iPod: The Missing Manual, 9th Edition

Chapter 10. The iPod as Personal Assistant

The early chapters in this book were all about showing you how your iPod works and how you can fill it up with music, movies, photos, eBooks, and more. But if you think that’s all the iPod can do, think again. For instance, that gorgeous color screen on the Touch is happy to display your address book and calendar. The Classic can list your contacts and show you your schedule.

And that’s just for starters. If you’re looking for a handsome timepiece, your iPod can function as a world clock when you’re on the road, and as a stopwatch when you’re on the track. iPods can now record your thoughts when you dictate them into the microphone. The Nano can even count your steps and then tell you how many calories you burned by just walking around.

If you’ve got an iPod Nano, Shuffle, or Classic, you can use it as an external hard drive for hauling around monster files, like PowerPoint presentations and quarterly reports.

So if you’ve mastered the iPod’s AV Club talents and you’re ready for new challenges, this chapter is for you—it’ll show you even more ways to use your ‘Pod.

The iPod as Address Book

Putting a copy of your contacts file—also known as your computer’s address book—on your iPod is easy, as long as you have up-to-date software. Windows users need to store their contacts in Outlook Express, Outlook 2003 or later, Windows Contacts, or the Windows Address Book (used by Outlook Express and some other email programs).

Mac folks need to have at least ...