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iTunes for Windows Breaking Older iPods
evil_liam asks: "In our office we've been running an older 5gb iPod with both Macs and PC's (using Xplay), but when we installed iTunes for the PC the iPod stopped working. Songs and playlists transfer over fine, and you can see them and play them in iTunes, but you can't listen to them on the iPod, itself. It shows the song details and so forth, but skips through the tracks, playing 0 seconds of each one until it finishes. This only applies to tracks added since iTunes was installed. No amount of reformatting, or rolling back firmware seems to work. When I called Apple, they stated that they simply don't support the use of the older Mac iPods on PC's and are not responsible, even though they admit that it was their own software that caused this. We're not alone, see this thread at Apple.
I'm not quite suggesting that this was deliberate, but they are aware of it and don't seem to care." Does anyone have ideas on possible fixes for the afflicted iPods?
Apple is...
Style over substance. Overpriced. Underpowered.
During early 2000, I bought an iMac and tried to get X running on it... what a pain. I had all kinds of hassles as the software wasn't ready yet... and the support was mediocre. I wasn't impressed, especially considering what I paid. Should have bought a Dell and put linux on it... probably serves me right. That was the first and last time I buy anything from Apple. As much as I respect Jobs and their innovation at Apple, I am forced to believe it's mostly marketing that powers Apple today.
Apple hates bad PR. Once all the Mac sites pick this up, the pressure will mount and Apple will likely release a fix.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
What part of "not supported" was not understood? I am sure that Apple will do something to rectify the situation. Hope they had a backup of their music. Wait a second, a MAC-only 5GB IPOD? Not a "Mac-only unless running iTunes on a PC running Windows, then it is ok" iPod. Why does it not surprise me that running a first-generation Mac-only IPOD on a Windows machine causes problems? Maybe the part about it being "mac-only", and "not supported on PC", as well as being "mac-only". (The repition was purely intentional). This seems to be the user's fault, not Apple's. So if I put a BMW dashboard into a VW, will I be able to get mad when it does not work. All I am saying is do not rush to blame Apple on this one, this seems to be a PICNIC issue to me.
I hate sigs.
I'm not quite suggesting that this was deliberate
Well, the breaking may not have been deliberate, but their refusal to support their customers is most certainly deliberate . And is it more than a coincidence that fixing this problem isn't going to sell many more iPods, is it ?
If you're using XPlay to operate your iPod in a manner that Apple says it doesn't support in the first place, why are you griping about/to Apple?
Would somebody please tell me why they can't make a filesystem (or filesystem family) that preserves the basic functionality common to all filesystems but supports all the bells and whistles (resource forks, metainfo, etc.) needed to keep the various operating systems happy and can therefore be used with multiple machines with different OSs without jumping through hoops? I'm not saying every machine should use the same FS, I'm just saying there should be a basic standard that allows full functionality for any one OS and basic functionality for any given OS. And if there is one, why isn't anyone using it? It's not like this is an unusual issue - (CD/DVD)(+/-)(RW)s, floppy/zip disks, and portable drives of all kinds have had this problem for as long as I can remember. Why should finding/reading/writing/indexing a string of bits or grouping a bunch of files in a heirarchy readable to any machine be so troublesome?
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
That's something I've been wondering
When you install Windows iTunes it installs a background service for running the iPod, which sits there, using up memory and cpu time looking to see if you've got an iPod plugged in
What's the need of this for all the people who installed iTunes, but don't own an iPod? Surely there should be a seperate iPod service install (or install option in iTunes) that you run if you actually have an iPod
I disabled the service and it hasn't had any obvious effect on the operation of iTunes
Help me! I'm turning into a grapefruit!
Actually you're wrong, Sony's older laptops have i.Link ports that are capped at 200Mbps per second and only work with DV cameras. Imagine my surprise when I tried to get my external FW DVD-R to work with one...
Leave it to Sony to bring "standard" interfaces into goofy, needlessly proprietary crap!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I found this article very interesting, because it appears to betray two trends in Apple software: those of constricting hardware compatibility, and reduced technical quality.
Before I launch in to my tirade, I need to preface that I am a Mac user, have been for a long time, and will probably remain so for the forseable future. I think Apple hardware is very good, and broadly have had a more positive experience with Apple OS software (especially OS X), than Windows. I want Apple to succeed.
That said, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by some software design decisions at Apple, and the company's smug responses -- when it responds at all.
There's been a lot of new software released from Apple recently, including iTunes for Windows, OS X 10.3 "Panther," and the 10.2.8 update, among others, that have suffered some surprisingly serious flaws. By themselves, any one of them might be acceptable, but taken together, the issues can become infuriating. Some may be design decisions on Apple's part, some are just dumb, some are legitimately not really Apple's problem except to the degree they're a problem for Apple's customers, and others are probably bugs due to poor testing.
Here's a short list --
10.3:
Filevault deletes files
FireWire hard drives self destruct
Poor removable drive support
Minimal 3rd party video card support
Wake from sleep problems (OS X releases always seem to have wake from sleep problems...)
SMB & Other network browsing probems
Other misc networking problems
Vanished monitor resolutions with 3rd party monitors
Dozens of less debilitating problems, unusable features, and long-standing unfixed bugs.
10.2.8 Initial release:
Complete fiasco -- update pulled
iTunes for Windows:
Doesn't work with 1st generation iPods
Most troubling are the failures of non-Apple hardware and lack of support for older hardware configurations: iTunes & first generation iPod; non-Apple monitors; non-Apple video cards; apparently intentionally killing "hacking" to enable additional optical drive support (this shouldn't really be a reasonable complaint, but Apple doesn't support very many CD-RW, etc drives out of the box, so it was the only way to get at least marginal functionality for many drives); and Apple's awareness of the FireWire issue, shipping the OS in a state that could cause data loss, and a belated update to alleviate the problem. Enough of these kinds of issues, or failure for Apple to talk openly about them, could make people suspect that Apple is acting out of arrogance.
So I hope this isn't, or doesn't become, a pattern. I also think it would also be in Apple's best interest to improve its prerelease testing; almost all the bugs/issues noted above were discovered within hours of release. If Apple wants to broaden its user base, it will be helpful if it can be taken seriously on the topic of hardware compatibility. I do want Apple to succeed.
There was no 'first' computer - there were actually two identical computers built at the same time during the second world war - the Colossus electronic cryptanalytic machine - used to break the Enigma code used by the Germans - both machines destroyed shortly after the war, under orders from Winston Churchhill to break it up into pieces "not larger than a man's fist". Since they were Top Secret devices, and not disclosed to the public until the 1970s, the British did not get credit for building the first computer.
The Germans also had a device that was very close to being a computer, but did not store its programs - more akin to a Babbage difference engine without conditional branching - built in 1937 by Konrad Zuse. It used Binary arithmetic - an interesting advance for its time; Zuse calculaters were used in the engineering of the V2 rocket.
The computers built after that were one of a kind - there was no 'standard hardware' or 'standard software' floating around from different vendors.
Back in the days of the Dinosaurs, Real Programmers built the first operating systems for the new beasties - and generally ended up rewriting their creations when hardware became obsolete and new equipment entered the data centre. Not until the introduction of the mini-computer did standardization, interoperability and portability start to show up on the radar screen (circa 1960s).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
It isn't broken. It is doing exactly what it is meant to do: It was given a file with DRM on it, and it has NOT been authorized to play said file, so it refuses to do so. Apple can't fix it because it is SOMEBODY ELSES drivers that are failing to send the authorization. Complain to the people who made the drivers. In the mean time, the iPod will still play all other files, including any NEW files moved to it from a Mac.
Blaming Apple is like blaming some hardware company because the unofficial, third party Linux drivers keep causing a kernel panic: Sure, it would have been nice of them to provide their own. But they didn't, and they don't have to fix other peoples drivers.
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
I have. I've also read CNET, and ephpod's website. One of their early warnings was not to convert a Mac-formatted iPod to FAT32--this was before windows ipods. Now obviously you can do it.
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But Xplay also notes that if you use Xplay (ie. let it run in the background and mount iPods), your data will become corrupted. They, (unlike Apple), has an update to fix the issue. But Xplay still does not support Apple's AAC files. According to an exchange I had with Mossberg, having standard AAC file support isn't enough, you must also support Apple's encryption scheme. With that warning, *download the update now.*
Hilariously enough, they call it an update to improve database consistency. Euphemisms are.. hilarious.
http://forums.mediafour.com/showthread.php?s=&t
(update to 1.1.3 first of course, I think this might include the patch.)
You will also find many threads in the technical forum describing similar strange issues, and some on how to perform conversion to windows from mac ipod etc.
Evidence suggests that if you uninstall Xplay before synching your iPod with iTunes, you are good. short story: apple doesn't expect any other software to try to synch with it, and when they do, they disable it. (logical, actually--this is what they did with Musicmatch.)
We know (and Apple tells you when you install)