iPod Touch Lexicon
A Glossary of Terms in the jargon of iPod Touch
At the top are terms specific to the iPod Touch and to iPhones. Further down is a list of terms for iPods in general.- Specific iPod Touch and iPhone Terms
- Cover Flow
- Cover Flow is Apple's graphical user interface for navigating your music collection on your iPod Touch (or iPhone or Macintosh computer) by virtually "flipping" through pictures of album covers.
- Home Button
- That's the button on the face of the iPod Touch. If has several functions but the main one is that when you press the home button once it takes you back to the Touch's Home Screen.
- Home Screen
- The home screen is iPod Touch's and iPhone's equivlent of the "desktop" in Windows and OS-X. It is the home page of the Touch, from which you select and open Touch applications. Apple's term of choice is "home screen" but it is also called: "home page" or "springboard" (after the program called "SpringBoard" that builds and runs it.)
- Installer
- The "installer" application is the visible part of a "jailbreak'd" iPod Touch/iPhone. It appears as an icon on the Touch's Home Screen. As its name implies, it is used to install any of many useful and/or fun applications and tools in the jailbreak'd Touch.
- Jailbreak
- A method that lets Touch and iPhone owners install more useful and/or fun programs on their devices. Technically "jailbreaking" is a hack for getting around the restrictions and limits that are imposed on the standard-issue Touch and iPhone operating systems. Search the web for "jailbreak iPod Touch" for more info plus instructions and tools for jailbreaking.
(Note: For the most part when we say "Touch" or "iPod Touch" here read it as also referring to the iPhone. We'll avoid repeating "...and iPhone" over and over.)
- iPod General Terms
- AAC (Advanced Audio Coding)
- Apple's data envelope format for digital audio compressed using the MPEG4 compression and encoding standard.
- AIFF (Audio Interchange File Format)
- Apple's format for uncompressed audio files. Similar in purpose to the WAV format used on Windows based systems.
- ALE (Apple Lossless Encoding)
- This is Apple's very own method for compressing and storing CD-quality audio in about half the space of the original file. Similar in purpose to the WMF format used on Windows systems. (There is no hope for world peace.)
- Bitrate
- In audio compression terminology this is the average amount of data bits required to store one second of music in kilobits per second, or Kbps. Generally speaking, the sound quality changes with the bitrate. When the bitrate is reduced then the sound quality will probably also be decreased.
- Classic [iPod Classic]
- A slightly larger version of a "regular" iPod but with a color screen to play movies and display photos, as well as play music and games. Compared to Touch it has mammoth storage capacity at 80GB or, optionally, 160GB.
- Click Wheel
- Not a Touch Screen. This is the gizmo that is on recent vintage "standard" iPods that lets the 'Pod's user navigate through songs and/or videos and which also incorporates the Menu, Fast-Forward, Rewind, and Play/Pause buttons within the wheel itself, so that the user can perform those functions all from one control.
- Dock or Docking Station
- A cradle and/or stand gizmo for your iPod stands it up in some useful and/or attractive way and also connects it to some other device or system. The most basic type replaces the cable connection to your desktop computer with a convenient place to just "stand" your iPod. When you put the 'Pod in the stand the connection to the computer is automatically made too. Other types of docks include an audio system connector, a complete bookshelf stereo system, a clock radio and a media center dock for video capable iPods.
- Dock connector
- This is the name that Apple gives to the cable that it provides to go between your iPod and a USB port on your computer. When your iPod is connected to the computer with the dock connector its battery will be charged and you'll be able to "sync" the data on your iPod with the music & data on your computer.
- FireWire®
- iPod Touch no speaky firewire. Firewire old and dead and irrelevant to iPod Touch. Old iPods may have Firewire. Dead, dead, dead.
- Flash memory
- A solid state memory device with capacities are equal to small to medium capactiy hard drives but with no moving parts. Having no moving parts has three advantages for portable devices like iPods: the weigh less, they consume less power and they are far more rugged.
- Hard drive
- In the case of iPods, a hard drive is a teeny tiny replica of the one inside your computer. Hard drives are not used in iPod Touch or in iPhones.
- Nano [iPod nano]
- As the name suggests, the Nano is much smaller than the iPod classic. The Nano is all solid-state and comes in 4GB and 8GB versions and is available in several swell colors.
- Shuffle [iPod shuffle]
- The tiniest iPod. The Shuffle is actually kind of goofy. It has no display -- none -- and no way to pick which songs you are going to hear. The idea is that you stuff up to a few hundred songs in it and then it randomly plays them back to you. Hence, "Shuffle". While it clearly exudes Appleness in looks, it is the best example ever of "Apple stuff is over priced" and I've ever have been able to figure out why anyone buys this one. (Much less why Apple makes it.) Goofy.
- iPod Touch
- "God said to Steve Jobs, 'Unlock my iPhone.' Steve said, 'God, you must be putting me on.' God said, 'No.' Steve said, 'Ok, I'll tell you what...'". And with apologies to Bob Dylan, that might be the story of how the iPod Touch came to be. More or less an iPhone without the phone. (And without the camera. Boo! That sucks.) But if you're reading this then you probably know all about it. Good news for Steve, God looked upon the Touch and said, "it is good" and rolled a big spleef.
- iTunes®
- This is the name of two different things that Apple provides: 1. the music store and online service from Apple is called "iTunes", 2. the media library manager/player software that runs on your Mac or Windows PC. The software part also manages media and data syncing with your iPod and, all together, makes it quite easy to efficiently manage and customize your media library on both your computer and on your 'Pod.
- iTunes Tagging
-
A process by which you will be enabled [entinced to spend more money at iTunes. The way iTunes Tagging works is this:
As (a)you're listening to a station broadcasting a tag-enabled HD Radio signal (not all HD stations will carry tags) (b) on an HD receiver capable of decoding the tag data (not all HD receivers will decode them) then (c) when you hear a song that you like you will run or reach over -- depending on where you are in the house or on your driving situation at the moment -- and press the button marked "Tag". The receiver will then save the song info about name, artist, label, etc -- but not the song itself -- into its own memory. Later, when it is convenient for you, you will connect your iPod to the receiver and the song information will automatically transfer into your iPod. Then the next time that you sync your iPod to your computer, your tagged selections appear as a list in iTunes and giving you the option of buying them through the iTunes Store to be loaded to your iPod. - MP3 (MPEG1, Audio Layer 3)
- The most popular method for storing and transferring music. It employs a "lossy" compression system which removes some frequencies judged to be essentially inaudible but MP3 still manages to deliver near-CD sound quality in a file that's much, much smaller than a corresponding uncompressed "raw" music file. You, the user, have some control over how much data is "lossed" (yes, "lost") out by the process by selecting compression rates and bit scan rates and such arcane things.
- MPEG-4
- Another method for compressing musical data, this is also one of the most commonly used methods for storing and transferring video. MPEG-4 compresses audio and video content into manageable file sizes, especially for portable devices such as iPods. MPEG-4 video files usually have an ".mp4" or .m4v" filemane extension.
- Springboard
- This is the name of the program that presents and, essentially, runs the Touch/iPhone Home Screen (above). The home screen is also sometimes referred to as the "Springboard".
- Summerboard
- An independently developed version of the Home Screen (or "Springboard") program that supports creating, editing and switching between multiple home screen pages. As of Touch/iPhone software version 1.1.4 this functionality is built into the Touch stock system.
- Tagging
- See "iTunes Tagging (above).
- Touch screen
- What sets our baby apart from them other 'Pods.
- Touch Wheel
- "Touch wheel" is earliest form of the flat donut shaped user navigation interface used on non-touch-screen iPods. It was eventually replaced by the "click wheel" version which looks similar but also incorporates the Menu, Fast-Forward, Rewind, and Play/Pause buttons that the "touch wheel" lacked. In any case, it is most definitely NOT a touch screen.
- WiFi
- WiFi is the jargon name for the wireless ethernet connection between your iPod Touch and the internet.
- [Wireless] FM transmitter
- A wireless FM transmitter lets you send music from your iPod through your car's FM radio. It offers acceptable sound quality and is portable so that you can take it from car to car or anyplace where there's an available FM radio.
