What is Digg?413 Comments
- purpmint008, on 10/17/2007, -30/+347Anyone here think that iTunes is turning into RealPlayer?
- gareth805, on 10/10/2007, -35/+178Yet another reason Apple is now evil and not to buy an ipod.
- SniperZero, on 10/10/2007, -10/+112Except RealPlayer has a linux version unlike iTunes... or an attempt of one.
- allywilson, on 10/10/2007, -16/+96This is a huge blow for people. This isn't just about Linux, this is much larger. This means that if you don't like using iTunes - you're screwed. Also, what happens if you have an older version of iTunes (i.e. one unable to deal with the SHA1 hashes)? Will your iPod not sync with that either? Also, isn't SHA1 an encryption standard that could possibly be illegal in some countries (I'm sure I read somewhere that France, for example, has some very difficult encryption laws)?
- fishbert, on 10/10/2007, -8/+76In completely unrelated news... check out this awesome 1000+ digg submission from a whole 6 hours before this one!
http://www.digg.com/linux_unix/Apple_forces_new_iPods_to_use_iTunes - dentarthurdent1, on 10/10/2007, -13/+68Apple is the new Microsoft.
- Treshnell, on 10/10/2007, -19/+72If you don't like iTunes, don't buy an iPod...problem solved.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -19/+69Well its already as slow and buggy as hell on anything non-mac, this new anti-linux thing though pushes it over the top.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -11/+52But but but, apple would NEVER do anything that isn't in their customer's interests...
I mean, if they did they wouldn't be worth having some sick emotional dependency relationship with the fanboys! - Izacus, on 10/10/2007, -9/+47It's interesting to see. Apple pushes DRM and it's "pressure from recording companies". Microsoft implements DRM and it's "pure evil".
- Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -2/+38SHA1 is a hashing algorithm, ands while it shares some similarities with encryption it is not used to encrypt data
- srg13, on 10/10/2007, -1/+33"Not only is it faster, cheaper and smaller,"
What? iTunes is free... how can it be cheaper? - jdubdub, on 10/10/2007, -14/+44I avoid iTunes like the plague, thank god for the Winamp ml_ipod plugin. Not only is it faster, cheaper and smaller, but I can copy music to/from ipods, integrate it with other third party apps to automatically fetch album art, and scrobble onto last.fm.
One can only assume that this same "feature" will block legitimate alternative media players from interfacing with the iPod. - phoomp, on 10/10/2007, -6/+35Apple has always been ten times worse than Microsoft. It's just been accepted because Apple's been perceived as the underdog.
- diggsIt, on 10/10/2007, -15/+43Apple is evil. Jobs is a snake.
- m4rqz, on 10/10/2007, -3/+29So which part of this was "linux bashing"? if anything it's "apple bashing"..
- chedabob, on 10/10/2007, -1/+26Wow, 3 tools in a row. That must be some sort of record. In before "Make that 4", etc.
- chriskzoo, on 10/10/2007, -3/+28Linux users revolt! Then say "We weren't buying it anyway!"
- Mejogid, on 10/10/2007, -4/+28It's actually a pretty solid player (although not up to the FOSS equivelants IMO) and years ahead of the Windows one in terms of actually playing music/videos.
- anjinash, on 10/10/2007, -0/+23"Good. Linux is a waste."
No, that's not a flame at all, nope! That's a supported position backed with facts. - springo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+24I'd say that Linux's RealPlayer is way better than Windows'. Linux version has just got the player, which is what we want, not a whole bag of crap with a player inside it.
- xquizit, on 10/10/2007, -6/+28that means linux users won't be buying the new ipods. bad move for apple
- anjinash, on 10/10/2007, -2/+23Good. Dylson is a waste. Of oxygen, that is.
- Scruffydan, on 10/10/2007, -2/+23the point is that apple spent time and money to REDUCE the functionality of their product, just to shove iTunes down our throats. I bought the thing I should be able to use how I like.
most people would be howling if MS did something similar - berb, on 10/10/2007, -3/+24Pathetic fanboy response. Apple is only doing this to create a monopoly with their Itunes software, there is absolutely no good reason for this.
- phoomp, on 10/10/2007, -5/+23Actually, Linux has about as many users as MacOS does. If you're trying to say Linux has an insignificant amount of users, you're saying the same thing about MacOS.
- Mejogid, on 10/10/2007, -4/+21If by 'work' you mean lower performance, more bugs, no support, no integration, liability to stop working with future releases and a completely non-native feel, then yes - it works. I for one would rather iPods integrated with existing *nix media players, and I can't see how anyone can see this acceptable (since there's literally no reason for this change besides restricting freedom).
- allywilson, on 10/10/2007, -0/+17Do you think so? This has now stopped me from wanting to buy a new iPod. I'll stick with my 5th gen for now. Remember, if you buy an Ubuntu PC from Dell, or a Novell PC from HP - you can't use your brand new iPod on it.
- SniperZero, on 10/10/2007, -2/+19Yeah your right linux is a waste so do you think digg.com should move to IIS?
- Amablue, on 10/10/2007, -12/+29So what you're saying is is that iTunes works on Linux.
Good, that's what I thought. - allywilson, on 10/10/2007, -4/+20...and if you don't have an internet connection? Latest release is incompatible with your system? You don't like the latest release? What then?
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -0/+16Actually, no, it still works in the other direction. You can write an app to parse the iTunesDB and thus copy music over just fine. It's writing a new iTunesDB that is the problem.
This basically breaks third party apps (of all sorts) from syncing to the iPod. Linux users are affected the most, though.
Anyway, what's the over/under on this being worked out within a week or two? We reversed engineered the original iTunesDB and all their changes. Won't take long to figure out this checksum stuff, I think. - jakem1, on 10/10/2007, -2/+18What are you talking about? Apple have ALWAYS been obsessed about total control.
- antoniuk, on 10/10/2007, -7/+22Or maybe most Linux users are smart enough to know crap when they see it.
- allywilson, on 10/10/2007, -3/+18Perhaps. But this restriction appears, atleast from the context of the article, to be aimed solely at locking people into using iTunes (i.e. do not utilise other tools available).
- SeBBBe, on 10/10/2007, -3/+18Yeah, this is about Apple screwing us over by not letting us sync our iPods under Linux.
- ishmal, on 10/10/2007, -6/+21Actually, it is quite likely that the hash digest's purpose is only to
a. better ensure database integrity, and
b. make syncs faster. (if hashes match, no need to sync)
Just watch... Give the gtkpod and Amarok guys a few days, and they will have new code in their codebases to handle this "evil" checksum. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -6/+20Of course it will. Apple have become a corporation that is obsessed about total control, nothing else!
- bonarez, on 10/10/2007, -11/+25First they take freeBSD and use it to build their OSX, then they make software that won't run on unix.
So much taking and no giving makes a bad apple - drlha, on 10/10/2007, -4/+18You don't buy a new iPod? The box has the minimum requirements on it you know, stuff like "Requires iTunes 7.4" etc.
- ffleming, on 10/10/2007, -6/+20It sucks, but it's just a freaking checksum. My bet is that the linux hackers'll have it figured out within a week. It is, however, a completely scummy move on Apple's part, although I can't say that I'm remotely surprised.
- tobiasly, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17All of you iPod-using, iPhone-drooling Linux users are getting exactly what you deserve. I will never understand why so many geeks praise Apple and give them a free pass for their DRM-laden, black-box gadgets when anyone else doing the same would be excoriated. Sure, people will eventually crack this, just like they unlocked the iPhone, but then Apple can just change it back whenever they want.
And for what? They have a pretty UI? Is that really worth all the hassle, and the knowledge that you are helping a company that takes away your rights to use content you paid for?
I've been using an iAudio M3 (http://www.cowonglobal.com/) for years and have loved it. It shows up as a USB mass storage device so no company can ever prevent me from using my music. It plays Ogg, MP3, FLAC, and WMA. It does everything I want it to, it's smaller than a similarly featured iPod and cost lots less.
As long as you keep paying someone to take away your rights, you shouldn't act surprised or upset when they actually do. - geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -5/+18...this isn't DRM. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management; with this, they are not managing anyone's rights, they've simply changed the format of their song database for whatever reasons they haven't disclosed to us. Since they've added two pads each 20-bytes long, we all assume it's two SHA-1 hashes of something, be it the file, the file's name, etc. It'll just take a couple of days to find out what it is they're hashing and if there's any unknown salt being used (like a public key or something). The easiest way of figuring out will be disassembling iTunes and looking for the database building functions to see what exactly it is hashing, but also looking at the database reader on the iPod's firmware image is possible (if not a bit harder as fewer people in the world can read ARM assembly than can read x86 assembly, sadly).
A change is not necessarily a restriction, especially not when the change is adding 40-bytes-per-entry to a database table. It's highly likely this was done for security reasons, as the device will be mobile with an unsupervised wireless transceiver. - Jugalator, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15First, the story is a bit accurate, because this may not even really be about an intentional Linux block, but just a modification to their file format for whatever reason behind the scenes in their music database. Second, IF the story is true, this isn't about stopping to support Linux (Apple NEVER supported iPod on Linux), but working intentionally to not allow it to interoperate. There's a huge difference here.
- elipabst, on 10/10/2007, -2/+15How is using WINE illegal? According to your logic running VMware should be illegal as well.
- Stonekeeper, on 10/10/2007, -7/+20Heh, I was thinking of getting one of these too. Oh well Apple, you just lost a customer.
- scheming, on 10/10/2007, -4/+16Why is everyone worrying as if our community's hackers aren't going to crack this within the next 2 weeks. you know, i'm sure a lot of them love their ipods, and a lot of them are using linux, and a lot of them would rather not be inconvenienced by this 're-engineering' and are likely going to 'fix' this problem shortly. patience...?
- psalters, on 10/10/2007, -2/+14sorry Wine 0.9.45 ;)
- paulbjensen, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17How annoying, I was actually thinking about buying an ipod to replace my Sony Walkman, but now I'm having 2nd thoughts.
- jon1012, on 10/10/2007, -1/+13I use linux daily, I was planning to buy a new ipod, I won't.
Now maybe I'm 1% of the population, right... but that's me. So you know what? I don't care of people like you.
I care about freedom of choice :) -
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