Make Your Ipod Battery Last

Ipod fans agree that the Ipod battery is the most vulnerable part of their beloved gadget, so lengthening battery life is an important concern. Once an Ipod battery runs out of juice, there's not much you can do, unless you want to pay Apple for a costly replacement battery, or shell out a few hundred dollars for a brand new Ipod. Here's the good news: if you're well-informed, you can do plenty to prevent battery burnout and extend the life of your Ipod battery! If you follow this simple guide to protecting your Ipod battery, your device will last longer and perform better. Treating your device right will lengthen your battery life, which means more hours of music for you!

Choose Smart Settings

Unfortunately, your Ipod battery can only take a limited number of charges before its efficiency starts to erode. This means that the best way to keep your Ipod battery working like new is to conserve battery power so that you get more hours of music for every charge. You can do this by choosing settings that conserve energy. Set your backlight to turn off quickly, so that you won't lose all your battery power to illumination instead of using it to play tunes. Avoid using Equalizer settings unless you absolutely must; although they give sound quality a slight boost, they really eat into the power supply. These small changes won't have much of an impact on how your Ipod looks or sounds, but they can really make a difference in the battery life of the device.

Get In The Right Habits

Of course, how much Ipod battery power you burn depends as much on how you use your device as on how you set it up. These simple habits can really add up over time, so learn them and use them to help improve your battery life. Whenever you're not listening to your Ipod, hit pause: even if it's for just a few minutes, you'll save a little power by stopping playback. Then, get to know the "hold" button on the top of your Ipod; when you slide it to the left, your Ipod locks, and no buttons can be pushed until you slide it back to the right. This means that your device won't accidentally get turned on if something brushes against it while it is in your bag or pocket, so you know your IPod battery won't be draining when you're not listening to the device. Try to minimize your use of the rewind and fast forward buttons, which use a bundle of power; to keep your music moving, use shuffle, or build playlists on your computer and then load them onto your Ipod. The less buttons you press, the less power you will use, and the better your battery life will be.

Use Your Ipod Often

Ironically, your Ipod battery will last longer if you use the device more often! Keeping your Ipod plugged in whenever you're not using it will actually help improve your battery life. Apple engineers recommend playing your Ipod through a full charge cycle at least once a month. This means that at least once every four weeks, you should use your device until it runs out of power, and then recharge it completely. Many Ipod users think that they can lengthen battery life by always recharging before the device runs out of juice, but it is actually better for the Ipod battery to occasionally run it until it is empty, and then recharge it to full. This keeps the electrons moving, which means less wear and tear.