Slashdot Mirror
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."
As far as Apple goes, they've done a fairly good job of documenting HFS+. The main problem seems to be that despite the information available about it, HFS+ is just not a very fun filesystem to write code for, and at the moment nobody's being offered any money to do it.
Basically, freelance kernelspace hackers would rather mess with, say, ReiserFS than put a lot of time and effort into a rather obfuscated filesystem which they don't see becoming mainstream any time soon.
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
First off Slashdot is not Linuxdot. I think that over the years, there is a fair number of OS's represented here, including (horrors!) Windows. Remember "News for Nerds"? There are other OS nerds too you know!
Second, what's your point?
As far as I understood, the iPod connected to the Macintosh using a DAV connection, so it shouldn't matter what filesystem is used.
Open Source programmers often have an "I can do this better than you" attitude. (Which isn't surprising; everyone has that attitude). There are 3 BSDs, quite a few window managers, multiple desktop environments, thousands of mp3 players, and everybody and their brother writes (or at least starts to write) a new X11 widget set.
So it's no wonder someone would rather create a new FS than improve the implementation of an old one. When existing code is improved, it's because the app has a 'cool' factor, or the person recognizes it would be easier to modify than write new.
HFS+ is fairly well documented (if you poke around on Apple's web site), and the public darwin source includes the hfs fs (read/write obviously) as well as hfschk. Some of the code use NewPointer (#defined to malloc), and other Macisms or NeXTisms though.
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.
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.
Especially since the release of OS X, but even before with LinuxPPC and YellowDog, among others, the Macintosh has gotten increasing attention from the 'geeks'.
2. Take some vague digital images of how 'cool' looking the inside of it is.
3. Post!
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
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!
It's a physiological problem. As soon as the last few developers read to the resource fork portion of the spec, they vomited to the point of dehydration.