Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
If you own an iPhone or iPod touch, you're probably familiar with the
shake-to-shuffle feature: Simply shake the device, and the accellerom-
eter recognizes the action and switches to shuffle play mode. The iPod app on
the iPad doesn't support that feature—believe me, I tried shaking, twisting, and
waving my iPad and only got strange looks from the other people on the bus.
My guess is that the iPad is just large enough that shaking isn't as practical
when listening to music, so Apple didn't include the feature.
Do you have a favorite album that begs to be repeated? In the Now
Playing screen, tap the repeat button (
) once to replay an album. Tap
it again to replay the current song.
iTunes includes a feature called Genius Mixes, which assemble playlists
based on the contents of your music library. Genius Mixes show up as
albums when you sync, and are accessible from the Genius Mixes sidebar
item in the iPod app. Tap a mix to start playing it. Unlike when playing
other albums, you can't see (or edit) which songs are included in a Genius
Mix—you just have to trust the algorithms (which often do a pretty good
job, in my experience).
Podcasts and audiobooks use the same playback controls as other audio
tracks, but they gain a couple of extra features.
■
Change reading speed:
Since most podcasts and audiobooks are
spoken-word performances, your ears are more sympathetic to changes
in playback speed. In the Now Playing screen, tap the speed indicator
( ) to the right of the scrubber bar to switch between 1x (normal), 2x
(twice as fast), or
V
x (half of normal).
