Vista - iPod Killer?

JMB wrote us with a dire warning, as reported by the San Jose Mercury News. Apple is cautioning its Windows-using iTunes customers to steer clear of Vista until the next iTunes update. The reason for this is a bit puzzling. Apparently, if you try to 'safely remove' your iPod from a Vista-installed PC, there's a chance you may corrupt the little music player. They also claim that songs may not play, and contacts may not sync with the device. Apple went so far as to release a detailed support document on the subject, which assures users that a new Vista-compatible version of the software will be available in a few weeks. Is this just some very creative FUD? If it is not who do you think is 'at fault' here, Microsoft or Apple?

Comments

It's apples fault

[wardk]

for not being able to predict what parts Microsoft would focus on breaking

Re:It's apples fault

[riscthis]

A clean install of Vista uses 544meg ram without any applications running - completely ridiculous IMHO.

Some of that may be for caches which would be released if an application requested more RAM. The OS might as well make use of it to reduce latency of other tasks whilst nothing else wants the RAM.

Re:It's apples fault

[malfunct]

Its worse than that. There has been a fairly stable api in vista for the last 6 months and even before that there were little changes for the last year. Apple just decided not to fix thier software for whatever reason and now they are trying to make Vista look bad instead of taking the blame for being slow to support windows users.

Re:It's apples fault

[Rich0]

Of course, if they just implemented the iPod as a USB mass storage device, there would probably not be any issues at all. They could still have a fancy front-end that loads files onto it.

It drives me nuts when you need to use fancy software to download/upload from your camera/mp3-player/etc. It isn't like there aren't standards out there that would work perfectly well...

Re:It's apples fault

[nostriluu]

You are trivializing this. I recently built a PC with 4 GB of RAM, and have been introduced to the world of pain this means in the mainstream PC world. Starting with the fact many boards only have two slots, and 2 MB chips are incredibly expensive, next on to BIOS compatibility issues, then on to operating system compatibility issues. Maybe in a year this will be a non issue, but for now it's painful, and it means so many more PCs are effectively obsoleted by "improvements" that can't even be explained clearly. http://www.chrisjordan.com/

Re:It's apples fault

[4iedBandit]

There has been a fairly stable api in vista for the last 6 months and even before that there were little changes for the last year. Apple just decided not to fix thier software for whatever reason and now they are trying to make Vista look bad instead of taking the blame for being slow to support windows users.

And Microsoft has never purposefully designed their OS to interfere with another competitors product.

Re:It's apples fault

[sqrt(2)]

It might not be much of an improvement for you, but if you can stand to use Winamp5 (or use it already anyway) there is a plugin that allows it to sync with the iPod. It works a lot better and has more features than iTunes, including the ability to take songs off an iPod. Still short of true drag and drop compatibility, but that's all Apples doing trying to tie iTunes and the iPod together (thus getting more market penetration for their ITMS).

http://www.mlipod.com/

Re:It's apples fault

[jZnat]

The songs are stored in a hidden folder: /iPod_Control/iTunes/Music/ or something like that. No separate partitions required; just enable the viewing of hidden files, and you're good to go. Be warned, however, that iTunes renames files to random 4 letter names for database efficiency (which is why you can't just drag and drop music and whatnot; iTunes (or another third party program) edits and builds the database for the iPod, and the iPod just reads the database).

Re:It's apples fault

[belly917]

"but if you can stand to use Winamp5"

I can't stand to use anything but Winamp! Well, that's not true, but I won't go anywhere near the limited functionality that is iTunes. No ogg vorbis support out of the box, etc.

there is a plugin that allows it to sync with the iPod

The newest versions of winamp5 include an updated version of this plug-in by default.

Another great reason to use winamp5 with your ipod is that it'll transcode songs that the ipod firmware can't handle for you. (yes I know it's bad.. but I don't notice the difference when I'm jogging) So all those wma's & ogg vorbis files will at least be playable on your yet again limiting apple ipod.

if you really wanted to make your ipod useful, you should check out rockbox.org

Re:It's apples fault

[dabraun]

What are you doing? Looking at task manager?

Task manager never was and still isn't an accurate picture of physical memory in use. It's total combined address space, it duplicates the counts for standard system dlls, it counts stacks that are reserved but not committed - and among other things microsoft significantly increased the default (reserved) stack size for every thread of every process in Vista to decrease the incidence of stack overflow problems in applications. This doesn't cost any "real" memory, though it does cost address space within a process. Processes which may actually run out of address space on a 32-bit machine (like server apps) typically specify the stack sizes they want, and they are lower than the OS default. Server apps are rapidly moving to 64-bit anyway where this is a non-issue (for now).

Now, Vista *does* consume significantly more memory than XP at idle, and certainly needs more memory to run well - but it's not using 544mb without any apps running and, remarkably, it is extremely difficult to answer the question "how much memory is in use" in part because that question isn't specific enough to give an answer.

- Pages in memory?
- Does cache count (windows uses *everything* left as a cache, and in Vista it proactively fills that cache before you even run apps based on your page-usage-history, that is, what apps you tend to run though vista is not considering "applications" here but rather a much more generic concept of image-backed pages)
- Does it count if it's been written to the page file but is still in memory as well (like most OS's, windows proactively writes out private pages to the pagefile before it really needs to so that it can free physical memory quickly when needed - this also helps the system reach hybrid sleep state faster)
- Does it count if it's image-backed (sharable)? What if it's still in memory? What if it was never read into memory or was read into memory at process start and will never be touched again, thrown away as soon as memory pressure reqires it?

There is no easy answer other than "add memory until it performs well" and for Vista that seems to be a minnimum of 1GB, depending on the system, more "real" graphics card memory lowers the requirement, slower hard drives (and thus greater need for caching) increase the requirement.

Re:It's apples fault

[admactanium]

Maybe they aren't trying to make windows look bad, but it seems odd that a company like Apple, that had access to all of the betas and should have had the RTM for the last three months, didn't have this fixed prior to product launch. New PCs are shipping with Vista now, so a not unsizable chunk of people are going to run in to this problem.

you're joking right? microsoft's own zune player and software didn't even work with vista until the final retail release version! it hardly seems like everything was completely sorted out early on.

I dunno..

[benc]

Look, I think Microsoft's products emanate directly from Satan's butthole, just like the rest of you. I also secretly hump the boxes from which my purchased Apple products emerge. However, doesn't it seem like Apple probably had more than enough time to get this working on the beta versions, assuming this isn't some new, last-second bug?

That said, the Zune doesn't even work on Vista yet, as another commenter already pointed out.... Still, I'm inclined to blame Apple on this one.

Re:Interesting...

[Kemeno]

...except Microsoft's own music player doesn't work with Vista either.

Re:Who to blame?

[ScrewMaster]

Win2K had write-caching (lazy writes) on by default, consequently you needed to use the "Safely Remove" option to flush any open file buffers to disk. XP has write-caching OFF by default, so it isn't quite so necessary: just make sure your access LED stops flickering before you yank your stick out.

Safari and hotmail

[Scrameustache]

When Safari came out, I downloaded version 1.0 the very first day, and used it to go to hotmail, check out my messages, download attachement, everything worked fine.

Three days later, I could no longer download attachments... My version of Safari hadn't changed, but somehow, after three days, it didn't work as well as it did. Hmmm...

In a less anecdotal way, you might remember Microsoft "borking" Opera, or the infamous Microsoft hack that screwed with Netscape back in the 90s.
If we're lucky, "leaked" memos will show up in a few years detailing how Microsoft purposefully decided to screw with their competition for their new zune.

Re:Move along, nothing to see

[oddaddresstrap]

Aren't workarounds a violation of the Vista EULA?

pay attention!

[Hallowed]

What, didn't you notice that Vista said "Permanently Remove Hardware" instead of "Safely Remove Hardware"? It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Re:oh no

[kfg]

I shudder to think what would happen if you unsafely remove it. Especially from a Sony laptop.

You've got 10 seconds to throw it after you pull the pin.

KFG

Re:If only...

[Quixotic Raindrop]

It's funny you mention that ... because Microsoft has, in the past, done exactly this sort of thing before, and if you read Groklaw, you'll note that this very issue is a major factor in a lawsuit currently being litigated. Microsoft is well-known for providing different builds of Windows to different developers, and for changing system calls, hooks, APIs, and other such things at the last minute and only telling certain third-party developers, if any.

I don't doubt that Apple might have some dirty hands here, if only because they seek to embarrass Microsoft at any opportunity, and may have deliberately withheld some updates specifically to cause the most possible bad publicity about Vista, but more likely than not Apple was given one set of APIs WRT the safe removal of iPods, only to have Microsoft change them without warning.

STOP the FUD Appl provided a fix already

[aristotle-dude]

Enough already.

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/itunesrepai rtoolforvista10.html

Re:Who to blame?

[Nimey]

just make sure your access LED stops flickering before you yank your stick out.

I have nothing to add.

Microsoft is at fault

[dl_zero]

It has nothing to do with the iPod (unfortunately). The problem is the way vista sometimes handles removable mass storage. The other day, I had a 250GB external HD and when I used it with Vista, it corrupted the whole partition table. I was able to recover the data because only the partitions were deleted, but either way, its a flaw in Vista

Re:oh no

[Alsee]

...and you've got 30 seconds to throw if you don't pull the pin.

-

Re:Tagged appleduh

[dangitman]

What could MS have possibly done between RC2 and release to break the iPod?

Added more kittens?

Re:Dont' be a dumbass.

[jimbolaya]

You think that people will "ditch" windows for their iPod? Are you that disconnected from reality? The alternative is a Mac that is literally running on identical hardware but costs twice as much. You think people will ditch their 2 year-old $1000 dell for a new $2000 mac that doesn't offer them anything new?

Speaking of disconnected from reality, you really believe that an Apple today costs twice as much as a comparable Dell did two years ago? Aside from the Mac Pros, most Macs today sell for well below $2,000. The 24" inch iMac is an exception. But what you're telling me is that two years ago, you could have bought a Dell with a 24" LCD, 1GB RAM, 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, DVD burner, and 128MB video card, for $1,000? That must be what you're saying, because you claim the $2,000 Mac couldn't give you anything new.

I challenge you to configure a comparable Dell (or HP, etc.) today for $1,000 (Apple's are twice the price, remember?). Hell, I challenge you to find one for $2,000. I came up with a price of $2,308 at Dell's site. Granted, that was with a 256MB video card, which would bring the iMac up to $2,124. Far from being twice the price, the Apple is nearly $200 cheaper.

That "fairly stable api" didn't help Microsoft

[Overly Critical Guy]

How conveniently people forget that Microsoft's own Zune player app wasn't Vista compatible either. If Microsoft couldn't support their own OS with these "stable apis" of the last six months that you refer to, how can you expect Apple to?

Re:End User's Fault

[bluetigerbc]

because http://rockbox.org/ has software to put in new firmware avoiding this big mess. I agree that it should just be usb mass storage device. This site can make that happen.

someone mod this up for "the peoples". I've hunted for something other then Apple's filename switching firmware for a while now. Easy drag and drop songs and delete/rename them from the ipod. There are even themes to make the ipod look like winamp or other skins from users.

rock box is like firefox for yer Ipod. Open code wins again!

Re:Tagged appleduh

[Glonoinha]

Actually - I wonder if the iPod will be the 'Vista killer'.

Let's be real. A zillion people have iPods and run XP. Tell any of them that not only will Vista cost them an arm and a leg (need new hardware + new OS), it may have problems with their iPod and more imporantly may fuxor their iPod when they connect / disconnect it - and how many are going to be rushing out to upgrade?

Aero / glass is nice, but not nice enough to risk fuxor'ing my iPod over.

Re:Tagged appleduh

[The Dobber]

Couldn't afford either, huh?