# Simple things my iPod should be capable of **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 29, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364 "2006-03-29T04:48:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![some\_white\_dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/1 "2006-03-29T04:48:32Z")
No, not like doing the dishes. I just wish I could set it on shuffle, select a song by browsing through my artists or albums, and the iPod would then shuffle throughout my entire library instead of just the artist/album I selected. Stupid iPod. I also wish it was easier to toggle the shuffle function. I always gotta go menu-button around several menus to get to it. Do any of you have similar complaints? Does there exist some kind of suggestion box, so that Apple may read our ideas, maniacally laugh them off and resume their quest for world domination through iPod-induced conformity? ---
**Author:** ![stucco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@stucco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucco)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/2 "2006-03-29T05:03:31Z")
I wish I could turn the light on and off with a switch, instead of having the timer. There are some times, like in a dark airplane, when you need the light to find a song. But having the light go on everytime you want to change the volume or skip something just wastes the battery. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/3 "2006-03-29T05:08:25Z")
I wish the shuffle setting could be specified for each playlist. There are some playlists which I’d always use in shuffle mode, and some which should always be played in order. ---
**Author:** ![some\_white\_dude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b487fb/32.png) [@some\_white\_dude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/some_white_dude)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/4 "2006-03-29T05:38:48Z")
> [@stucco](#): > > I wish I could turn the light on and off with a switch, instead of having the timer. There are some times, like in a dark airplane, when you need the light to find a song. But having the light go on everytime you want to change the volume or skip something just wastes the battery. It might depend on which model you own (I have the latest one), but on mine the light turns on when I hold the menu button. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/5 "2006-03-29T05:57:53Z")
I like listening on album shuffle. But if I come to an album I don’t feel like listening to, I have to forward through each of the songs to get to the next album. I’d like to have a way to skip all the way to the next random album. ([http://www.apple.com/feedback/](http://www.apple.com/feedback/) - I’ve heard they actually do read the suggestions) ---
**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/6 "2006-03-29T07:14:52Z")
I love my iPod to death, but there are a lot of things that I miss about my four year old dinosaur Archos Jukebox Multimedia. [ul] [li]The audio recorder.[/li] [li]Being able to drop in a divX video without having to convert it.[/li] [li]It stayed illuminated when it was plugged into a power source. [/li] [li]Being able to pick out a song to play, then have it resume to random play. (as you already stated)[/li] [li]Queuing up upcoming songs while a song was playing.[/li] [li]Being able to do library maintenance from the player itself (creating playlists, deleting and organizing songs, etc.)[/li] [li]Not having to worry about Id3 tags. [/li][/ul] The Id3 tag thing was a particular annoyance. When I first moved my perfectly organized music collection over to my iPod, it was a complete mess. The artist directory looked (in part) something like this: Decemberists Decemberists, The Ozzy Ozzy Osbourne REM R.E.M. StaticX Static-X Static X The Decemberists. U2 U.2. Unknown Artist My heart sank as I realized how I’d be spending the next 8 to 10 hours. When my iPod video was stolen I went ahead and bought another one right away, so I’m definitely not anti-iPod. I whould rather stick my head in the oven than go back to my old Archos. I wish the iPod had more features though. ---
**Author:** ![stucco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@stucco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucco)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/7 "2006-03-29T07:57:35Z")
> [@Team of Scientists](#): > > It might depend on which model you own (I have the latest one), but on mine the light turns on when I hold the menu button. I have one of the pre-click wheel ones with the four buttons above the wheel. You can set the light to either go on whenever you touch anything, or never go on. I’m glad they’ve changed that. ---
**Author:** ![drewbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drewbert/32/15890_2.png) [@drewbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewbert)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/8 "2006-03-29T10:49:31Z")
> [@stucco](#): > > I have one of the pre-click wheel ones with the four buttons above the wheel. You can set the light to either go on whenever you touch anything, or never go on. I’m glad they’ve changed that. I had one of those. If you set it to never turn on, you can still hold down the menu button (or is it play?) to toggle the light on and off. ---
**Author:** ![audiobottle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bc8723/32.png) [@audiobottle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/audiobottle)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/9 "2006-03-29T14:01:44Z")
> [@Team of Scientists](#): > > I also wish it was easier to toggle the shuffle function. I always gotta go menu-button around several menus to get to it. Which generation do you have? When I used to have a 4G? 5G? (the one before the color screens), you could customize the main menu so that the shuffle could be put there. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/10 "2006-03-29T16:39:28Z")
Yes, there needs to be an easier way to turn shuffle on or off. A lot of the functionality is hidden way down in the menus. Typical clean Apple interfaces I guess. Also, I’d like to see the track number on the playback display. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/11 "2006-03-29T16:54:15Z")
It honks me off that when you play a song on the iPod, it doesn’t update the date & time in the “Last Played” tag, just the Play Count. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/12 "2006-03-29T17:21:26Z")
Another thing: When displaying a list of “songs”, I want to see the whole title, scrolling sideways if necessary. Or be more intelligent about which portion to display. This is especially a problem with podcasts and audiobooks - I go to “Douglas Adams” and see 5 entries that says “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galax…”. I can’t see the episode/volume/part number. Although some podcast broadcasters have recognized this, and put the date at the beginning of the title (“03/28/2006 Episode of Al Franke…”). ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/13 "2006-03-29T17:22:43Z")
I wish that you could set default settings that would be kept in memory, so even if the iPod was left long enough to go into that sleep mode where it has to totally reboot when you turn it on, certain settings would be kept. I always turn off the ‘click’ sound, but it always resets after that sleep mode. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/14 "2006-03-29T19:48:08Z")
What? It’s possible to do a shuffle by artist or genre now? I have an older (3G or 4G I think, b/w screen) model, but I can only shuffle my entire catalog, but there is no shuffle for any sub-menu, and it pisses me off to no end. Is it possible to tweak this? ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/15 "2006-03-29T21:08:58Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > What? It’s possible to do a shuffle by artist or genre now? > > I have an older (3G or 4G I think, b/w screen) model, but I can only shuffle my entire catalog, but there is no shuffle for any sub-menu, and it pisses me off to no end. > > Is it possible to tweak this? Unless I misunderstand what you’re saying, you should go to Settings, and set Shuffle to Songs. Then go back to Music, and highlight whatever category you want to listen to, and just hit Play. It’ll play the songs in that category in random order. E.g. if you want to listen to a random selection of Elvis songs, set the Shuffle to Songs, then go to Music \> Artists and scroll until Elvis Presley is highlighted, then hit play. Does that make sense? ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/16 "2006-03-29T21:45:44Z")
I share the shuffle frustration: it’s definitely a pain in the butt to access, and, like **scr4** said, there are some playlists I’ll always want to use shuffle for and others I never will. > [@audiobottle](#): > > Which generation do you have? When I used to have a 4G? 5G? (the one before the color screens), you could customize the main menu so that the shuffle could be put there. I have a 30GB video iPod: you can put “shuffle songs” on the main menu, but it only lets you play all of your songs in random order. It doesn’t toggle the shuffle option. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/17 "2006-03-30T00:08:06Z")
> [@Podkayne](#): > > Unless I misunderstand what you’re saying, you should go to Settings, and set Shuffle to Songs. Then go back to Music, and highlight whatever category you want to listen to, and just hit Play. It’ll play the songs in that category in random order. > > E.g. if you want to listen to a random selection of Elvis songs, set the Shuffle to Songs, then go to Music \> Artists and scroll until Elvis Presley is highlighted, then hit play. > > Does that make sense? So does that force shuffle play instead of sequential in all of the menus? Or does that add a menu option when I get to the artist so that I can have the option of hitting “shuffle”. In other words, I want a sub-menu selection that says “shuffle”, I don’t want to have to go into settings and switch a global toggle. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/18 "2006-03-30T00:31:57Z")
It will play everything on shuffle until you switch it off in the menu, yes. A little shuffle icon appears on the screen while it’s set for shufflin’. ---
**Author:** ![aeropl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aeropl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aeropl)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2006, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/19 "2006-03-30T02:36:31Z")
> [@Baraqiyal](#): > > I love my iPod to death, but there are a lot of things that I miss about my four year old dinosaur Archos Jukebox Multimedia. > [ul] > [li]Queuing up upcoming songs while a song was playing.[/li][li]Not having to worry about Id3 tags. [/li][/ul] > The Id3 tag thing was a particular annoyance. When I first moved my perfectly organized music collection over to my iPod, it was a complete mess. While you are listening to a song, navigate to your next song (or album or artist) and hold down the center button for a few seconds. This will make that new song (or album or artist) blink a few times and it will be added to a playlist called “On the Go” which will be played after your current song. For the id3 tags, there are some great free programs that will automatically add id3 information according to what folder or filename the song has. My favorite one is at [www.id3-tagit.de](http://www.id3-tagit.de). I do wish the iPod could toggle on shuffle mode more easily. It should also have a way to Restore itself without neededing to be connected to a computer. I recently had a catch22 situation with Apple Support: The iPod wouldn’t be recognized by the computer without being restored. The only way to restore an iPod? It has to be recognized by your computer. ---
**Author:** ![monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monster)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2006, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364/20 "2006-04-01T00:03:44Z")
I have a question. Is is possible to manually put songs in order in a playlist? I know I can do it by song title, artist, genre, etc. But I made a playlist for a party and I’d like the songs to play in a certain order. I can’t find a way to change the order. So, I think my iPod should be capable of this. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/simple-things-my-ipod-should-be-capable-of/350364.md?page=2)