Apple Cuts Off Linux iPod Users

Will Fisher writes "New iPods will no longer be able to work with Linux. iTunes now writes some kind of hash (SHA1, md5?) to the iPod database which new iPods check against. If this check fails then the iPod reports that it contains 0 songs. This appears to be protection against 3rd party applications writing out their own databases. We haven't found out how to generate our own valid hashes (but we do know the hash includes the database itself, and possibly the iPod serial number), and are looking for help."

Have you tried Corned Beef?

I've heard this is the best way to make a good hash.

Inevitable comment

I heard cannabis brownies were the way to go.

But but but...

I thought Apple had embraced open source

Re:But but but...

And despite this, you'll still get told how good Apple is for open source in a few days in the next OSX vs Linux flame war.

Anyway, this just makes it easier to say no to them IMO. I was already pissed off enough that my 2nd gen Nano couldn't load Rockbox, but now this.

In TFA they make it clear they are going to try to get around this, and they probably will, but part of me just wants to say why bother? Fuck Apple. They don't want my money, good, they won't get it.

Re:But but but...

I never understood why the iPod became so immensely popular compared to other personal players in the first place. It locks you down to using iTunes, makes it difficult to use multiple machines or move music around, doesn't have particularly high sound quality, and doesn't support a lot of music formats. I see a crowd mentality at work here -- people buy and then vigorously defend having bought an iPod, not because it's better than the competition, but because it's what your friends have. Individuality is fine, as long as it's the exact same individuality as all your friends!

Granted, I see some advantages to the bigger iPods -- lots of storage is a good thing, and halfway decent battery life likewise. But the smaller ones? Just because it's branded "Apple"?

Re:But but but...

Usability and simplicity. I've had three other music players, some of them having received very good reviews (cowon products). But I used my wife's iPod, and it is simply a better, more user-friendly experience. I was disappointed to go back to my old player; and will very likely be replacing it with an ipod when it dies.

Itunes is another reason for the casual user. They don't care about formats. Most of them can't tell the difference in quality. They don't need to transfer it to a million different locations. They know they can hear a song they like, and own it, and enjoy it -- relatively cheaply, and without any headache or hassle. I'm not a fan of it for the reasons you mentioned, but the vast majority of the paying public doesn't really care about those issues. Most aren't even aware of them.

Re:But but but...

Yes, casual users don't care for the technical details, so they want something usable and stylish. The fact that many of their friends have one too probably doesn't go amiss, since they'll no doubt need help with it or itunes now and again, and want to be confident that they own a machine that must be good because everyone else has one. Usability and marketing were the two edges that pushed the ipod ahead. Having said that there are many equally usable devices out there, but it's no coincidence that the ipod was and still is the most heavily marketed portable media player.

Re:But but but...

I see a crowd mentality at work here -- people buy and then vigorously defend having bought an iPod, not because it's better than the competition, but because it's what your friends have.

While I can't argue that many people may have done that, I went from swimming upstream to something that was designed to work with what I had. I had a Rio Karma [wikipedia.org] from a few years back, specifically for the Ogg Vorbis support, but once I made the transition from Windows to Mac, I found that I was swimming upstream in my insistence on using this device. Still, I persisted until the hard drive died, and once the time came to buy another device - well, since I already had and really liked my iBook, I decided to go along with the design flow and picked up an iPod Nano. I wish I hadn't had to re-rip my collection, but I've been very happy with the aesthetics and the usability, given that I use a digital audio player specifically for working out, running/biking, or long drives.

A number of people will complain about iTunes and how it manages files and playlists - and I agree that it doesn't do things the way I want, the way I'd done them before. It is very easy to use, but does some things I don't like and doesn't present the flexibility or power in use. Do you know what I discovered after a short while? I didn't care - it did a good enough job, and it wasn't worth the effort of micro-managing my playlists in painstaking detail the way I'd done before.

Re:But but but...

Well, until very recently (this article), they DIDN'T lock you down to using iTunes. Amarok worked very, very well with my iPod, in fact, I loathe iTunes in comparison. Apple won't let you copy music from your ipod with itunes, Amarok allows this, case closed.

I hate this decision, and see no benefit to Apple from it except to "drive eyeballs" to iTunes, which is horrible, and thus ITMS. So between that and making the recording industry feel more comfortable, since they just broke all the third party apps to let people copy THEIR OWN MUSIC off of their iPod, I'd say it's "Lose/Lose" to the users.

Still happy I bought my Mac, still like my iPod, probably will skip a new one if this doesn't get fixed. What other players allow music to be Scrobbled when you plug them into your machine, and what apps support these properly? Amarok? I hope?

Re:But but but...

Careful! The last time I even suggested that Apple was not an open source friendly company here on Slashdot, I was modded down as "flamebait." Of course, I also reminded everyone that Apple's developers did not invent the mouse, object oriented programming, the GUI, and that those developers were also not capable of producing a preemptive scheduler, and the presence of those features in OS X represents Apple's team simply borrowing ideas from other people without contributing anything back.

How many days until someone develops a work around

Because I expect the Linux community to have one on my desk by Monday. Companies drive me crazy when they do this, I mean punishing someone whose a potential consumer of your product makes so much sense... yeesh. It's not like they're trying to hack the iTunes DRM - they just want to use a legitimate product they've purchased...

Danger, Will Robinson! DMCA Alert

First, I applaud your determination to uphold the implied freedom to do what one will (within reason, of course) with something that someone owns.

However, if you are in the USA you are running the risk of Apple invoking the DMCA.

I hope they don't. I hope you succeed. I firmly believe from a technical standpoint it can be done. My concern is the legal ramifications.

*sniff*

Application is using a non-public interface to access functionality... Vendor changes said non-public interface... Community is SHOCKED! WTF?

design now defective

so .. tell me again why I should buy an ipod? because its the hippest device on earth?

Apple increasingly hostile to Linux users

Apple is hostile to Linux, because it is beginning to compete with OS X in a much more serious way than Windows.

It all started last year when with the release of iTunes 7, Apple purposely broke DAAP [wikipedia.org], ending the compatibility of their iTunes software with various [gnome.org] media players [gnome.org]. Now rhythmbox/amaroK/banshee users can't listen to iTunes shares, and no one has yet been able to break the hash that would allow it.

So it comes as no surprise that the iPod is being further locked down. The closer our desktops get in usability to OS X (and they are not close yet, but making progress), the more of this we'll see.

Disclaimer: I use an OS X desktop and a Linux laptop.

Re:Apple increasingly hostile to Linux users

Price was no object. The main reason I went for a linux laptop was simple---pixel density. I work with very large images, and the more pixels I can see at a time, in better. Even back in 2001, you could buy a cheap 14" Dell with 1440x1050 resolution (128 pixels/linear inch). By contrast, in 2007 you cannot buy a 15.4" inch MacBook pro with similar pixel density. The best Apple can do is 1440x900, which comes to a crappy 110 pixels/linear inch. Simply put, the pixels on a MacBook/MacBook Pro are just way too big.

My current laptop is a Dell Precision M70 (top of the line in 2004) with a screaming graphics card (NVidia Quadro FX 1400 Go). It runs Ubuntu. Since it's a Pentium M, I can undervolt it in linux and it runs fairly cool. Wireless, everything works out of the box (though WPA didn't work until the most recent version of Ubuntu, 7.04). I love it.

For things like iPhoto/iMovie/iDVD, you can't beat a mac---I still go back for those. But I'm starting to get sick of this iTunes nonsense, and if there were suitable linux alternatives to iLife (which there aren't, no matter how much we'd like to think so), I would completely ditch OS X.

Worst product launch in a long time

What is going on with Apple?
Let us count how bad this product launch is:
1) 33% price cut for the iPhone, which threw early adopters in a fit, and then the $100 "rebate".
2) iPod touch is crippled. The Bluetooth is physically there (supposedly) but not enabled. No editing calender appointments. No Notes app or the other apps from iPhone. Screen issues with the contrast & blackness versus the iPhone.
3) iPod Classic, slower less responsive UI. Old Video accessories don't work with the iClassic.
4) iPod Nano, the FatPod. Same slower UI as the Classic. No memory increase.

Seriously, in 10 days Apple seems to have found a way to piss everyone off. Now they go after the Linux community. How badly have they bungled this product launch?

1) As a non-iPhone owner or wanter, the brew-ha-ha over the $200 price cut irritates me not because of the price cut but the reaction is such that you better believe Apple won't ever make similar price cuts in the future.
Plus you know a 16GB iPhone will come out as soon as the iPhone is released in Europe.

2) Once again, the iTouch will be jailbreaked and the iPhone apps ported to the iTouch, but this type of needless product differentiation crippling cause bad will. And, this hacking may break whenever Apple releases a firmware update. For example, the Linux lock-out of this story.
Apple could have just given people the product they want in the first place. As the screams of people have shown, there is a market for a phoneless iPhone.
The screen issues are unfixable but possibly explained by manufacturing variables.

3) The iClassic is the least changed and therefore least disliked of the new products. The software (DRM) incompatibility with video accessories is unnecessary.

4) Now the FatPod is merely ugly. It is a shame about the less responsive UI. And really it was time to bump up the storage to 16gb. One wonders if the storage was capped at 8Gb in an attempt to differentiate this versus the iTouch. After all if they are needlessly crippling the iTouch why not nerf the FatPod?

Is it just hurbis that has gotten Apple's head so far up its ass, or is this just a cyclical Apple implosion? If the latter, we are in for a few more years of Apple stupidity before they re-emerge with some new wonder product.

only a big deal for ITMS

If you're using only Linux, then you're not using iTunes, and unless you have a some separate access to a computer with iTunes you're not using ITMS. So why use the proprietary database format of iTunes at all? Just use rockbox and treat your iPod like what it is, a mass storage device. Easier manage your files that way anyway. Headline really should read Apple Cuts Off ITMS From Potential Users.

MediaMonkey Is Much Better

iTunes sucks. I have an iPod 160 and my library has 11,000 songs (and there are folks out there with 50,000+). I'm on Windows XP SP2 on a fast box with 2GB memory and USB 2.0. iTunes is entirely unscalable. It is very slow to do anything with my library, even with manual sync. Adding one song to the iPod is a 5-minute process. File transfer speed is not the problem. For sure iTunes wastes time doing unnecessary work. Ejecting the iPod alone takes over a minute. Also, the iTunes MP3 player is buggy. It has trouble with MP3/VBR and generates clicking in the audio output. MediaMonkey is a much better content organizer. It is very fast. But the Apple's file format change on the iPod Classic means the current version of MM can't handle the iPod filesystem. I hope the MM developers will have the problem solved soon.

Re:So I guess...

You got it exactly backwards. Apple just gave a lot of people much more incentive to install a new OS on their iPod. (Including Windows users who don't like iTunes -- not just Linux users.)

Re:So I guess...

That is, assuming this isn't defeated.

Hop along to freenode #gtkpod if you have some serious technical expertise in this kind of thing and are able to obtain a new iPod Classic or Nano.

Re:I hate iTunes

I dunno about that. I'm a tech guy and I like iTunes- but then, the three computers on my desk here are a mac and two windows/linux dual boot machines.

The trick is to let the software do its job without micromanaging it. Focus on what you want to get done rather than the detailed steps of how to get there, and you'll find that it does actually end up being easier and faster.

(Actually, that's generally the problem with open source UIs, I've found. Sure, they provide every possible way to customize every detailed step of the process... but all I want to do is accomplish X! If I want to break things down into algorithmic steps and tweak the parameters of those steps, well, that's what programming is and I do that enough in my job and my side projects. Applications should just work, they shouldn't need to be programmed.)

Re:I hate iTunes

I just hate iTunes. I know other people like it, but it seems to me that non-tech people find iTunes easy, and tech folks don't. As a tech guy, iTunes drives me insane. It doesn't do what I want, doesn't do things my way, does things I don't expect, etc.

I think much of it is a control issue. Techies tend to be control freaks. We also grew up with Winamp (or similar), and are used to devising our own directory structure for our music collection, expecting to have iTunes use our file management schemas. When I first started using it, I got confused. Where the hell are my music files? Why is it recopying what I just put over there? Why won't it let me play these files?

After a day of this, I just said 'screw it' and let iTunes put shit where it wants to, and I decided it does a good job. That's the difference in perception - iTunes is a good system to get music from various sources and never have to worry about the notion that music is contained in 'files.' If you try to buck the system, you and iTunes will hate each other.

Re:Could Apple be sued over this?

It's not like they sold you an iPod saying it would work with Linux and then removed it. You could sue over that. People have (the famous Intellivision keyboard for example). You bought a product for a non-supported use and are complaining that it's not working in a non-supported configuration. They didn't take Linux support away because they never gave it to you in the first place. You were using a hack, and you will in a few weeks when someone figures this out.

Re:Linux Schminux

Even Microsoft doesn't have the balls to be so obviously hostile.

So the Vista-lockout is less obviously hostile? I disagree. Microsoft is the real trailblazer when it comes to obvious hostility toward their customers. Followed closely behind by the RIAA, MPAA and Sony. This little iPod interop issue is pretty minor by comparison.