Chapter 23. Listening to Music and Other Audio Files
If you have an iPod or other portable digital music player, you can put it aside because your iPad essentially duplicates all the features of an iPod (except for the smaller size). Besides listening to music, you can also listen to podcasts, audiobooks, or even iTunes University lectures.
Before you can play any audio files, you’ll need to load them into your iPad, as explained in Chapter 18 and Chapter 21.
In this chapter, you will learn how to listen to and control audio files on your iPad.
What You’ll Be Using
To listen to music and other audio files on your iPad, you need to use the following:
Playing a Song in Different iPod Modes
The iPod app lets you choose one or more songs and play them on your iPad. When playing a song, you have three options:
To see how to switch the iPod app into different modes, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iPod. The iPod screen appears.
Tap Music in the Library category in the left pane of the iPod window. A complete listing of your songs appears in the right pane.
Tap on a song that you want to hear. The Full screen mode appears, displaying the album art that the song came from.
Tap the screen. Controls appear at the top and bottom of the screen as shown in Figure 23-1.
Tap Return (it looks like an arrow in a circle, pointing to the left) in the lower-left corner of the screen. The album art of the currently playing song shrinks to a thumbnail image in the bottom-left corner of the screen, as shown in Figure 23-2. This is the Browsing mode, which lets you browse through the iPod app.
Press the Home button. The Home screen appears while your song continues playing in the background.
Press the Home button twice. A list of app icons appears at the bottom of the screen.
Swipe these icons to the right until you see the rewind, pause, play, and fast-forward, as shown in Figure 23-3.
Tap iPod to return to the iPod screen (or tap the screen to leave the music playing in the background).
Choosing a Song
All your songs get stored in the Music category in the iPod app. Since you might have hundreds of songs stored on your iPad, you need to know all the different ways to find a particular song so you can find what you want to hear as quickly as possible.
To learn how to find a song stored on your iPad, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iPod. The iPod screen appears.
(Optional) If you have music already playing, the album art will appear. Tap the screen to display controls, and then tap the Return icon (it looks like a left-pointing arrow) in the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Tap Music in the Library category in the left pane of the iPod window. A complete listing of your songs appears in the right pane.
Tap Songs at the bottom of the iPod screen, as shown in Figure 23-4.
Scroll up or down to see your list of songs.
Tap a letter, such as D or T, displayed on the index that appears on the far right of the iPod window. The iPod window lists all songs that begin with the letter you tapped.
Tap Artists at the bottom of the iPod screen. The iPod screen displays an alphabetical list of artists, as shown in Figure 23-5.
Tap the name of a recording artist. A list of albums from that artist, as well as songs from each album, appears, as shown in Figure 23-6.
Tap Albums at the bottom of the iPod screen. The iPod screen displays different album covers, as shown in Figure 23-7.
Tap an album cover. A window appears that lists all the songs from that album that are stored on your iPad, as shown in Figure 23-8.
Tap Genres at the bottom of the iPod screen. The iPod screen displays different genre icons.
Tap a genre icon. A window appears, listing all the songs within that genre that are stored on your iPad.
Tap Composers at the bottom of the iPod screen. An alphabetical list of different composers of songs stored on your iPad appears.
Scroll up or down to see your list of songs.
Tap a composer name. A list of albums and songs by that composer appears.
Controlling Your Music
When you first tap a song or other audio file, the iPad’s screen displays a large version of the album art. This makes your iPad more colorful to look at (while showing you which audio file is currently playing) but also gives you a few more controls to manipulate your audio file. You can control the iPod app from this screen, or you can go back to browsing for the next song.
To control your music as you play a song, do the following:
Find a song or audio file you want to play and tap it, as discussed in Choosing a Song in Choosing a Song.
The song’s album art appears on screen. If you don’t have the album art, a set of music notes appears.
Tap the image. Controls appear, as shown in Figure 23-9.
Try using the following controls:
Volume slider Drag this left and right to adjust the volume.
Playhead slider Drag this left and right to play different parts of the audio file. If you drag your finger down the screen as you drag left and right, you’ll lower the “scrubbing rate,” which will allow you to speed up or slow down so you can find a particular spot in a song or lecture.
Play/Pause Tap to pause or resume playing of an audio file.
Rewind Hold to rewind the currently playing audio file, or tap to play the previous audio file in a list.
Forward Hold to fast-forward through the currently playing audio file, or tap to play the next audio file in a list.
Genius Playlist The iPod app will use the currently playing song to create a new playlist of similar songs stored on your iPad.
Repeat Tap once to make a playlist loop, tap a second time to make a single song loop endlessly, and tap a third time to turn off the repeat feature entirely.
Shuffle Tap once to shuffle your audio list; tap a second time to turn shuffle off.
Album/Episode List Tap once to view all the songs or episodes for that album or podcast/iTunes U course, as shown in Figure 23-10.
Return Tap once to display the iPod screen with the audio file’s image shrunk to a thumbnail image in the bottom-left corner of the screen. You can go back to browsing and choose your next song from here, as discussed in Choosing a Song in Choosing a Song.
Finding a Podcast, Audiobook, or iTunes U Course
Podcasts, audiobooks, and iTunes U courses are simply audio files that do not contain music. Both podcasts and iTunes U courses work similarly. You can have multiple podcasts or iTunes U courses, and within each podcast or iTunes U course, you can have multiple episodes.
For example, a podcast about learning a foreign language might consist of several episodes where one episode explains greetings, and a second episode explains words for asking questions about food and eating out.
An iTunes U course might teach history, but within that course could be multiple episodes such as European history, American history, and the history of World War II.
To learn how to find a podcast, audiobook, or iTunes U course stored on your iPad, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iPod. The iPod screen appears.
Tap Podcasts in the Library category in the left pane of the iPod window. A list of stored podcasts appears, as shown in Figure 23-11.
Tap Audiobooks in the Library category in the left pane of the iPod window. A list of stored audiobooks appears.
Tap iTunes U in the Library category in the left pane of the iPod window. A list of iTunes U courses appears, as shown in Figure 23-12.
Tap an iTunes U course. A list of episodes for that course appears.
Searching for Any Audio File
Rather than search through individual categories such as the Music or Podcasts libraries, you might find it easier just to search for a particular audio file by typing part or all of the recording artist’s name, song title, or album name.
To search for any audio file stored in your iPad, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap iPod. The iPod screen appears.
Tap the Search field that appears in the upper-right corner of the iPod screen. A virtual keyboard appears, as shown in Figure 23-13.
Type a word or phrase. As you type, the iPod app displays a list of matching items. Click the one you want to play.
Tap the Hide Keyboard key at the bottom-right corner of the virtual keyboard.
Controlling Your iPod While Using Other Apps
While your iPod app plays, you can run another app such as Safari or Notes so you can do something else while enjoying your music. Try playing a song in the iPod app, then pressing the Home button. Your music continues to play. Press the Home button twice to display app icons at the bottom of the screen, and click the app icon that you want to use while your music is playing.
If you suddenly need to access the iPod app, just press the Home button twice and look for the iPod icon at the bottom of the screen. Tap it to view the iPod controls, which let you adjust the volume, rewind, or fast-forward.
Tagging Audio Files
You can dump thousands of audio files on your computer, but the more audio files you store on your iPad, the harder it will be to find the audio file you want. If you download music, audiobooks, or podcasts from iTunes, your audio files will already be labeled in different ways such as the artist name, song genre, or album title. If you’ve copied audio files from another source, they may not include any such identifying tags, so you’ll have to edit them manually within iTunes on your regular computer.
Note
If you don’t tag audio files, you can still play them, but it will be much harder to search and sort your untagged audio files.
To tag files on your computer, follow these steps:
Run iTunes on your Mac or Windows computer
Click the Music category in the left pane of the iTunes window. A list of all your currently stored songs appears.
Right-click a song that you want to tag. A pop-up menu appears.
Click Get Info. An Info window appears.
Click the Info tab, which provides text fields where you can type different tags for your audio file such as the name, year, genre, artist name, and album that the song came from, as shown in Figure 23-14.
Type a name, artist, album, year, composer, or any other information you want to use to identify your audio file. The more information you include, the more ways you’ll be able to sort and search to find the file.
Click the Genre list box, and choose a genre for your audio file such as Rock, Pop, or Country.
Click OK.
Note
If you want to add artist or album information for more than one song, you can select them using the shift or ctrl key. Just right-click Get Info and follow the previous instructions. The Info pane is also where you can change other settings such as treating a file as an audiobook.
Additional Ideas for Listening to Audio Files
Many people just listen to songs or podcasts, but there’s no reason why you can’t play different types of audio files, such as playing a few songs, then playing a motivational seminar, playing a few more songs, then playing part of an audio book, and so on. By mixing up the types of audio files you hear, you won’t get bored hearing the same type of audio, and you can take a break from listening to music and actually learn something from an audiobook or iTunes U course.
Although most people listen to audio files created by someone else, there’s no reason why you can’t create your own audio files, load them into iTunes, and then transfer them to your iPad. Record motivational speeches from yourself that you can listen to throughout the day to help you pursue a specific goal, such as sticking to a diet or quitting cigarette smoking. If you’re learning a foreign language, record audio files of phrases and words or entire conversations so you can practice listening to that language.
With the iPad, you have your choice of blasting your audio files through the iPad’s speakers or plugging in headphones and listening to your audio files in private. However you choose to enjoy your audio files, your iPad can help you take your audio files wherever you go and enjoy listening to them at any time.