The iPod was a truly revolutionary device when it was launched. MP3 players had been around for years, but they were clumsy, had little storage capacity, looked ugly, and were completely impractical when it came to actually playing music. The iPod, of course, changed all that. Here was a music player that looked great, had an amazing interface (particulary the ones after the 3rd Generation), could actually hold enough music, and made managing your music library as easy as 1-2-3. No wonder people have called the iPod the gadget of the decade.

The iPod is now fast going out of fashion, its market share slowly overtaken by other Apple products – the iPhone and the iPhone Touch. Regardless, the iPod still remains a much desired gadget and millions of units are sold across the globe. Apple keeps on refreshing the line with new offerings every few months, such as the iPod Nano Video, the new iPod Shuffle, etc.

An iPod can’t really work without iTunes, of course. I was asked by a reader recently if it was possible to add songs to her iPod without using iTunes. Sadly, as of now, there is no legal way of doing so. Apple is known to be very strict about what can and cannot be added to its devices (you may know about the controversy regarding the iPhone app store). Consequently, only the iTunes software can be used to add music, videos, pics and podcasts to your music player.

A particular problem arises when people want to add videos to their iPod. Simply adding the video to your iTunes library won’t cut it as you need the video to be in a particular format for it to run on your music player. This format is MPEG-4 with the H.264 codec enabled. You can very easily convert your videos to this format through free tools. Just type in ‘ipod video convertor’ into Google and you will see tons of results. Download the software and quickly convert your videos to the above mentioned format. Once done, all you need to do is add them to your iTunes library and sync it with the i-pod.

Little problems like these aside, the iPod remains a revolutionary media device that has not only become a cultural symbol, but has changed the very way we consume music.