iPod Shuffle Tips Part 3

The iPod Shuffle is the first iPod that has to be formatted as a FAT32 volume, and it has a lot of restrictions on file names – certain characters, such as the following: * . " / \ [ ] : ; = , cannot be used in the names of songs. If you are tempted to format your iPod Shuffle as a HFS drive, then don't – it will not be able to play any songs, making it nothing more than a very expensive memory stick! The character restriction doesn't apply if you use iTunes to transfer the files, as iTunes will re-name the files to something that is allowed. If you are copying files directly, however, then you will be alerted if the file has a disallowed character in the name. If you ignore this message, then be aware that if you copy the file to another computer from the iPod Shuffle, the file name will be different to what it was on the original computer.