to play music, or as an exciting gadget? How many gigabytes of music do you have? If it's a lot, do you need to carry it all with you?

The Classic is really designed for people who have large music collections (exceeding 32GB) and are primarily interested in just listening to music. Video playback is okay, but the screen is only 2.5 inches so don't expect a cinema experience. It's a great iPod - the fantastically slim body has 120GB of storage, which is unbelievable for £175 considering I paid around £300 for a 40GB iPod of around four times the thickness and with a black and white screen a few years ago. However, if you don't need all the storage and only have a few gigabytes of music, it may not be worth it.

The Touch is an option that really depends on how interested you are in functionality other than playing music and video - after all, that's something that all the iPods (bar the Shuffle) do. The screen is large (an inch larger than the Classic) and beautiful, but remember you're held back by the limitations of the compatible formats - M4V, MP4 and h.264. If you want to watch Xvids or OGMs or MKVs, expect to do lots of converting. I'm not sure if you know, but the Touch is essentially an iPhone without the cell network capabilities - so no phoning or texting, and an internet connection is only available via WiFi. It also lacks the iPhone's camera. Aside from this it's functionally identical, so you have access to all the games and applications in the App Store, and you can check your email and surf the web and so on and so forth.

It's a good device, but it's really down to you whether you think you'll use these features - you're definitely paying a premium over other iPod models when you consider that £165 gets you an 8GB Touch, but £10 more would get a 120GB Classic. However, if you've only got a few gigabytes of music then this may not matter to you.

Another option is the iPod nano, which provides similar storage possibilities to the Touch (8GB and 16GB models are available), but is quite significantly cheaper. This is a good option if you don't require a lot of storage but are uninterested in the additional features of the Touch. It too has video playback, and is extremely small and light. Definitely a good option.

[Daragon]

I quite like the sound of having a "mini-pc" which many people have been comparing the touch/iphone to.

Something like the PSP but small enough to actually fit in my pocket - good video capability, music capability, internet over wi-fi, games, applications and such like.

My music collection isn't huge, limited to a few video game/movie CD soundtracks and MP3s with the remainder of (the 16GB model I'm looking at) going towards TV and movies.

[Daragon]

Ok, another question - anyone know if it's possible to change the region of the itunes store that's built into the ipod touch?

Mine is set to US (despite registering UK details) but I need it set to UK so I can actually use what I download off of it.

Edit: Sorted.

[Daragon]

Me again - just wanted to check the general opinion of other ipod touch 2G users and battery life. There is no way on God's green earth I'm getting 36 hours of music - I'm lucky with 5!

Anyone else had similiar issues?

Also, can anyone recommend a good case for it, one that'll keep it safe and free of fingerprints and ****?

[Malc]

I apologise if it's already been covered, but I've had an ipod Touch since christmas, and was wondering if there's anything you can do to destroy the battery life of it. I don't mean in terms of how long it can play music for before it runs out of battery, but how long the battery life lasts altogether, for like 3-4 years.

I've heard people saying that overcharging it doesn't damage it, as the new Lithium battery in the iTouch doesn't have those problems, only older types of rechargable batteries. So I don't have to worry about that. Also it's been said that you should allways keep the battery life above 40% if you want the battery to last as long as it can.

I'm not looking to destroy my Ipod Touch, just wanted to know if there's small things I could be doing to ensure the Ipod will last as long as possible. As my old Ipod Nano only lasts 3-4 hours playing music now, because I didn't use it for 6-9 months and left it with no battery for that time.

Cheers for any help.

[Daragon]

I apologise if it's already been covered, but I've had an ipod Touch since christmas, and was wondering if there's anything you can do to destroy the battery life of it. I don't mean in terms of how long it can play music for before it runs out of battery, but how long the battery life lasts altogether, for like 3-4 years.

I've heard people saying that overcharging it doesn't damage it, as the new Lithium battery in the iTouch doesn't have those problems, only older types of rechargable batteries. So I don't have to worry about that. Also it's been said that you should allways keep the battery life above 40% if you want the battery to last as long as it can.

I'm not looking to destroy my Ipod Touch, just wanted to know if there's small things I could be doing to ensure the Ipod will last as long as possible. As my old Ipod Nano only lasts 3-4 hours playing music now, because I didn't use it for 6-9 months and left it with no battery for that time.

Cheers for any help.

Interestingly enough, that's about all you'll get out of a new Ipod Touch as well (the one I got for my birthday in Jan certainly won't see more than 5 hours of music much of the time)

[randombs]

Have you got anything like EQ or sound check enabled? 5 hours is shockingly bad, I get more than that out of my 80gb classic and that's with the backlight on for 2 secs at a time, so I'd expect the touch to last a while longer due to its flash memory

[Malc]

Yeah, my new Ipod Touch lasts 20+ hours playing music, or listening to podcasts. Maybe like billy said, you may have wi-fi enabled or EQ or something.

[Daragon]

Well I've turned off EQ (was never on to begin with) but Wi-fi stays on most of the time. I can't imagine it would drain so much battery though...

edit: can you list what you have switched on and off so I can compare with mine? Cheers

[randombs]

I've got an annoying problem with my iPod, and it's the same issue I had with my previous 30gb video and also the classic I have now. Whenever I sync with the PC, the iPod sets repeat to off and I have to go into settings and turn it on. I'm not sure why it does this as my iTunes is set to repeat all anyway, so if it's also taking that setting whenever it syncs, that doesn't make sense.

I thought it was something to do with my old iPod but the fact it's doing it with the classic too has me marginally baffled. Googling doesn't seem to be turning up any answers (although funnily enough, someone has the opposite problem, where his iPod is set to repeat all no matter what. Maybe I should swap!). Also, my iTunes has been up to date bar the most recent update.

I hope it's not a standard 'feature' of auto updating, as it's driving me barmy!

[Malc]

Well I've turned off EQ (was never on to begin with) but Wi-fi stays on most of the time. I can't imagine it would drain so much battery though...

edit: can you list what you have switched on and off so I can compare with mine? Cheers

The wireless will drain a lot of battery, especially if you've also got e-mail update on as well, as the frequency of how often it checks for new mail further drains the battery life.

For my ipod Touch I have everything turned off, so wi-fi isn't enabled, EQ isn't, e-mail update isn't etc. I have the auto-lock to come on after 1 minute, and the auto-backlight is turned off, and I only ever have the backlight brightness at 50% (sometimes I have it at 1% if I don't want to hurt my eyes everytime I go to change songs at night when it's dark).

So yeah, try turning everything off and using it like that for a day or so; see if your battery life increases. If not then you may have a faulty battery, or didn't charge it fully when you first got the iTouch or something.

[Strider]

My old ipod touch broke and apple gave me a replacement today. Anyway I went to synch up with my old account and it wouldn't let me as I needed a new update. I've now got the new update but the option to synch to my old account is no longer there when I plug the touch in. I have about 25 games sitting on my pc and seemingly have no way to transfer them to my new ipod touch. I also no longer have the appstore icon on the itouch when I switch it on.

HELP!!!!!

[ChrisF]

When you say update, do you mean firmware? You'll need the latest firmware on there for the AppStore.