Chapter 1. Powering Up Your iPod touch

In This Chapter

  • Looking inside the box

  • Finding out what your iPod touch is good for

  • Connecting to your computer and iTunes

  • Using and recharging your battery

You hold in your hands the greatest portable music player in the world, which also happens to be the greatest portable video and game player. But that's not all: With built-in wireless Internet connectivity, the iPod touch defines an entire new class of ... thing.

Powering Up Your iPod touch

I want to call it a device, but it's so much more — the iPod touch puts the entire world in your pocket. Not only can you download tunes and games directly to your iPod touch, but you can also select from a library of over 85,000 applications (known as apps) that offer everything from soup to nuts. Apps come in the form of databases that serve up local restaurants based on your location; utility programs that connect you with social networks like Facebook; and a plethora of navigation, lifestyle, health, sports, reference, finance, productivity, and travel aids. Apps even let you send and receive e-mail and visit your favorite Web sites.

Less than a third of an inch thick and weighing only 4 ounces, the iPod touch is really a pocket computer — it uses a flash memory drive and an operating system that can run applications. It shares the design characteristics and many of the features of its more famous cousin, the iPhone, with the same ...

Get iPod touch® for Dummies® now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.