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Optimal Performance for your Ipod Battery

Ipod TM is one of the most admired consumer brands available in the market today.

Ipods contrast in size from 512 MB to 80 GB and in different hues. Ipods with the size of 30GB and 80GB can hold about 20,000 songs, 25,000 photos, and up to 100 hours of video or any combination of each.

You can listen to an infinite number of your favourite songs and watch videos for up to 100 hours without any interruption. But what if the Ipod's battery life is over? What can you do to conserve your Ipod's battery lifespan? Just follow the steps below :

* Hold and Pause - When you are not using your Ipod, it is better to initiate the hold switch. This will save battery power. When you are not listening to Ipod, pause it, or turn it off by pressing the play button for two seconds.

* Change Your Settings-There are some features that use the Ipod battery needlessly:

* Backlight: Set the backlight on only when necessary. Otherwise, if it is 'always on', this will significantly diminish the life of the battery.

* Equalizer: The Equalizer utilises a significant amount of your Ipod's processor as the musical effects are not encoded in the song. Turn it off if you are not using it. Otherwise consider setting the Equalizer to 'flat' to have the effect of 'off'.

* Optimize your memory. Your ipod should play music out of a memory cache in the hard drive, which enables skip-free playback and shouldincrease battery life when properly utilized. To get this working correctly there are certain factors concerned with it which should be monitored:

* Fast Forward: Try to stop using fast forward altogether and instead construct a playlist in iTunes or use 'shuffle' to listen to your favourite tracks, because the more often you fast forward through your playlist, the more often your Ipod will have to fill its cache, thereby reading the hard drive more often and using more power. This will significantly diminish battery life.

* Use Compressed Songs: Try to store songs of average file sizes (less than 9 MB). Compress them if they are of a greater size, or use a different compression method, such as AAC or MP3, when importing them into iTunes. Besides this, you can also try breaking very long songs or tracks into shorter tracks that have smaller file sizes.

* In certain carrying cases, the Ipod Nano or Ipod shuffle may generate excess heat, which can affect battery functionality. If it feels hot, you should take your Ipod out of its case immediately.

Remember, after 400 full charge and discharge cycles, a properly cared for Ipod battery should still be able to retain up to 80% of its original functionality. When it no longer holds adequate charge, you should go for a new battery.

If in doubt about the capacity of your battery, you can perform the straightforward test that is outlined on the Apple website before considering battery service or replacement. If the test does not offer a clear result and you still feel that you are not getting the expected amount of play from the battery, you can ask for service at the Ipod's service request site. However, if your Ipod is no longer protected by the limited warranty or an AppleCare Protection Plan, you should instead contact Apple about the battery replacement program.

According to Apple , an iPod can play up to 20 hours, the new iPod nano can play up to 24 hours, and the new iPod shuffle can play up to 12 hours on a full charge at original capacity.

Apple guarantees the battery life of the Ipod by running a number of tests using songs encoded in various formats, including MP3, AAC and songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store. These songs are tested by being played repeatedly and without interruption, with backlight and equalizer off, using factory default settings.

For proper maintenance of a lithium-based battery, it's important to keep the electrons in it active, at least sporadically. Be sure to put your ipod through at least one charge cycle per month. If you use your iPod only once in a while, you might want to add a reminder to your calendar program.