iPod touch 2nd gen is not showing apps or wifi

Let's concentrate on the music since as you have noticed, the apps are no longer usable. There is a lot of information in this post, but it's logical, not complicated. Take your time reading it, come back to it and refer to it whenever you need to.

Before that, an explanation about the lack of apps. Basically, app developers have updated the apps to a level where they require a more powerful iPod than yours. This will be for two reasons:

• • give the app more features, which in turn requires more memory and probably more processor power than your iPod has. It cannot be upgraded
  • security reasons: as the ne'er-do-wells have found ways to compromise an app and steal user's data, both Apple and the app developers have increased the security of their products to prevent such theft, but that in turn means that a more powerful computer is required (and make no mistake, your iPod is a computer)

Back to the music:

You have to use iTunes to add music to your 2nd generation iPod Touch. The steps (in basic terms) are:

1. add music (that's already on your computer) to your iTunes programme. This becomes your iTunes Library
2. copy the music from your iTunes Library to your iPod (very flexible). Note that one copies the music, one does not move it. I'll give you guidance on how to use Sync to manage the iPod (it will be much more fun than manually dragging music on and off the iPod)
3. play the music on your iPod

Synchronising the iPod with your iTunes Library will tell iTunes when you last played a song, whether you've changed the rating of a song (your "like" rating), etc. etc. which in turn can cause iTunes to adjust any sophisticated playlists that you create.

About iTunes:

iTunes (and the iPod) can handle many digital music formats. Apple's preferred option is their AAC (or m4a) format, but it can easily handle MP3s as well. The two formats to avoid are:

1. 1. 1. wav files - very large files and limited ability to add artwork to the song files. A wav file is basically the raw CD format, which is too large for practical use on an iPod
      2. flac files - iTunes can't play them and they cannot be added to your Library. If you have flac files, we can probably find a solution

First step - adding music to your iTunes Library (using the organisation that you've used to arrange the music files):

• • music already on your computer in digital form: use the iTunes' top bar menu File/Add Folder to Library and use the dialogue that opens to navigate to (but don't go into) the folder with the music in it. Highlight (select) the folder and click on Select Folder. Compatible songs in the selected folder (and sub-folders) should now be in your Library. We'll look for them in a minute. I suggest that you add one folder at a time for now, rather than a parent folder. If you add a folder and subsequently add a parent folder containing that one to your library, you will probably end up with duplicate entries for songs
  • to add an individual song, click on File/Add File to Library and this time, navigate and go into the folder with the song, select the song and click on Open. Again, compatible songs are added to your Library using this step

Music on CD:

• • If you have factory produced CDs, you can add them to your iTunes Library as well. Insert the CD into your computer's CD drive and once iTunes sees it, look for the CD icon at the top of your iTunes window. iTunes may or may not start importing the music automatically. If you get this far, try importing the music from the CD, it is intuitive, although not everyone gets it. If you prefer, we can discuss it in a further post. At that time, I can explain how iTunes organises the files it imports from a CD
  • Music files on a home burnt CD: there is a different method for adding these files to your iTunes Library. We can discuss this later

Once you have added files to your iTunes Library, do not delete, move or rename them. If you do, iTunes will lose track of them and not be able to play the songs

Working with your Library:

Digital music files (MP3, m4a etc.) contain "tags" which identify the song, by title, album title, artist, genre and quite a bit more besides. Providing your MP3s have been tagged fully or in part, they should be easy to find in your library:

• • files added to your library (as above) will be displayed in the Library section. There are several different views: Albums, Artists, Songs, Genres and Composers. You can make use of any or none of them, as you choose. If you have a look around your Library, you can decide which view or views you like and change between them easily
  • There are several things that you can do in the library before adding the songs to your iPod, but for now, try adding whatever is in your library to your iPod. We can discuss the other tasks later if you wish

Adding music from your Library to your iPod:

While I was writing this, I decided that this is the best time to stop. Once you've got the above sorted, we can move on to adding the music to your iPod.

1. No, the files need to be on your computer. I do not believe that you will be able to add internet links to your iTunes Library
2. On iTunes' top bar menu, click on View/Show Status Bar. (If the menu states "hide status bar", that means it is already on display.) The Status Bar is displayed at the bottom of the iTunes window. (See screenshot at the bottom of the post.) It can be changed (by clicking on it) to display:
   1. the number of items, days that the library will play, size of Library
   2. the number of items, time that the library will play, size of Library
3. I cannot remember whether you can delete them or not (it varies by iPod generation). Even if you do, it is unlikely to free up sufficient space to warrant the effort. While we're discussing "space", it might be worth you letting us know what the capacity of your iPod is, because if you have more music in your library than can be added to your iPod, I have a suggestion for working that limitation. Look in Settings on the iPod; again I can't recall exactly which menu its on but somewhere in Settings you will find the capacity of the iPod. I think it will be either 8GB, 16GB or 32GB. While you're in Settings, check the iOS version, just for the sake of it. It should be iOS 4.2.1
4. It depends on how the music is organised in your Library. See next paragraph

As I mentioned previously, if your music is correctly tagged, all of the information about a song is contained within the file and as a consequence, iTunes should already have organised everything for you. You should see songs grouped into their respective:

• • Albums view (Library - Albums)
  • Artists view, then albums by that artist (Library - Artist - Albums by that artist)
  • Songs view (Library - all songs) - an all-songs list that can be arranged in song title alphabetical order, Last Played order, Date Added order and many, many more possibilities.
  • Genres view (only songs of the selected genre {music style} are displayed, so an album with songs from more than one genre will not be fully displayed in this view)

Most of the views have sort options within them and you do not have to use any view for which you have no use. I switch between views, according to the task I'm on.

So the obvious next question for you is; are the songs (any, some, or all of them) tagged with enough information to enable iTunes' to arrange them as mentioned? If not, then we need to address that first.

Once your Library is tagged so that is self arranges, when you synchronise the iPod with the Library, the music player on the iPod will display the music in exactly the same way: by artist/album, or albums, or by songs etc. You will be able to play songs at random, or one album of your choice as well as other methods. Don't forget, you can also create Playlists (not to be confused with the modern idea of "playlists", which is anything someone likes to hear). We can work on Playlists later, because here's something else: once you have your music on your iPod (having used the synchronise method), you can make changes to your Library (such as adding songs to a Playlist, so that they can be played as one list), that will the be effected onto your iPod at the next Sync. It's a very clever (and advanced) system.

The screenshot below probably looks very complicated, but because I know what all the parts of it are showing, it really isn't. There are alternative views that show less, which you may prefer:

Well, that's annoying. My text was completely lost, so I'll have to start again.

Oxford755 wrote:

the Apple iPod file states there is 6.69 gb free of 13. 6 gb! So, is it possible that this iPod either has the wrong case showing 8gb or it has been upgraded to 16gb OR I'm wishful thinking?

Apple has never offered memory upgrades so perhaps the iPod has been given replacement case by someone (not Apple I'll guess). The capacity in Settings is what counts. You could check the serial number (which should be etched in very small type) on the back casing. Does it match the one in Settings?

All computer memory is calculated in an odd way (to most of us) so a 16GB iPod would show less memory than that. In addition, the operating system and other files use up some of the storage space. You can also check the capacity in iTunes (once the iPod shows up in it), but more about that another time.

Regarding the music in your Library that doesn't have the song information within it; guess what? You can edit the song to add the missing information (unless the file, is locked, which it should not be). While you can leave it unedited, it may make it difficult to work out which song is which, and you may find they all get put together as an "unknown album" or an "unknown artist".

In your Library (definitely not in Windows Explorer):

• • select the track and click on Edit on iTunes' top bar menu and then on Song Info on the pop-up menu that appears
  • this opens an Edit panel, that looks similar to the one shown below:

• • on the Details tab, you can complete the missing fields. In the order you see them above:
    • song is the song title
    • artist is the artist performing on that track. This field includes any guest artists on that track. A (single-artist) album might have two or three tracks with different guest artists on them
    • album is the album title. All tracks on an album must have identical information in this field in order to keep the album together
    • album artist is the main artist. So if a song features a guest artist, the main one must be in this field in order to keep a single-artist album together. If the album is a Various Artists compilation album, this field must be completed with the text Various Artists, or the album will get split up on your iPod (see also the compilation field)
    • composer can be regarded as an optional field. Don't worry if this information is missing
    • Show composer in all views is optional
    • grouping is a useful field for you to add a specific note (it an be left empty)
    • genre is the musical style. You can use your own genre if you wish. I recommend that you do use genre, it's a useful way to play music of the same style when you so choose
    • year is optional, but again, can be useful is you wish to play music from a certain year
    • track x of x will keep songs in the correct order on your iPod. Always useful if you prefer to play an album as the artist intended (or Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon for example)
    • disc number is useful for multi-disc albums (but iTunes and the iPod will cope if this field is not completed). It can keep all discs as one album, but in the correct track and disc order
    • compilation field must be completed if the album is a various artists one. Together with the album artist field, this keeps compilation albums together. Note that it must remain empty (unticked, or unchecked) for single-artist albums and for single-artist albums with guest artists
    • rating can be updated on the iPod. More on that at another time
    • for now, don't worry about the remaining fields below rating

You can bulk edit tracks for fields such as the artist and the album title, but exercise caution because it will overwrite what is already in there. That can be messy if you bulk edit the song title. To bulk select tracks, click the first song and shift-click the last one to select every one between the two. Alternatively, hold down the keyboard's CTRL key and select only the tracks you want.

By now, you should have tried playing songs in your iTunes Library. If not, give it a go.

These posts are restricted in size, so getting your music onto your iPod is for the next post.

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in responding; things to do, people to see, etc.

First of all, if your library is just 1.92GB, you should be able to add all of it to your iPod, so that's what we'll aim for. One more thing; this may seem like an awful lot of work, but this is simply preparation and setup. Once you have done this, adding additional music to your iPod is much more straightforward.

• To add music in your iTunes Library to your iPod, use the power lead (the one you use for charging it) and connect the free end to a spare USB port on your computer. iTunes should see the iPod automatically and an iPod icon will appear on iTunes' top bar menu (your iPod's icon will look slightly different):

• The display will show you the Device/Settings/Summary pane. (Device is the iPod.) On this pane, I suggest that you make sure that the:

1. 1. Sync only ticked songs and videos is ticked (checked). Using this option will allow you to remove a song (or two) from your iPod in a very simple step. We can go through this another time. Remind me if I forget to address anything that I said I would
   2. Manually Manage songs and videos is not ticked (is unchecked). Using Manually Manage means that you do far more work just to arrange music on your iPod. Sync (which I'll explain in a moment) is the way to go. As far as I'm aware, most experienced users who help out here will tell you to use Sync

• Tap on Device/Settings/Music (1.)

You should be able to add music to the iPod from an iTunes Library.

To help you further, the first questions are

1. 1. do you have music on your computer (in digital format)?
   2. do you have iTunes installed on your computer (Windows PC, or a Mac using OS Mojave or earlier)?
   3. is your music in your iTunes library?

If you have a newer Mac, using OS Catalina or later, there is no iTunes. Instead you use Finder (about which I know very little).

A couple of additional points:

• • the album artist field can remain empty for a single-artist album with no guest artists, both iTunes and the iPod will manage. However, it may be useful in the long term to add this information
  • the additional tabs on the Edit Song Info panel (such as Artwork, Lyrics, Sorting, Options and File) can be ignored for now. If you wish to add artwork, it can be done at later time. There's a knack to adding artwork
  • Sorting is exactly what it says; alphabetical sorting, but it is automatic, so you can ignore it. One thing to note is that iTunes ignores leading The and A for sorting purposes. So The Beatles will be displayed as The Beatles, but sorted as Beatles, while songs will be displayed as The Model (Kraftwerk - if you are interested) but sorted* as Model
  • Greatest Hits albums by one artist are not compilation albums, so the compilation field must remain empty. *

*Edited by author to correct error and add extra information.

Oops! Senior moment there...

Using the screenshot in my previous post:

• • click the box named Sync Music (2.)-(to put the tick in the box)
  • in this step (3.), click the option to Sync Entire Library. The boxes in 4. will not be displayed. This is not a problem
  • click the Sync (or Apply) button in the lower right corner of the iTunes windows (not shown in the screenshot)
  • iTunes will now go through the necessary steps to add your music to your iPod. By the way, it copies the music over; it does not "move" the music. This will make more sense later. While the Sync is in progress, you should see messages about it appearing in the Now Playing window at the top of iTunes. (You can see two messages in some of the screenshots. The actual text may be slightly different, but what it's telling you should be obvious)
  • Once the Sync complete message appears in the top Now Playing window, you can safely eject the iPod from iTunes. This is one by clicking the eject button which will appear just to the left of my orange 2 in the last screenshot. (It replaces the rotating "working" symbol). You can see the eject button in the middle screenshot). Make sure to use the safely eject button. If you don't you may cause issues on your iPod
  • Once safely ejected, you can unplug the iPod from your computer. The iPod is now ready to use

Hopefully, you will have noticed the Music player icon on your iPod. I'm desperately trying to remember what the 2nd generation Touch screens look like, but I'm going to struggle because my one has gone walkies. I have no idea where it is.

• • Tap the Music player icon and you should see various menu options, such as Songs, Albums, Artists and Genres
  • To play an album, go into the Albums menu and select the album you want to lay. Tap the first song in the list and it should begin playing. Each track on the album will play, the the player will stop
  • To play all songs by a specific genre, go into the Genre menu, choose the genre and select your start song
  • To play all songs, in a random order, go into the Songs menu and (here, I'm struggling), there may be a Shuffle button (two arrows). If not, tap your first song to start it playing, then (I think) tap the Now Playing screen to bring up additional controls, one of whihc is the Shuffle button. Tap the button so that it changes colour (subtle, grey to white or similar)

That's all there is to it. The iPod is intuitive, although some of the controls are found by either tapping the screen to turn the page (from displaying song artwork to the Up Next list, or song rating stars etc.) Experiment: there's almost nothing that you can do which will upset the iPod at this point. If it isn't doing what you want, or expect, think about what you logically have to tap to get it to do it. Or simply stop the music and start again.

To make changes:

• • you can add additional music to your iTunes Library as you did before. Then, make those edits if necessary. Once you're ready, simply connect the iPod to iTunes and let iTunes carry out a Sync (to synchronise the iPod with your Library)
  • you can add any song to a Playlist in your library and that Playlist will then be copied onto the iPod as well. You can then play that playlist, so if you always want to hear J.S.Bach, followed by Black Sabbath, you can set it up with a Playlist. You can still pay any of the music on your iPod as you wish (including the aforementioned ones); a Playlist is simply another list (to compliment the Artists, Albums and Genres menus
  • you can give a song a rating (one to five stars) on your iPod: I'll leave you to work out how (ask if you're really stuck). That song rating will be copied back to your iTunes Library by the next Sync. (This does not happen with Manually Manage)
  • you can edit songs in the Library to correct typing errors etc, even if that song is already on your iPod. The subsequent Sync will effect those changes on your iPod. (This also does not happen with Manually Manage)
  • also, the Sync will tell your library when the song was last played. I have Playlists that add or remove songs dependant upon when they were last played
  • you can set your iTunes Library to show songs in the Last Played order (I find this valuable) (If you use Sync, not Manually Manage)

If you wish to remove songs form the iPod, but keep them in your library, simply untick (uncheck) the songs (in the library) and Sync the iPod with it.

How are you getting on?

I knew there was something else.

Remember that I stated that the music is copied from your iTunes Library to your iPod?

• • think of your iTunes Library as a backup of your iPod. (iPods get lost, stolen, dropped and broken). So this means that you need to keep your iTunes Library
  • your iTunes Library simply lists the music that you have on your computer. It's a database and it refers to files stored on your computer (the music files that you see in Windows Explorer) whenever it is asked to play a song or to copy the song to an iPod. So do not move, rename or delete the files on your computer, or the paths to those files, iTunes needs them
  • this in turn means that the best advice is that you should backup the music on your computer to an external drive or storage location. That way, if your computer fails, you can recover the music from the back up. An iPod is not a suitable backup

Phew!

You're welcome.

By the way, I'm not sure how you'll get on with books as iTunes no longer actively manages them. One possible thing that you might encounter is if your music collection outgrows the capacity of the iPod. Mine certainly has and my method for managing that is to create Smart Playlists, which add and remove songs from themselves according to the rules I set (look on the File/New/Smart Playlist menu). I then use that playlist (well, several actually) to manage what is on my iPod, thereby keeping an ever-changing and fresh selection of music on the iPod while keeping recently played songs off the iPod, alll the time reducing the amount of space required for the music.