There are a few simple things you could do to keep your iPod playing for longer as well as extending its battery’s life and good performance.
First off, you should know that moving from one track to other costs more power if the two are not related by a play list. Moving among unrelated tracks requires the iPod’s hard drive to keep spinning, draining battery life. A solution to conserve power is to simply create longer play lists that you could settle in to, instead of jumping around your iPod music library.
The hard drive and the way the iPod accesses its memory cache also works more efficiently with smaller file sizes. Specifically, files larger than 9 MB would put more stress on the iPod. Typical songs do not usually reach this file size if they are in the compressed formats such as MP3 or AAC, but uncompressed AIFF files may prove quite large and unwieldy. Large file sizes may also be reached by tracks consisting of more than one song such as medleys. The only remedy to this is to try and keep your iPod library’s songs’ file sizes down to manageable levels (<9>
Another way to prolong the iPod’s battery life is to decrease the amount of time the backlight remains turned on, or even turn it off entirely. The backlight may be a great help in seeing the screen, but it drains the battery a whole lot. If you are interested in getting the most playing time out of a single battery charge, you should adjust the backlight timer settings accordingly.
It could also pay off to get into the habit of turning the iPod off when not in use. Or if you would prefer not to turn it off when not in use, at least use the Hold switch located at the top of the iPod. This switch, when engaged, will disable the controls and prevent the iPod from skipping through tracks or other unintentional behavior.
The iPod battery was not designed for extremes in temperature, and its performance might decrease noticeably in especially hot or especially cold conditions. So, avoid leaving the iPod inside a parked car that would be likely to heat up, or exposed to direct sunlight. If the iPod is left out in the cold for too long, on the other hand, be sure to let it warm back up to room temperature first before attempting to turn it on again - or it might flash the low battery signal even though it might have some charge left.
And lastly, even when the iPod is not getting used, its battery gets drained completely in a period of about two to four weeks. Recharge the iPod every 28 days or so, then, to keep it in optimum shape, as it shouldn’t be left with an empty battery for long.
http://www.frozenipod.com/2007/how-to-extend-your-ipods-life/#more-31
