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iPod Dissection and Review
Mister Man writes "I saw over at AnandTech that there is finally
a decent iPod review out there. Not only does the review include screen shots
galore, they also have some pretty cool pictures of what is inside that pretty
little box. Also discussed is information on how to connect an iPod to a Windows
based PC. Check out the
article for the real deal. Sadly, it doesn't seem like there is Linux based
software yet."
I run linux and just got an iPod ofr christmas. I was ready to hack at it to get it to work. The biggest problem is that the HFS+ drivers is "read-only" only. Until we can progress the drivers to be able to "read-write", we are stuck. There is some good Windows software. Ephpod (free software) with MacDrive/MacOpener (commerical) combo works great.
Scott
Scott
janitor
sdn website family
email: scott at sboss dot net
If I understand it correctly, what is holding iPod on Linux back is the lack of HFS+ support.
While HFS+ read support seems to be up and working (more or less), HFS+ write support is just not there. It's been on wishlists for years, but so far no luck.
Can anyone say what the stumbling block is? Is it lack of or misleading documentation? Is it a patent issue?
Is there code in Darwin that could be legally borrowed and turned into an HFS+ module?
if you can write to an hfs+ drive you dont need any special software, the iPod keeps it's music in a hidden folder called `music` right on the drive, just drop your mp3s in there and you can play them.
--aiee
Of course there's nothing Creative! They don't make the iPod, Apple does.
Silly first poster, Creative makes Nomads.
I'm a little fascinated by Slashdot's ongoing fixation on this device. I mean, it is Apple-only at this point (Mediafour's PC-compatability efforts notwithstanding) and no one seems to be talking about Linux interactivity at all, aside from suggestions on how to basically hack into the hard drive. People keep saying it's expensive, that nobody will want it, and yet the local nerds keep bringing it up.
My only theory as to why is because it may not be Linux-y, but it's still a fascinating device. Aside from the technical challenges involved in accessing it from Linux, it's still a totally unique approach to MP3 players, from the interface to the controls to the expandability to the super-high-speed FireWire. It's Apple, which means it's about as proprietary as they come, but the geeks keep wanting to take it apart and make it work for them.
And I don't think it's because they want to break the proprietariness. Apple does that for convenience (theirs), not to lock people out, and anyone with a FireWire port on their Linux box and enough software-writing experience can eventually get it to sync with their favorite MP3 player. Microsoft locks down their software and people hack it because they don't like being told "no." Apple does it to sell iMacs, and people hack it because they don't want an iMac.
But what that means is they do want the iPod. If it weren't so expensive, I don't doubt it'd be Linux-ized already. Hopefully next year it'll be $100 less with a 10GB model replacing it, and we'll see a little more hacking going on.
But to me, this sounds like a success story for Apple. Yes, we all know its pricey and proprietary, but Slashdotters just can't seem to keep their eyes off of it. And if Apple can draw that much drool from the free software community, I think it's proof positive they know what they're doing.
As with all other song information on the iPod, the artist information comes from the MP3's ID3 tags, which it pulls and stores in a database for easy access.
/.'er will reply with info about a tool that will automate this process, thus radically simplifying my purchasing rationalization^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H decision.
...Anyone?
Am I the only one whose ID3 tag info is sorely lacking across his entire collection? Either I've got a lot of work ahead of me before I'm iPod-ready, or some benevolent
Just dropping the mp3s onto the iPod hard disk doesn't allow you to play them.
The iPod keeps track of everything in a song database; you need to figure out how to create and modify this database in order for the iPod to recognize and play songs.
Yeah, this is way offtopic, but here goes:
I have the iPod, and love it. My only gripe with it is that names/albums are sorted with any existing 'A' or 'The' at the beginning of the string. If I want to play something by The Jam, I intuitively scroll to the Js, not the Ts. At least with iTunes, I can do radical ID tag surgery before I rip the CD...
You mean unlike Linux? Yeah, Slashdot should finaly realize where the cookie's at, and concentrate on delivering the Redmont gospel.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
here you go: http://freshmeat.net/search/?site=Freshmeat&q=id3& section=projects
If your files are well named (no particular format, as long as they're all in the same format, ie. artist-title.mp3 or something) then there are definitely programs out there to fill in the id3 tags. I'm drawing a blank on the ones I've used in the past (I think it's called 'mp3 tagger'), but run a google search on "mp3 tagger" or something like that.
I had to get into completing my ID tags a *long* time ago, because the MacOS only supports 31 character filenames (X will do 255, but this was 1998-ish), so a filename like "various_artists_pulp_fiction_soundtrack_02_dick_d ale_miserlou.mp3" would come out like "various_artists_pulp_ficti.mp3" and that doesn't really tell me a whole lot, does it? :)
:)
I push for folks using the ID3 tags for this reason, and for a more important, non-platform related one: if the tags are complete, there are tools that will rename the file to whatever the hell YOU want.
Don't like album_artists_song_track? How about album_track_song? or year_song_artists_album_track? or any combo of the above? If the tag's there, and more importantly COMPLETE and CORRECT goddamit, you have the option. With no tags, I'm gonna go fill them in anyways, so why not just put them there when ripping? There are a zillion programs that will cddb or freedb lookup for ya.
Heck, even if all your songs are album_artist_track_song or whatever, there should be tools available that will translate those into meaningful tags. Just don't ask me about em cuz I don't know.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Isnt this just one of the things MS Slaggers have been ranting about all these years? That is, an OS only device? or Apple only device as in this situation, much like a Windows only device, like Winmodems.
So is Apple a great evil empire now?
--
Rodney McDonell
Oh sure, you can do it their way, but wouldn't you rather prove your supreme 1337-ness and do it the h4x0r way? Here's how!
Supplies needed:
$399 + tax (to purchase iPod, can be substituted for prexisting iPod or shoplifted iPod, etc.)
Tylenol (or asperin)
dremel tool
cut off bits for dremel tool
one Trinitrotoluene (TNT) stick
matches
1/2 can of beer (not Budwiser)
two dozen raw shrimp
philips screw driver
flathead screw driver
1/2 cup of flour
teaspoon of salt
deep-fat fryer with oil
Place iPod on a suitably flat surface such as a table. Using The Force(TM), will the case to open. If this doesn't work, The Force(TM) is probably offline today and you'll just end up with a severe headache, take some Tylenol proceed to the "Manual Entry" step. If you succeeded, proceed to the "Innards" step.
Manual Entry
Look for screws and remove them with the proper screwdriver. If you're unable to locate screws, proceed to "Forced Entry". If you succeed, proceed to the "Innards" step.
Forced Entry
Use the flathead screwdriver and try to pry the case apart. If you're unable to pry the case apart, use the dremel with a cutting bit to cut the case apart. If the cutting bit breaks, proceed to the "Drastic Measures" step. If you succeed, proceed to the "Innards" step.
Drastic Measures
Take the iPod outside and tape to the stick of TNT. Use the matches to light the fuse. RUN LIKE HELL. If you're successful, you should now have an opened iPod.
Innards
Admire the amazing work that must have went into creating this device. Since this article is only about taking your iPod apart, there will be no instructions on how to reassemble it. Instead, you will be provided with a delicious recipe for beer-batter fried shrimp.
1. In small bowl, mix flour, beer, and salt.
2. Shell and devein shrimp; rinse with running cold water and pat dry with paper towels.
3. In 2-quart saucepan over medium heat, heat 2 inches salad oil to 375 degrees F. on deep-fat thermometer (or heat oil in deep-fat fryer set at 375 degrees F.)
4. Dip shrimp, one at a time, into batter and drop into hot oil. Fry shrimp until lightly browned, turning shrimp once, about 1 minute. Drain shrimp on paper towels.
*** 165 calories per serving. A good source of iron.
However, this is an audio device. Why so few reviews discussing its audio quality? How does it stack up to, say, a decent quality mini-disc player? Not in terms of tech features, but just quality of sound?
My own opinion? I love the look of it, and most particularly the size of it. I'm one of those who will need to wait for XPlay, but that looks to be coming along nicely. My only quibble is that I'll still need to get an FM radio - it would have been great had an FM radio been included. People still need to find out about new or different music as well as listen purely to their own collection.
However, once XPlay is publicly working with playlists and deletes, an iPod is likely to be in my pocket before the week is out...
Cheers,
Ian
Why oh why did they call the Windows software XPlay?
I guess we'll have to call the Linux X-Windows version "WinPlay".
bp
A couple of reasons...
-Apple's marketing strategy revolves around the idea of the "digital hub." The iPod (and iTunes) are a major component of this strategy. Note that these commodities are exclusive to Apple. By producing a Windows version of the iPod, both Apple and Windows users would be able to experience the same great music experience. Apple wants to distinguish itself from the rest of the PC market, not cater to it. Making the iPod Mac-exclusive serves as an incentive for users to go Mac.
-Practically speaking, in terms of both production and support, Apple would be inviting trouble on itself by producing a PC version. Though Apple has tinkered with PC products before, everyone would agree it is not their forte.
-Why produce an entirely new version of the iPod when Windows users, granted with an extra cash outlay, already will be able to use the original? Simply because Firewire isn't standard on PCs yet? Please.
Although xTunes cannot communicate with an iPod, it is a rather accurate representation of the iTunes interface, and has the same good feel to it. However, I wasn't quite pleased with the requirements for getting it to compile--I was forced to use Gtkmm, had to download MAD (I primarily use mpg123), and could not get either MAD or LAME to crank out shared libraries (eventually, I just plunked all of the objects from the static libraries and linked them as a shared library).
-
And the Angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots! The cries of the carrots!"
Does the Ipod play anything but mp3 files?
My whole collection of 3000 odd songs is in wma, does this means I'm going to have to re-encode them?
I want one so bad i might even do that....
My current favorite is ID3-TagIT. It lets you go back and forth from filenames to tags in both directions, supports batch tagging and batch renaming, upper/lower case correction, id3v1<->id3v2, automatic sorting into folders, etc. It's very comprehensive and easy to use.
http://giantlaser.com/~jason/ipod.html
...
interesting link
The first item that jumps into view upon dissecting the iPod is the battery. Made by Sony-Fukushima, the battery is a [...]
I couldn't help, after reading that, of thinking of the time Homer was looking at a globe and pointed to Uruguay...
"Heh heh.. You are gay!"
The neutrality of this sig is disputed.
But, according to http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/10/29.4.s
So why has Mediafour "decided to respect Apple's wishes" when Apple's own software allows the copying of MP3's to different Macs?
As far as I understood, the iPod connected to the Macintosh using a DAV connection, so it shouldn't matter what filesystem is used.
Can't that hideous, "is it bold, or is it not," hard to read, "it was futuristic when Logan's Run came out, but now it's just as sad as Michael York's career," just die a death without Apple having to use it freaking everywhere?
When I see a something printed in Garamond, it screams, "technophobe".
Give me Arial, or give me death. Or maybe Palatino, that's nice than Times New Roman.
I'm amazed that anybody'd want to port linux to it. I mean. I understand the imperitive that linux is eventually ported to everything down to my socks, but honestly, what's the point? The ipod's pretty useful, but it wouldn't be nifty enough in a different capacity to get me all that excited about having it do anything else. There's plenty've other things far more hackable. Porting to an ipod (don't know how it'd work, don't know if it's possible, just as a concept) would seem kind've like development masturbation. Go get a gba instead and play with that. :)
You need MacDrive or MacOpener to be installed too but if it allows me to copy MP3's from an iPod to the PC (which neither XPlay or iTunes allow you to do) then its going to be a winner.
ps. Yes I know why they've done it but its something I (and probably others) would find useful whatever your moral standing.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Apple's making alot of money from the iPod, and not just from the device's sales. The iPod is bringing in people to the Apple Store, where many of them end up buying Macs. 40% of the Apple Store's computer buyers don't already own macs.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
. . . with Apple's products is that they are too trendy and hip.
I picture my living room with an iMac in it, or at the gym with an iPod and just shake my head. Is that not the most conspicous of consumption or what?
Driving around a midwest hamlet in my Saab is bad enough; if the locals see me with an alien looking device in hand I might just get run out of town!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
It's more about providing a balance. I know it's because of the Expo but man has there been a ton of Mac articles lately. Considering that Apple was the most closed system up until OS X it is amazing how much attention it has attracted from open-source now. It's like the prodigal son.
Seems like a nice interface, and any OS will be supported in the end: http://www.sonicblue.com/audio/rio/rio_riot.asp Curious about the size though. Zdnet.com has a video review.
This review is nice and informative, but I can't help but scoff at the sentence (on the first page) pointing out the "fatal flaw in the iPod design": It only works for MacOS.
"Fatal flaw in the iPod design"? Give me a fucking break. "Pain in the ass for Linux and Windows users", sure. But to imply that it's a design flaw would be to say that somehow Mac exclusivity was not in the designer's plans. I think it's fairly bloody obvious why Apple would design a cool peripheral that could only be used with its own OS. It's not by accident, or by poor design. It's 100% intentional.
That's like saying "Puccini's Turandot is a great opera; its fatal flaw is that it's not in English".
Do domain names matter?
I've had my iPod since late October and I love it. It has worked flawlessly and live up to all of my expectations. I was afraid of how sturdy it would turn out to be, but I've managed to drop it a few times (once from about chest height) with no ill effects. My Rio 600 was totally destroyed after being dropped from the same height. I only have 2 complaints:
...
1. The stainless steel back does scratch easily... mine was scratched after just a couple of days of carrying it in the pockets of my coats and jeans. Still, though, peple see it and say "hey, is that one of those Apple MP3 things?"
and
2. I don't really like the earbuds. I can't wear them for more than a few minutes without getting sore ears. No big deal, though, I just got some head phones. I've never found any earbuds that I like, however, so I was not expecting to be happy with the ones that come with the iPod.
It works great in FireWire disk mode as a quick backup disk or as a quick way to transfer large files from one Mac to another. I've read about people who have booted their Macs from an iPod, but Apple does not recommend doing that. I believe that it's because the internal disk was not designed to spin for long peroids of time or to hold up to frequent reading and writing. I don't know for sure, but that's what I am guessing.
The battery life is stupendous and actually exceeds the 10 hours that Apple lists in the specs. I listen to mine at work all the time and it never drops below about 50% or so.
Some people have complained about the lack of an on-board equalizer, but you can do that in iTunes and the settings are applied to the MP3 file & the iPod recognizes them when the file is transferred so that's not really a big deal.
It does get a little warm... when it's been playing for a long period of time. Nothing like the G3/G4 PowerBooks though.
All in all, it's the best MP3 player I've seen. Sure, it's only a 5 gig hard drive, but the ease of use more than makes up for that minor shortcoming.
That font is actually an old typeface called Chicago, and looks nothing like Apple Garamond. It does make the iPod look more Mac-like, though in a retro sort of way (Apple hasn't used that font in years). I imagine the reason it was selected for the iPod is the same reason the old Mac OSs used it. Their UI research determined that Chicago was superior as a screen font in terms of readability and the thicker appearance also made it easier on the eyes; remember this is long before GUI-level antialiasing was available.
"Leave the strategizing to those of us with planet-sized brains." -Tycho
Heh... in reference to a future windows-compatible iPod from Apple:
;-)
Apple is great at keeping secretes (sic)
I know a certain Canadian news agency that won't be getting an early look at the iWinPod
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
For Mac OS, MP3 Rage can do similar things, like rename files according to tags or gleaning tags from the pattern of the file name.
Why do so many MP3 files not have tags ?
I wonder if you could hack it like Jeff K.
I can't understand why Slashdot is focussed on this device, which doesn't support most operating systems and is non-hardware upgradeable and therefore limited to a tiny 5gb of storage space.
How many times do we have to say Archos Archos Archos!!
For those who don't wish to follow the link - it points to the Archos jukebox recorder 20, which has a 20Gb disk drive and can record from analog or digital sources direct to MP3. The disk drive is a standard 9.5mm height 2.5" IDE drive (why do we always specify height in metric but diameter/width in imperial?) and so can be replaced with a 40Gb drive if required, and presumably bigger ones in a fe months time as they become available..
It's no more expensive than the iPod and works with Mac, Windows or Linux, doubling as an external hard drive.
I just don't get it..
Q.
I know this is practically flamebait here but, look at it from this perspective. Out of all the MP3 players out there, which platform did they work for first? That's right, you got it, more than likely Windows. So Apple comes out with the iPod and everyone whines and complains that the small shiney new toy doesn't play well with windows. Yeah I'm sure that's Apple Computers number one priority, right along with handing out iMovie, iDVD, iTunes and now iPhoto to windows users too. So you are all whining because Apple is playing favorites for the people who actually BUY their computers?
Windows users, usually get everything in the computer industry first with the exception Apple stuff, and open source and there are reasons for this. Windows users make up the largest share of the consumer computer industry, so they have all the deals to get everything for windows first becuase that's where the majority of the money will be made for the companies that make that hardware/software/printer/scanner/whatever.
So you windows users are going to complain when the other team has something that some of you think is better that they aren't being fair? I'm sure some company will make a knock off for you soon enough.
Moderating to further my personal world domination agenda... and to get chicks.
I've wanted an iPod since they came out. They are small, work extremely well, and produce good sound. Even with the high price, they are worth while. Of course, the problem is you really need a Mac to make all the bells and whistles work. This isn't a problem for apple though.
Between the iPod, the ease of creating a home DVD (iMovie, iDVD, + third party high end stuff, if you need it), manipulating pictures (iPhoto) and organizing your music (iTunes) Apple has got it right. I used to be a Mac lover, and now I'm ready to become one all over again. After seeing the new iMac in the store (which will fit on the kitchen desk, something my PC never has done) I'm going in whole hog.
What does that mean for apple? Well, they will get me for an iMac plus an iPod. Additionally someone (cannon, likely) will get a MinDV and a new still digial camera out of it. The digital hub is here, and is only going to get better.
The hold up for the Mac has always been other software. For my needs that's all there as well now. There are good ssh clients and terminal emulators. Office works, better than windows in fact. IE is available (yes, for web work you have to have it). Heck, there are even respectable games these days.
I think Apple is on the comeback, and I think their digital hub is a smash hit idea, both for the home user who "just wants it to work", as well as for the geek who "just wants the mundane to work" so he can get on with the cool stuff.
Am I the only one whose ID3 tag info is sorely lacking across his entire collection? Either I've got a lot of work ahead of me before I'm iPod-ready, or some benevolent /.'er will reply with info about a tool that will automate this process...
/iTunes best recognize ID3 v2.3.0 tags.
You are not alone. Even folks who use an auto-tagger when ripping our CDs have trouble, since the CDDB isn't terribly consistent with artist names, etc..
The most effective solution for sprucing up MP3 tags is a Mac-only app, MP3 Rage. It will do such nifty things as strip "The " from band names, and create ID3 artist/title/album tags based on file-containing folders and file names (e.g. MP3s/Pop/Cake/Fashion Nugget/01-Frank Sinatra.mp3). You probably have your MP3s organized this way already, so it might take 10 miutes to tag your entire collection.
I apologize in advance for recommending a commercial, Mac-only product. If you want to write you own app, you should know that the iPod
Instead of a large RAM buffer, they could've used a special HDD. The drive should have 2 modes: regular high-speed access and low-power slow mode for MP3 playback. The slow mode can be 1/100 of the normal speed (20kbytes/s instead of 2Mbytes/s).
I understand that the head can not float above the disc surface at 54 RPM, so this must be a special design, something like ZIP drive.
Arial? Could there be an uglier font?
That's why. Avoid a lawsuit from the RIAA and still allow a competitive advantage (moving files).
wouldn't it be cool to be the guy that opened up iPod to a vast new platform? Am I missing something? That seems damn cool to me. I'd do it myself, but I'm just another damn lawyer.
because any decent OS allows for good filenames, like "band name - song title". with a decent mp3 player (winamp, xmms), it will parse that properly - no need to deal with any id3 junk
and gets the joke across. personally, I hate arial, because can't tell these apart: 1lI
(one, lowercase L, and uppercase i)
sometimes, logic must be sacrificed on the alter of readable jokes.
Just imagine if the Woz had held public meetings immediately after he built the Apple I to show people how he did it. Wait a minute...!
Griffin Technology makes an adapter.
You may want to get one of the laptop amps that Thinkgeek sells and preamp your iPod before it hits the cassette adapter. Granted, I've only experimented with my boyfriend's POS Subaru tape deck in his car, but we seemed to get very quiet output.
____ _______
Duty now for the future!
...Is how much Slashdot seems to enjoy seeing pictures of cool/cute hardware getting cut open.
I'm not letting any of you people near my new car.
The other issue is writing to the ipod database. Simply slapping songs on the iPod won't allow them to play. The database has to be populated, On macs this is done by iTunes.
A mini hard drive (maybe?) type mp3 player that's the size of a cassette tape that you can pop into an in-dash tape deck. It could use AMS (that music sensor thing that stops FFD & REW between songs) to advance and backtrack between tracks with the stock FFD & REW buttons by just modifying the signal to the pickup head when the wheels are spun in one direction or the other.
There's a huge installed base of tape decks in cars all over the world, it would have a market waiting for it. I know I'd buy one if its memory was reasonably good. I'd buy a few...
i'm an impulse buyer. i have a win2k box but my dad has a cube, so i figured i wouldn't be totaly dead in the water. here are my observations:
i never cared about id3 tags because i centralize my meta info in a database. after my first import, i had 3 differient spellings and therefore 3 differient artists for the dave matthews band. no delete capability in Xplay. FRICK! nothing a perl script (and my dad's mac) can't fix though.
other than that, Xplay rocks. i had 1 or 2 stability problems, but it gets the job done. on the face of it, it seems more than just a read / write HFS+ filesystem going on in here. there is a database that gets populated with id3 info. not sure if that's some sort of layer over the filesystem, or if the db just gets populated seperatly.
i would have liked a more standard filesystem so i could use this thing as a general firewire drive. (as it stands, i can move big files from mac to mac. pointless for me.)
audio quality rocks. i a/b tested this with winamp (whose quality sucks) and splay (still my favorite). it's up there.
the earbuds aren't the most comfortable, but it's saveing grace is the volume level. this thing can get LOUD! the other mp3 players never really could cut it for me.
gets scratched easily, but it smells realy nice. big thing with me. smells like a new hard drive you just opened. and it keeps smelling new car'ish.
literature says it holds 20 minutes in ram. (anti skip) you pick a set of tunes to play and press play. there is a pause as it spins up it's disk and then play begins. i guess it preloads the files then and spins the drive down. if you skip 4 or 5 songs (20 minutes worth) you have to wait for the drive to spin up again. takes a second or 2. no big deal, i'm just impatient.
hopefully it's best feature will be that it forces us to get read/write HFS+ going. if so, i'd look into trying to repartition the drive so i could have a 5 meg FAT partition that could hold the windows / linux HFS+ drivers and use this thing as a portable hard drive as well.
If you actually go through the article, you'll see the discussion of the 3rd-party software used to make the iPod compatible. Moreover, Apple appears to be allowing them. I don't see where it refers to Apple themselves selling this software, at all. Neither does it say that they're planning on making a non-Firewire version...
--bdj
Put it another way. Apple claims it sold 100,000 iPods in two months. I'm skeptical, but assume that's correct. That means a PC-compatible version could have sold a million. Well probably not -- there's the firewire issue. But imagine the impact of even doubling sales. Economies of scale, leading to lower prices. More credibility for Apple products, leading to more people consider Macs over PCs. Etc.
What's really interesting is that Apple chose to make the iPod look like an HFS disk. There's no reason they couldn't have used something more standard -- the iPod isn't MacOS-based after all, and the Mac platform isn't that picky. But HFS is "better" than non-Mac file systems. Once again, the techno-cool factor won out over practical considerations.
Okay, here is where I gloat about scooping everyone. When the iPod was first announced, I did my homework and figured it the hard drive used was the Toshiba MK5002MAL, and it turned out to be the HDD1242 which are, in fact, the same drive.
Here is where I get to gloat about being ahead of the curve for once! Yippie!
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
>Since when does Slashdot talk about OSes other than Linux?
Hmm, maybe
AtheOS
FreeBSD
OSX
BeOS
These of course are just a few of the more frequent ones, QNX seemed to come up often a little while ago, oh and don't forget Emacs, some consider it an OS all in itself. Then there's that goatse.cx OS I've been hearing about.
man RTFM
No manual entry for RTFM.
Take a look at http://penguinppc.org/ They have a link to someone who is already hacking access to the iPod under linux. The direct link to that page is: http://neuron.com/~jason/ipod.html
I guess you've never had to sort by song title or artist or bit rate or album name or...
It may be a bit late now, but I was lucky enough to pick up the habit of filling out the ID3 tags after downloading, but before listening.
Get in the habit of spending a minute or two filling 'em out when you download or rip an album, and you can save yourself the "oh my God, I have how many to fill out?" frustration a few years down the road.
You need to use an application that shows invisible files. In OS X, use TinkerTool. In OS 9, use Greg's Browser or something like that.
Once you've got invisible files/folders showing, use the following path:
"iPod_Control/Music"
Inside this folder are a series of other folders named "F01, F02, F03,...etc."
Your music files are grouped in there in their original MP3 glory. I don't pretend to have parsed out the rationale/pattern for placement of songs in the "F" series of subdirectories.
Another way to do it is posted on Macworld.com here.
Disclaimer: The above is from memory and hastily prepared. Feel free to correct me, but no need to get pissy!
Music is in a hidden folder, so if you access the hidden folder, all is fine. I downloaded freeware called iPod Free File Sync (Mac OS 9 only) that does this. Works like a charm.
sulli
RTFJ.
if you care about conspicuous consumption, perhaps you're on the wrong website?
LAME compiles and runs just fine in OS X. Grab the latest version (3.91), then get this very nice iTunes script that makes ripping and encoding a CD using iTunes and LAME almost as seamless as using the default encoder.
somthing I hadn't noticed before, in this review, was that the apple ipod has firewire charger that can be used, sans a computer. very handy. i have a powerbook g4 and am looking at getting an ipod...would i be able to power/charge my powerbook g4 via a firewire cable? if apple had enough foresight to have an autosensing eithernet port for regular and crossover connections, i would assume they'd have the foresight to be able to charge via firewire....it'd also let me charge/power the powerbook via another computer should i lose the power connector in a couple years
moox. for a new generation.
So who really rips their songs off their CD collection? I'm betting the majority doesn't. I keep reading posts advocating free software, and it seems free music is the norm as well. I'm betting it's not only MS' monopoly that's discouraging competition but at the bottom end too where pirating from broadband d/l's gives people who wants to write and sell good software to have second thoughts(or we'll just make it open-source). Unbelievable. The whole mentality... So many articles reflect this: MS doc complaint, ipod hacking, Linux in Belgium households...
2. Take some vague digital images of how 'cool' looking the inside of it is.
3. Post!
...and you just want to mod the iPod, more power you to ya. But you just want a 6 gig device like the iPod that plays MP3, check out the Archos Jukebox 6000 and other toys. Mine was $220 from buy.com and it rawks. The really nice thing is I can use it as a normal disk drive when USB connected, so I can transfer up to 6 GB from one computer to another. Mac is supported but unfortunately, not Linux. So, if you are really up for moding, hey, write a Linux driver for this puppy!
i think the type face is actually called chicago
Live EVERY week... Like it's Shark Week
if apple were to ever make the ipod usable with windows, they would, the support would be built into quicktime. that way, everyone that buys an ipod has quicktime installed, therefore largely increasing the quicktime installed base. of course this would happen with quicktime 6 or so when mpeg4 support gets built in. mpeg4 and ipod would make windows users actually want to use quicktime, especially if they remove the annoying ads
More specifically, Chicago was designed for use on 1bit (black & white) screens. Exactly the type of screen that is on the iPod.
Lee Joramo
Yes, they're a little whacked - but that's just where Apple sits.
Overhead/device much higher on USB/USB2. I can't state the technical differences, but my USB based CD burner chokes if the throughput out of the CPU exceeds 65% of the nominal 'theoretical throughput'. That _sucks_. Unplugging the )(*)(* mouse lets me get to 72%ish. The FireWire drives I've seen are closer to 95% of theoretical max. YMMV of course.
ID3 tags rock. (At the very least, it's funny to see what genre tags other people use -- I saw "Oldies" used for a song that came out in the mid '90s).
They're also cool for retaining useful information so you can play the "I'm gonna play five seconds of a song. Your job is to identify the artist, name of the song, and the year of release" game.
Not that you asked, but my reading suggested Sony was the way to go for a MiniDV camera. But on the still front I'm very, very pleased with my Canon Digital Elph, though.
Bah, Arial is just a sans-serif clone of Helvetica. I'll take Century Gothic (which BTW I can use on my Rio).
Can't the BSDs legally adopt BSD code, in this case Darwin HFS+ support, into their OSes and therefore read/write to the iPod without any further FS hacking?
Unlike Linux?
Anyone running BSD on a PC with firewire and owning an iPod able to attest to this?
GPL Deconstructed
So what will this do to all of my The The albums?
______
Once: you're a philosopher. Twice: a pervert.
What economic system would this work under? The one we're currently using is full of $100 MP3 devices that connect to any system with a USB port. I think the iPod is pretty cool, but I find it very hard to imagine anyone spending $2K for one!
P.S. MAD Props for the marathon sig :-D
--hongpong.com
The overall audio qualitiy is really good if you throw away the supplied headphones and get something like the Sennheiser MX500s.
But: the MP3 decoder software in the versions 1.0.2 and 1.0.4 has a bug so that it creates a whining noise about 24db below the original sound. The nature is not quite clear but it looks like it is at ca. 4khz. Apple did fix this with version 1.0.3 but that had other problems (mostly UI slowness).
To me, the compelling feature of iPod is the IEEE 1394 (Firewire) interface. Unfortunately, the Linux HFS+ filesystem is immature. Besides, the iPod hard drive size is quite limited.
Perhaps there will be a more rosy future with the next generation Creative Labs Nomad. Why do you think the new Audigy sports a 1394 port? Just a bonus feature for users with 1394 hard drives and miniDV cams? I don't think so; Creative Labs would not include it unless they had a real use for it:
http://audigy.boom.ru/2.htm
+-DRD-+
Found this link about a month and a half ago, belongs to a company that claims to sell HD-based MP3 players that double as a portable hard drive. These MP3 players/Hard drives are built with four different sets of connections: CardBus/PCMCIA, Parallel, USB, and yes... even FireWire.
http://www.interactivemediacorp.com/35mp3.html [InteractiveMediaCorp.com]
With capacities up to 100 GB priced at $499.95, seems like a better value GB/$. From the limited info on the web site, these MP3 players are driverless so that they'll work with just about any OS. I've tried contacting the company by e-mail for further info, but with no reply just yet. Haven't yet tried their 800 number though.
The device and interface look very plain and not as simple to use or toy with as the majority of MP3 players, but still something to look further into.
I'm in the apple store and using the 22'' wide screen lcd monitor... ITS HUGE!!!! Thanks apple for creating the coolest monitor ever!! To bad it costs 2.5 Thoudsand dollars :'-(
I was thinking of getting a 20gig Archos player, but the reviews I've seen on it are no where near as good as for the iPod. Maybe I'm going overboard with the "must... have... maximum... storage" attitude. Or I could wait for either A) the rest of the industry to copy the iPod (which is probably inevitable but could take up to a year including a good interface) or B) Apple to come out with a 10gig or larger iPod (maybe less than 6 months now)
But I'm not sure the XPod syncing will be as good as the Apple system. In the end, I guess it comes down to whether or not I have a Mac right now. And since I don't... I think I'm actually considering getting one. Eeek!
I know this is going to seem like just more off-topic whining to most of you, but hear me out:
I've only submitted 3 stories in recent history, all have been rejected, but at least 2 were later accepted when others submitted them, with no substantial difference in comments. Here's my latest one:
2002-01-10 14:36:07 IPod under Windows (articles,music) (rejected)
In this submission, I pretty much stated exactly what was later said in the submission that was accepted, except that I speculated that Linux software couldn't be far behind, either.
Tell me, is the secret to submissions being accepted a matter of which editor reads them? If so, it looks like the right tactic would be to just keep resending rejected submissions back many times over a period of days, to make sure we hit all possible readers. If that's not the case, please explain why not.
Get off my launchpad!
Another similiar program is Tag & rename. Again, windows commericialware, but VERY useful.
ID3 (v1 and v2) to filenames and back, mass tagging, etc.
Mister Man burbles: "Sadly, it doesn't seem like there is Linux based software yet."
There's nothing sad about that. Why isn't Mister Man complaining about the lack of ENIAC or Babbage engine support? Those systems are on a level with Linux.
Bah.
no, macslash at
http://www.macslash.com
or
macslashdot at
http://www.macslashdot.com
It is 2-3 times as powerful as the next most powerful (Intel's) which is twice as powerful as average.
It is not underpowered. It still is incapable of driving some high end headphones (Etymotic 4S and some Sennheisers) but is capable of driving many more than most players.
The iPod can't really drive the 4S (or presumably 4B). It drives the 4P's and 6'S fine. The 4S must really take a lot of power as the iPod is a lot more powerful than normal.
I find the Etymotics uncomfortable and too bright. Also the 6's have a stupid cord that is too short and favors one ear.
I recommend the Bang and Olufson earphones. They sound as good and are not a pain to put in or take out.
I recently went through my collection, and I found some inconsistencies in the ID3v2 tags created by different applications; mp3 files generated by iTunes on the Mac used completely different tags than lame on Linux.
What I ended up doing is collecting the cddb info for each album and storing it with the mp3s, then writing a simple script to read the cddb file s and retag the mp3s. Each album's mp3 files is stoared in a separate directory, along with the cddb file (CDDB.txt), the cover image (COVER.jpg), and a uwp-format lyrics file (LYRICS.txt).
Beyond that I set up a cron job that loads all the album and track info into mysql at 3am, and a cgi script for searching and displaying the info and creating playlists for xmms.
I think that they currently have a very good business-strategy for a niche-player. The Apple Store is especially a good idea. Apple's products have always been products that look best in real life (most people are sold on the iPod when they use it and find out how easy and small it really is, for instance). Retail stores like CompUSA have always been extremely bad about this (turning off macs and steering those interested in a Mac towards a PC). Up to the point where Apple had to put their own salesmen in the stores. Once you do that, why not go the whole way and create your own store. This also has the big advantage that Mac-users can get software and peripherals that certainly work on a Mac. In a PC-store it's always hunting for the specs.
Remember what I said: competitors like Gateway cannot afford this as they have too little too differentiate themselves from others. They have to compete with every clone-builder that has a store. Apple stores pull in people from many miles away (and do very well).
To go over your other points:
- Apple had a business strategy in the early 90's (try too look business-like, downplay games so Macs are not called toy computers). This resulted in the famous: "You'll be dead next year"-reporting that lasted for some 8 years (and still crops up regularly).
- Apple does have a web strategy. The online Apple store is very succesful. You might also remember iTools services. iPhoto can easily put a page with your photo's on the Internet.
- I think it's very wise to aim for the substantial graphic design market. These guys buy the fastest, most easy to use machines. Apple is now extending the reach to movie editors. Final Cut Pro 3 with real-time rendering is a killer. Besides, I don't believe they are really limiting themselves in other respects by catering to these groups of users. iDVD would not be possible without Altivec (the best implementation of vector computations, somewhat similar to MMX/SSE), which was initially meant for graphic and video designers.
- Schools will mostly buy the cheapest machines. Apple has always had the good strategy selling cheap there (currently having the $799 iMacs and the iBook).
- Ending the licensing was a good move. The licencees were cannibalizing the high-end of the market. Apple might have been MS if they had licensed the OS earlier, but even IBM didn't see the potential of that at the time. Did you think of that before MS became succesful selling DOS?
Your last statement is reeking of troll. Does Firewire get wasted? Does the breakthrough of USB get wasted? Does 802.11 get wasted (I absolutely love having a cheap 802.11 option for my future PowerMac G5)? Furthermore, Xerox got 100's of millions of Apple's stock to let Steve in on their stuff. Hardly a steal (pun intended).
Currently there are only two large computer-sellers that make a profit, Dell and Apple. I'm sure that with you at the helm they would not be able to boast about that. I doubt you even know that Apple has the lowest inventory in the industry, a clear business-innovation (saving a lot of money and allowing for a quick transition to new systems).
PS. What is not innovative about a consumer-machine that brings DVD-creation to the masses and has an extremely clean exclosure (even if you hate it, I think you must admit it's minimalistic and yet very usable.)
The Drowned and the Saved - Primo Levi
i strongly suspect this is a CDDB issue, not an iTunes issue. i've inserted several import CDs, including one Japanese one (Ghost in the Shell soundtrack), and it all worked fine. kanji and kana show up as expected.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I bought the original Archos Jukebox 6000 as soon as it came out. I loved it and still think it was the best MP3 player available at the time, for my needs. I still admire Archos and wish them well, and I think they are justified in their devoted following. Blaine in particular deserves a lot of credit for his attention to the user community.
But I found I had completely stopped using my Jukebox. All the issues raised here -- size, weight, USB slowness, no ID3 tag support, no Mac playlist creation, no iTunes interface, late/flaky OS X drivers, little or no skip protection, flaky buttons -- added just enough 'friction' to my interaction with it that it tended to stay behind when I left home.
The iPod is a little better in all these crucial-to-me areas, and that means I do use it every day, it is always with me. That's the key difference, and it depends on a very personal equation.
If there's a crucial-to-you feature that the iPod lacks -- be it capacity, upgradability, recording, on-the-fly playlist creation, USB, Linux compatibility, FM receiver or whatever -- then that rightly factors into your personal equation.
Again, I admire Archos very much and hope they continue to do well. But for my needs, the iPod is night-and-day superior.