Aargh

[Erkki]

When will the world become a place when all devices can just interoperate via standard interfaces?

I was hoping my new Xbox 360 would play music from the iPod, but no luck. Apparently, some new Apple firmware removes the Xbox compatibility or whatever. Of course, at the time of updating the iPod I had no idea that would happen and thought what's the harm in updating.

Another thing that sucks is that the iPod messes up VBR MP3-s when "calculating gapless playback info" or something like that. This also used to not be a problem some time ago.

[Wrestlevania]

Gutted.

My 2nd-generation nano plays back fine on my 360, but Apple haven't bothered with the firmware on that model for a very long time now.

Really arrogant and stupid decision on Apple's behalf if you ask me; I'm sure someone must have hacked it back in by now though. Have a browse...

[DanJW]

Yeah, Apple's response on this was basically "iI Microsoft want it to work again they'll have to fix it at their end. We're not bothered".

[Nappi]

Really arrogant and stupid decision on Apple's behalf if you ask me

Are you sure that this was their intention, though?

It could be that they updated their firmware for other reasons and the two devices just don't happen to work together anymore. I don't understand what Apple would gain for deliberately making their most popular product less compatible.

Anyway, I remember reading somewhere (perhaps even here?) that it is up to Microsoft to bring back the compatibility in an update.

[Ginger]

Anyway, I remember reading somewhere (perhaps even here?) that it is up to Microsoft to bring back the compatibility in an update.

If that's a joke it's comic brilliance, if it is not look up

[Nappi]

Yeah, I started writing before Dan had posted his comment but I had a little delay. And by 'here' I meant Idle Thumbs in general.

Decided to leave it there for humor.

[Wrestlevania]

Are you sure that this was their intention, though?

They changed their software, breaking their own standards and conventions in order to do so.

I know sometimes you can't get around this, but it's still a shitty thing to do; lots of 3rd party software was affected by it as well, of which Apple were as equally dismissive.

"You want to use our products? Then you use our software," is basically what it comes down to. As long as everyone's got iTunes on their machines, they don't give a monkey's.

[twmac]

I had the same problem and it can be fixed!

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5632

If you are lucky you are only going to have to change the iTunes version you are using.

I'm shit with technology and it took me ages to figure out what to do, if you have a knack for this stuff the problem should be solved pretty quickly. Hope the thread and links are still working.

[Erkki]

Thanks, twmac! Indeed it's not the firmware. To summarize the other thread, this is what I did to get it working:

* uninstalled current iTunes

* installed the 7.0.2 version of iTunes

(at this point I tried to connect the ipod to iTunes, then to 360, but still didn't work)

* restored ipod from iTunes (this reset it to defaults and seemed to reinstall the 1.3.x firmware)

* created new iTunes library and copied the music to the ipod

now it works with the 360! (PS. is there supposed to be no "eject" functionality for USB devices on the 360?)

[twmac]

Glad that it helped you.

I don't know, is it worth having this as a potential sticky? I can't imagine many other people will have the same problem so probably not.

The 360, from many drunken nights of playing tunes through it and then deciding to randomnly unplug it to listen to music through my headphones, is pretty good at handling this sort of stuff dynamically. I haven't bricked my iPod despite some quite stupid moments that really should have.

[Wrestlevania]

You'd only brick your iPod writing data to it, not streaming data from it.

Because of the (fucked up) way in which music needs to be converted into one big binary stream on iPod, the writing process messes about with the file structure and therefore all sorts of 'markers' and such.

So it's only going to be poorly if you interrupt the writing process--reading data is basically passive and therefore harmless, as you don't alter the physical state of the hardware in order to do it.

If you are unfortunate enough to brick your iPod via a read/write cock-up, I think I'm correct in saying you have to be really unlucky for iTunes' reset functionality not to restore it (albeit with none of your music on there anymore).

[ThunderPeel2001]

Thanks, twmac! Indeed it's not the firmware. To summarize the other thread, this is what I did to get it working:

* uninstalled current iTunes

* installed the 7.0.2 version of iTunes

(at this point I tried to connect the ipod to iTunes, then to 360, but still didn't work)

* restored ipod from iTunes (this reset it to defaults and seemed to reinstall the 1.3.x firmware)

* created new iTunes library and copied the music to the ipod

now it works with the 360! (PS. is there supposed to be no "eject" functionality for USB devices on the 360?)

Um, then surely it was the firmware? (Confused...)

[Erkki]

Well, depends on the definition of firmware I guess. What I meant was that it wasn't caused by the latest firmware, because the old iTunes installed the new firmware (but possibly configured it in a way that was still compatible with Xbox?).

[twmac]

Agreed. Old firmaware plus new iTunes doesn't work.

As long as the iTunes is only of a certain issue (7.0.2 is the sweet spot, I tried to have an even earlier version but encountered issues)