iPod - Operation

iPods (other than the iPod shuffle) have five buttons:
1 Play/Pause'
2 Menu' (which backs up one level in the menus)
3 Previous' (which skips back through tracks in play)
4 Next' (which skips forward through tracks in play)
5 Select' (the button in the center of the scroll wheel; this selects a menu or a song to play).

(Note that fourth and fifth-generation iPods, iPod minis, and iPod nanos incorporate these buttons into the "click wheel" scroll wheel.)

A 'Hold' switch also exists on the top of the unit. Setting this switch to display orange will make the buttons and scroll wheel unresponsive, so that users do not activate them accidentally.

Fourth and fifth generation iPods, second generation iPod minis, iPod nanos and iPod shuffles also automatically pause playback when headphones are unplugged from the headphone jack.

iPods with FireWire ports can be put into FireWire Disk Mode, in which it behaves like a FireWire hard drive without any of the additional iPod functionality.

An iPod unable to start (due to either a firmware or a hardware problem) displays the "sad iPod" image, reminiscent of the sad Mac icon of earlier Macintosh computers.