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iPod Dissection and Review

Posted by chrisd on from the beauty-inside-and-out dept.

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."

30 of 283 comments (clear)

  1. linux and the iPod by sboss · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:linux and the iPod by S.+Allen · · Score: 3, Informative

      There is a good collection of information here on efforts to get the iPod working with Linux. It's not just a matter of HFS+ support, but also reverse-engineering the iTunes database format.

  2. HFS+ by HalfFlat · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

    1. Re:HFS+ by Mister+Snee · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:HFS+ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

  3. Doh! I knew I should have been doing this... by Tsar · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    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, thus radically simplifying my purchasing rationalization^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H decision.

    ...Anyone?

  4. um, no by awharnly · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  5. Re:Doh! I knew I should have been doing this... by Pope · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.
  6. Audio quality? by mccalli · · Score: 5, Insightful
    It is my impression that reviews of MP3 players, the iPod included, have typically talked about it as if it were purely some sort of mini-computer. Features alone get discussed, and that Anandtech review is no exception.

    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

    1. Re:Audio quality? by Jordy · · Score: 4, Informative

      The audio quality on the iPod is ok. My biggest gripe is the headphone jack appears underpowered and there appears to be some noise introduced in the signal. Granted, it's nowhere near the noise levels of a laptop, but it's there.

      Now I do have some problems with the quality of iTunes; the peice of software you use to manage the iPod (yes, you can do it directly, but come on, insert cd, hit import, plug in iPod; it can't get any easier.)

      A friend of mine noted that iTunes's MP3 encoder has some problems with introducing artifacts into the audio. I honestly didn't believe him until he took an MP3 he encoded with LAME and directly compared it to one encoded with iTunes and sure enough, at the beginning of the song where there should have been silence was a warping of audio which I now notice during playback.

      iTunes also has the interesting problem (though it's probably more of a CDDB fault) of not supporting UTF-8 in ID3 tags, so foreign CDs are either romanized or are in a character set not understood correctly.

      In my opinion, the iPod is the best portable MP3 player out there for it's size. It doesn't make a good companion while exercising, but for long train rides, it can't be beat.

      --
      The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
  7. XPlay? by Black+Perl · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why oh why did they call the Windows software XPlay?

    I guess we'll have to call the Linux X-Windows version "WinPlay".

    --
    bp
  8. Windows iPod? I think not. by Chief_Wahoo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The authors of this article seem to think Apple is hard at work on the Windows version of the iPod (or at least should be). While I don't doubt that a PC market for the iPod exists, I am skeptical that Apple will enter it. I'm assuming, btw, that by "Windows version," the authors mean a different hardware configuration, rather than a firmware upgrade.

    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.

  9. Re:Doh! I knew I should have been doing this... by joshwa · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  10. http://giantlaser.com/~jason/ipod.html by bowa · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://giantlaser.com/~jason/ipod.html

    interesting link ...

  11. Re:iPod, iPod, iPod.... by squaretorus · · Score: 5, Funny

    The real reason we all want an iPod is that we want to be able to dance like this dude!

    He must be beating the chicks off with a stick!

  12. Homer Reference #1242 by horati0 · · Score: 3, Funny

    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.
  13. Copying MP3's from iPod by pemerson · · Score: 3, Insightful
    According to the article:
    One feature that will not be added is the ability to copy files from the iPod. Apple designed the iPod as a one-way device when it comes to music, meaning that it was only designed to accept MP3 files but not to send them back to a computer. Apple's iTunes software does not allow the user to copy MP3 files from the iPod to a Macintosh, and in a similar manner Mediafour's XPlay software will not allow the user to copy MP3 files from the iPod to any PC. Copying MP3 files off the device is not a difficult feature to implement, but Mediafour decided to respect Apple's wishes with the iPod and maintain the copy protection feature.
    But, according to http://www.macobserver.com/article/2001/10/29.4.sh tml:
    In other words, by turning off the automatic sync functions and saying "no" when asked if you would like your iPod library erased, you can simply drag and drop your iPod music files from iTunes to another Mac.
    So why has Mediafour "decided to respect Apple's wishes" when Apple's own software allows the copying of MP3's to different Macs?
  14. EphPod by Mr_Silver · · Score: 4, Informative
    There is another way to connect the iPod to a Windows machine. Its called EphPod and you can get it from here.

    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.
  15. iPod won't be anything but mac from apple by Lally+Singh · · Score: 4, Informative

    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!
  16. Re:iPod, iPod, iPod.... by hoggy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm a little fascinated by Slashdot's ongoing fixation on this device. [...] My only theory as to why is because it may not be Linux-y, but it's still a fascinating device.

    Err... I think that pretty much covers it.

    Since when did Slashdot become "News for Linux Weenies"? I thought this was a tech-head site. The iPod is most definitely a very cool toy from a techy perspective, which means it falls within the remit of this site.

    In general you may have noticed that Apple are appearing increasingly frequently on Slashdot, which I guess means that they are doing things that are increasingly interesting to tech-heads, which I think is a good thing for Apple.

    There were the same people harping on about the new iMac posting, saying what does it have to do with Slashdot. But any story that can generate a 1000 comments is clearly of interest to Slashdotters.

    I use Linux too, but hey, take off the blinkers.

  17. "fatal flaw in the iPod design"? Please. by fhwang · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  18. My iPod by jamesoutlaw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  19. Re:Gaack! Hideous Mac Garamond Font Again! by Decimal+Dave · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  20. No iPod for the PC, what a shame... by iJosh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.
  21. The iPod sells iMac's. by Above · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:The iPod sells iMac's. by imadork · · Score: 3, Informative
      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.

      Remember, OS X (which is what you'll be greeted with upon buying your new iMac Desk Lamp) is Unix under the hood, and ships with telnet and ssh out of the box!

      This ain't the Mac OS you remember!

  22. Re:Why this infatuation with iPod? by shilly · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here are four of the reasons:
    1) Archos is somewhat bigger (in each of H, W and D)
    2) Archos has slower transfer rates (USB 2 vs Firewire)
    3) Archos is a lot lot uglier.
    4) Archos weighs a lot lot more (350g vs 185g)
    There are many more, but that's enough to be going on with.

  23. ok, so i bought one (a review) by AndersBrownworth · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  24. Re:iPod, iPod, iPod.... by sulli · · Score: 3
    It's because a ton of slashdot readers own Macs, and many of the Linux fans who don't are legitimately interested in learning from Apple about how to be a successful alternative to the Windows PC.

    Think you don't want it? Think again. I LOVE my iPod - I use it every day, in the car, walking to work, even at home when I'm in the living room and don't feel like bringing CDs or my Powerbook to the stereo. The convenience and size and weight make it worth every penny.

    --

    sulli
    RTFJ.
  25. Goodbye Gillette by fm6 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Sort of a reverse razor blade strategy, huh? The iPod is so cool that people will not only spend $400 for the device itself, they'll spend another $1200 or so just to have a computer that's compatible with it.

    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!