Customizing Your Audio Experience

In this section, we cover some Music features designed to make your listening experience more enjoyable.

Finding even more choices

If you prefer to browse your audio collection by criteria other than playlist, artist, or song, you can: Tap the More icon in the lower-right corner of the screen. The More list appears. Tap a choice in the list — albums, audiobooks, compilations, composers, genres, iTunes U, or podcasts — and your audio collection is organized by your criterion.

Wait — there’s more. You can swap out the Playlists, Artists, Songs, and Albums icons for ones that better suit your needs. For example, if you listen to a lot of podcasts and rarely play entire albums, you can replace the Albums icon with a Podcasts icon.

Here’s how:

1. In the lower-right corner of the screen, tap the More icon.

2. In the upper-left corner of the screen, tap the Edit button.

3. Drag any icon on the screen right onto the button at the bottom of the screen that you want the icon to replace.

You can drag the Playlists, Artists, Songs, Albums, Audiobooks, Compilations, Composers, and Genres icons.

4. (Optional) Rearrange the four icons by dragging them to the left or right (you can’t move the More icon).

5. When you have everything just the way you like it, tap the Done button to return to the More list.

If you replace one of the buttons this way, the item you replaced is available by tapping the More icon and choosing the item in the More list.

Setting preferences

You can change a few preference settings to customize your iPhone-as-an-iPod experience.

Play all songs at the same volume level

The iTunes Sound Check option automatically adjusts the level of songs so that they play at the same volume relative to each other. That way, one song never blasts out your ears even if the recording level is much louder than that of the song before or after it. To tell the iPhone to use these volume settings, you first have to turn on the feature in iTunes on your computer. Here’s how to do that:

1. Choose iTunes⇒Preferences (Mac) or Edit⇒Preferences (PC).

2. Click the Playback tab.

3. Select the Sound Check check box to enable it.

Now you need to tell the iPhone to use the Sound Check settings from iTunes. Here’s how to do that:

1. On the iPhone’s Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

2. In the list of settings, tap Music.

3. Tap Sound Check to turn it on.

Choose an equalizer setting

An equalizer increases or decreases the relative levels of specific frequencies to enhance the sound you hear. Some equalizer settings emphasize the bass (low end) notes in a song; other equalizer settings make the higher frequencies more apparent. The iPhone has more than a dozen equalizer presets, with names such as Acoustic, Bass Booster, Bass Reducer, Dance, Electronic, Pop, and Rock. Each one is ostensibly tailored to a specific type of music.

The way to find out whether you prefer using equalization is to listen to music while trying out different settings. To do that, first start listening to a song you like. Then, while the song is playing, follow these steps:

1. Press the Home button on the front of your iPhone.

2. On the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

3. In the list of settings, tap Music.

4. In the list of Music settings, tap EQ.

5. Tap different EQ presets (Pop, Rock, R&B, or Dance, for example), and listen carefully to the way they change how the song sounds.

6. When you find an equalizer preset that you think sounds good, press the Home button and you’re finished.

If you don’t like any of the presets, tap Off at the top of the EQ list to turn off the equalizer.

According to Apple’s iPhone battery information page (www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html ), applying an equalizer setting to song playback on your iPhone can decrease battery life. So you need to decide which is more important to you: using equalization or maximizing battery life.

Set a volume limit for music (and videos)

You can instruct your iPhone to limit the loudest listening level for audio or video. To do so, here’s the drill:

1. On the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

2. In the list of settings, tap Music.

3. In the list of Music settings, tap Volume Limit.

4. Drag the slider to adjust the maximum volume level to your liking.

5. (Optional) Tap Lock Volume Limit to assign a four-digit passcode to the setting so that others can’t easily change it.

The Volume Limit setting limits the volume of only music and videos. It doesn’t apply to podcasts or audiobooks. And, although the setting works with any headset, headphones, or speakers plugged into the headset jack on your iPhone, it doesn’t affect sound played on your iPhone’s internal speaker.

Enable the Shake to Shuffle option

Shake to Shuffle does just what its name implies — plays a different song at random when you shake your iPhone. To enable this setting, here’s what to do:

1. On the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

2. In the list of settings, tap Music.

3. Tap the Shake to Shuffle button to turn the feature on or off.

From shake to shuffle — how can you not love that feature?

Make a playlist on your iPhone

Of course you can make playlists in iTunes and sync them with your iPhone, but you can also create playlists on your iPhone when you’re out and about. Here’s how:

1. Tap the Music icon.

2. At the bottom of the screen, tap the Playlists icon.

If you’ve replaced Playlists with another icon as described previously, tap More, and then tap Playlists.

3. Tap the second item in the list, Add Playlist.

4. Type a name for your new playlist, and then tap Save.

An alphabetical list of all songs on your iPhone appears. Note the little + that appears to the right of each song.

5. Tap the + next to a song name to add the song to your playlist.

To add all these songs to your playlist, tap the + next to the first item in the list: Add All Songs.

6. In the upper-right corner, tap the Done button.

If you create a playlist on your iPhone and then sync with your computer, that playlist remains on the iPhone and will also appear in iTunes on your computer.

The playlists remain until you delete them in iTunes or on your iPhone. To remove a playlist in iTunes, select the playlist’s name in the source list and then press Delete or Backspace; to remove a playlist on your iPhone, swipe from left to right across the playlist and then tap the red Delete button.

You can also edit playlists on your iPhone. To do so, tap the Playlists icon at the bottom of the screen (or tap More and then tap Playlists), and then tap the playlist you want to edit. Three buttons appear near the top of the screen — Edit, Clear, and Delete — with the songs in the playlist listed below them.

Tap Clear to remove all the songs from this playlist; tap Delete to delete this playlist from your iPhone. Or tap Edit to do any (or all) of the following:

To move a song up or down in the playlist: A little icon with three gray bars appears to the right of each song. Drag the icon up to move the song higher in the list or drag down to move the song lower in the list.

To add more songs to the playlist: Tap the + button in the upper-left corner.

To delete a song from the playlist: Tap the – sign to the left of the song name. Note that deleting a song from the playlist doesn’t remove the song from your iPhone.

When you finish editing, tap the Done button near the top of the screen. And that’s all there is to creating and managing playlists on your iPhone.

Set a sleep timer

If you like to fall asleep with music playing but don’t want to leave your iPhone playing music all night long, you can turn on its sleep timer.

Here’s how:

1. On the Home screen, tap the Clock icon.

2. In the lower-right corner, tap the Timer icon.

3. Set the number of hours and minutes you want music to play, and then tap the When Timer Ends button.

4. Tap the last item in the list, Sleep iPod.

If you don’t see the Sleep iPod item, don’t be alarmed (semi-clever wordplay intended). You’re simply looking at the middle (or the beginning) of the list of available alert sounds. To scroll to the bottom of the list and find the elusive Sleep iPod item, flick upward on the list a few times.

5. In the upper-right corner, tap the Set button.

6. Tap the big, green Start button.

That’s it! If you have music playing already, you’re finished. If not, press the Home button, tap the Music button, and select the music you want to listen to as you fall asleep. When the specified time period elapses, the music stops playing and your iPhone goes to sleep. By then, we hope you’re in slumberland as well.

Use your voice to control your music

Here’s something cool: You can boss around your music by using nothing but your voice, even if you don’t have an iPhone with Siri. Just press and hold down the Home button (or the equivalent button on a headset) and, after you hear the tone, you can:

Play an album, an artist, or a playlist: Say “Play” and then say “album,” “artist,” or “playlist” and the name of the album, artist, or playlist, respectively. You can issue these voice commands at any time except when you’re on a phone call or having a FaceTime video chat. In other words, you don’t have to have music playing for these voice commands to work.

Shuffle the current playlist: Say “Shuffle.” This voice command works only if you’re listening to a playlist.

Find out more about the song that’s playing: Ask “What’s playing?” “What song is this?” “Who sings this song?” or “Who is this song by?” Again, these commands work only if you’re already listening to music.

Use Genius to play similar songs: Say “Genius,” “Play more like this,” or “Play more songs like this.” If your iPhone has no Genius playlists and you say “Genius,” your iPhone will politely inform you that “Genius is not available.” The same thing happens if you say “Play more like this” or “Play more songs like this” when no song is playing.

And hey, because your iPod happens to be an iPhone, you won’t look stupid talking to it!

Although we found that controlling your music by speaking aloud works most of the time, in noisy environments the iPhone may mishear your verbal request and start playing the wrong song or artist or try to call someone on the phone. Using the wired headset helps. And syntax counts, so remember to use the exact wording in the list.

Shopping with the iTunes app

Last but certainly not least, the iTunes app lets you use your iPhone to download, buy, or rent just about anything you can download, buy, or rent with the iTunes application on your Mac or PC, including music, audiobooks, and videos. And, if you’re fortunate enough to have an iTunes gift card or gift certificate in hand, you can redeem it directly from your iPhone.

If you want to do any of those tasks, however, you must first sign in to your iTunes Store account:

1. On the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

2. Tap Store in the list of settings.

3. Tap Sign In.

4. Type your username and password, and then tap OK.

Or, in the unlikely event that you don’t have an iTunes Store account:

1. On the Home screen, tap the Settings icon.

2. Tap Store in the list of settings.

3. Tap Create New Account.

4. Follow the on-screen instructions.

After the iTunes Store knows who you are (and, more importantly, knows your credit card number, gift card balance, or PayPal info), tap the iTunes icon on your Home screen and shop until you drop.