| With the increased battery life of the modern | | | | even shielding the player in the glove |
| iPod's, there are still some things that you can do | | | | compartment won't keep its battery from |
| to increase the life of your iPod. These simple tips | | | | discharging quickly. |
| will help increase the battery life of your iPod so | | | | Backlighting and the equalizer |
| that you don't have to go through the hassle of a | | | | The backlight feature on iPod's can eat up battery |
| dead battery. | | | | power really quickly. To do without the backlight, |
| Pausing vs. standby | | | | choose Settings, Backlight Timer, Off. |
| Because much of the power consumed by | | | | The equalizer feature can also use a large amount |
| hard-disk iPods (not the Nano or Shuffle) spins the | | | | of power, so if you aren't entertaining a large |
| disk, press Pause when you leave the player | | | | crowd in an orchestra hall, turning off the iPod's |
| unattended. Left playing in default mode, the iPod | | | | sound equalizer will also preserve battery life. It |
| will run until the battery is drained. | | | | takes processing power to transform a sound |
| However, you might think you have turned it off, | | | | track into an high acoustic sound quality that most |
| when you've actually entered a standby mode. | | | | users won't notice through the average |
| The way Play/Pause is engineered on the click | | | | headphones. To disable the equalizer, select |
| dial, if you press down until the screen goes dark, | | | | Settings, EQ, Off. |
| the iPod may be in a paused standby mode (not | | | | Changing tracks |
| Pause), which uses more power. To verify that | | | | Rewinding or fast-forwarding uses extra energy, |
| the unit is in Pause mode, press the middle button. | | | | but so does changing tracks via the Previous |
| When the screen lights up, look in the upper-left | | | | Next buttons, as the hard drive turns on to find |
| corner for dual bars (Pause), not the triangle | | | | and open the songs. Similarly, using the device's |
| (Play). To cut power totally, flip the Hold switch on | | | | Shuffle or Random modes, which require frequent |
| the top. | | | | hard-disk accesses, will affect your player's |
| Charging and the temperature | | | | battery life. |
| The iPod's fast-charge setting can bring the | | | | The iPod sends tracks to its memory cache so it |
| battery to 80 percent of full power in an hour, | | | | can seamlessly play them while powering down |
| however, charging it fully still can take up to 4 | | | | the hard drive. That's great for tracks that are |
| hours. | | | | 7MB or smaller (the average length of a single), |
| Even when it is turned off, the iPod still uses the | | | | but podcasts, audiobooks, and other long files |
| battery and will drain completely in two to four | | | | need sustained hard-disk access, which can run |
| weeks of nonuse, depending on the temperature | | | | down your battery. Keep in mind that spoken |
| where the iPod is stored. The warmer the area, | | | | content can be compressed much more heavily |
| the quicker the battery charge will dissipate. | | | | than music, so don't hesitate to use lower bit |
| Accordingly, it's best not to leave the iPod in a | | | | rates for talk-radio-style podcasts or |
| vehicle parked in the sun, where temperatures | | | | recompressed audiobooks. |
| can climb to well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit; | | | | |
