Tips from Texas

Today I write from Austin, Texas, home of the South By Southwest Interactive/Music/Film festival and conference (known simply as SXSW to the initiated.

This morning, Peter Kirn, Francis Preve, and I presented How to Trick Out Your iPod, a session devoted to enhancing the iPod via software and hardware. Our recommendations were enthusiastically received but it wasn’t long before unrelated questions poured in. Because I live and breathe the iPod and iTunes I tend to forget what the typical iPod owner knows and is curious to know more about. Doing sessions like these help remind me of the kind of help these folks most desire.

For example, seemingly everyone wants to know how to copy music off the iPod to their computer. Granted, one or two people in the room might be interested in pirating music (which, of course, is evil), but it’s not uncommon to hear this question prefaced by “My computer crashed last month and I lost all my music. It’s on my iPod though. How do I….” Our Two Way Street article points the way.

The iPod has been around long enough now that older iPods’ batteries are beginning to give up the ghost. This often prompts the “How do I get a new battery for my iPod?” question. If the iPod is under warranty, the only answer to this is “Take it to Apple and have them replace it.” If the iPod is under six months old, Apple will replace it for free. If it’s over six months old but hasn’t yet reached its first birthday, Apple will charge you a nominal “carrying charge” to replace it.

If the iPod is out of warranty, you have other options. Among them is replacing the battery yourself. Note that doing so could lead to a dead iPod (and certainly will lead to a dead iPod mini if you attempt something so foolhardy on one of these uncrackable iPods), so if you’re not handy, have Apple or another entity do it for you. You can find details in our iPod Battery Replacement article.

And, of course, I get a slew of “What the hell is wrong with iTunes/my iPod?” We’ve got that covered too in Troubleshooting iTunes and Cures for an Ailing iPod.

It may be old news to me, but for the majority of iPod owners, this kind of information can be a real bacon saver. Look for more helpful articles from us in the near future.