Ipod shuffle - what do I need to buy?

[MaggieW]

DD would like an Ipod shuffle for Christmas. I've looked at them online but what else do I need to get ie in terms of connecting it to PC to download music etc etc. Does literally the little unit just come in the box and I need to order other bits separately? TIA.

[readywithwellies]

what comes with it will connect it to the internet. Will come with a wire to charge it via the computer too. And headphones

You may wish to get:

In car adapter so you can use it instead of the cd player in the car

Mains charger (if you are planning on being away from the computer for more than a couple of days)

Get the biggest memory you can afford.

[DooinMeCleanin]

agree with biggest memory you can afford. I ahve just loaded music onto a friends 2g one for him and the amount it could fit on was pitiful compared to my 8g Nano. No where near what he wanted and no where what the specs say (which rely on all your songs being 2 and half minutes long)

Mains chargers they sell in poundland although they are a bit shit and tend to fuse out after a couple months, who cares for a quid?

[BadgersPaws]

You should get everything that you need in the box other than iTunes which you'll use on your PC to manage the music on the shuffle. iTunes is a free download from Apple:
www.apple.com/itunes/

However one very useful thing to get would be a separate USB charger for it, that will let you charge it up without having to connect it to a PC.

Here's the official Apple version:
store.apple.com/uk/product/MB706B/A

However plenty of other companies will sell you things which will do the same thing but much cheaper.

[MaggieW]

Thanks for that everyone - I'm afraid I'm totally ipod-ignorant so bear with me. So to get music onto it, do I go onto iTunes and then select the music? How do you pay for it?

Regarding the memory - the one I was looking at was 2gb so how many songs will that hold please?

Sorry, but this is really pushing my technology boundaries!!!

[BadgersPaws]

"So to get music onto it, do I go onto iTunes and then select the music? How do you pay for it?"

You've got four main choices, all of which involve iTunes to get it onto the player at the end.

1. Put a CD into your computer, import it into iTunes and then onto your iPod.
   
2. Drag music from elsewhere on your computer into iTunes and then onto your iPod.
   
3. Buy music from the iTunes store (you'll need an account and a credit card for this), download them into iTunes and then onto your iPod.
   
4. Buy music from other web sites, such as Amazon or Play, import them into iTunes and then onto your iPod.
   
   How many songs is a trickier question....
   
   Apple themselves just claim "hundreds" on their web site.
   
   They used to say that a 1GB shuffle would hold about 240 songs.
   
   Looking at my iPod I fit about 120 songs in 1GB and I record at a high quality that takes about twice as much space as the default setting will. So Apple are probably about right, a 2GB Shuffle will hold about 480 songs.
   
   Of course that depends on how long your songs are. But my 120 per GB is a real life figure with all sorts of different lengths averaged out and as said if you stick to the default setting you should get about twice as many songs.

[DooinMeCleanin]

BadgersPaws my I could only fit about 300 on my friend's 2Gb one as a lot of his tracks were dance and rock, so fairly longish ones. It very much depends on your favourite genre as to how long the average track would be.

But getting music on easy once you have practised and know what you are doing.

I'm currently updating my Nano and can see that I have 364 songs using 2.4GB again there are a fair few rock songs on there, but also a lot of pop.

[BadgersPaws]

It's not just the length of the song, it's also the quality.

The songs that Apple sell on their store are of at least a high a high a quality as what I record at, so if you buy all your songs from Apple you'll get a lot less on your iPod, something perhaps around that 120 per GB figure.

If you're very concerned about the space what you could do is to download iTunes, it's free, and start importing your music into it. Then you'll know exactly how much space it takes up.

One neat thing that a Shuffle can do, not sure about other iPods, is that each time it's connected to your PC it can take a random selection of the music onto it.

So you can keep all, or some, of your music on your PC and it will automatically drop selections from that onto the Shuffle.

[DiscoDaisy]

You can pay with itunes vouchers as well. We prefer them as the kids can be given them as presents and we don't need to enter credit or debit card details onto the site.

[DooinMeCleanin]

Yeah they all do that. That's how I had my itunes set for my Nano. It was doing my nut when I was trying to get my friends music onto his. I'm fairly sure a Trance lover ahs no interest in Britany Spears Greatest Hits . I was in thick mode and couldn't figure out why it kept filling his shuffle with my songs.

If you don't want itunes to randomly fill your ipod, make sure you select 'manually manage music' when you first install your ipod, as otherwise it will immediately fill your ipod with a selection of whatever is on your itunes library.

You can change this setting later if you wish.

[DiscoDaisy]

Oh I don't know DooinMeCleanin.
I think everybody has a song on their Ipod that they wouldn't admit too.
I know I have a couple.

[MaggieW]

Badgerpaws, when I do the "put a CD into my computer" option do I have to load the whole CD onto the ipod or can I just select tracks from it. Thanks again for all the advice and help.

[DooinMeCleanin]

iirc it puts the whole CD on there (I don't own many cds I usually download as we have no CD player) but you can delete anything you don't want by right clicking on it and selecting delete/remove.

DiscoDaisy I have more than one song I wouldn't admit. My ipod shows me up everytime we play the 'put your ipod on shuffle and tell us the first x amount of songs that play' game. There is loads of decent stuff on there interspersed with a lot of cheesy pop, of course my ipod ignores the classics and finds the cheese

[BadgersPaws]

"do I have to load the whole CD onto the ipod or can I just select tracks from it."

You don't have to put the whole CD in there.

When you put the CD in I think it asks if you want to import it, if you say yes it will do the whole lot.

However if you say no you then go to a screen that shows all the tracks on the CD with little checks by all of them. You can uncheck the ones you don't want and then click the import button and it will go ahead and only do the ones you've told it to.