Charging the iPod s Battery

Charging the iPod's Battery

Like all portable electronic devices, the iPod has an internal battery. Before you start using an iPod, you need to charge its battery.

To charge an iPod using the power adapter, connect the FireWire to iPod Dock port cable to the power adapter and to the iPod. Then plug the power adapter into a power outlet.

Tip

If you are going to connect the iPod to a Macintosh or to a Windows computer using a six-pin FireWire cable, which comes with the iPod, you don't need to charge the iPod's battery because that is done automatically when you connect the iPod to your computer. If you use the USB cable instead, you have to charge the battery by using the power adapter.

While the iPod is charging, a battery icon will appear on its display and the word "Charging" will appear at the top of the screen. According to Apple, the iPod's battery is charged to the 80% level in two hours and fully charged in four hours.

When the iPod is fully charged, the display will contain a "full" battery icon and the status message will be "Charged." Unplug the power adapter and then disconnect the cable from the power adapter and from the iPod.

Note: Some Windows computers have a four-pin FireWire port instead of a six-pin port. In this situation, you need a four-pin to six-pin adapter to be able to use the FireWire cable. However, because a four-pin FireWire port doesn't support recharging the iPod's battery, there aren't many reasons to use a four-pin FireWire connector. If your Windows computer doesn't have USB 2, but does have a FireWire port, using the FireWire port will be better than using a USB 1 port, which I don't recommend (because it is much too slow to move music files in a reasonable amount of time).