Insanely Greedy - Why Apple broke my iPod!

I just bought a new "8 GB" iPod Nono to replace and supplement a 4 GB iPod Nano that I have had for a couple of years. I found to my horror that I could not load or play any of the thousands of tracks in my music library on it. Thousands of tracks equals an investment of thousands of dollars. I have been playing this library on my 4 GB Nano for years.

Apparently Apple has decided that only tracks purchased on iTunes or ripped from a CD can be played on an iPod. They quietly pushed an "update" to prevent it from playing my non iTunes library.

It is unacceptable for every online music store has its own proprietary player and format. If the company goes out of business or if you just want to change providers you have to purchase your whole music library again. I am sure that the RIAA loves this. I thought that we had laws to protect consumers against this kind of anticompetitive monopolistic nonsense.

How many people really understand what Apple is doing when they purchase an iPod? If you get in bead with Apple you are going to get $crewed. This is exactly why most corporate IT departments wont have anything to do with Apple.


Why did Jobs skate on that insider trading thing?

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just before downloading The Wall this weekend. It cost more, but you need it for bands like Pink Floyd.

Not really a part of this brave new world.

means Digital Rights Management. It is the technology included in many MP3 players to force users to user certain proprietary file formats and to ensure that the rights of the producers are not dismissed. It basically is tech that forces you to use your music and devices in a constrained manner in order to make sure they get every penny and more that they are entitled to.

The device shown in the picture is a Creative Labs player that does not include any DRM firmware. That is it will play any MP3 file as well as other music formats. There are other brands out there. As an example my GF uses a Rio Karma player. It is a direct comepetiter to the Ipod. It holds 20gig of files. And can play Ogg files (a higher quality file format).

Not that I plan to buy one but I entered some contests to win one. Now that sounds stupid.

But thats me.

Do you know if that Zen player works with rhapsody files?(Or the Karma player)
I know of no one except the OP who uses Rhapsody, but thought I'd take a chance and ask.

I like to help people, and you never know when a client will have such a problem.
options are good DRM and non-standards are a hassle.

On edit- I hope it does! Looks like a nice simple interface on the Zen.

All music formats change. 8-tracks, vinyl, cassettes, cds... It happens. I remember having to buy my favorite albums a second time just to have them on cd. At least now you can just take them off your cds or have the incompatble files converted. It's not a big deal.

The OP is using Rhapsody, a Real networks music service.
There are issues using it with ipods.
If you don't use Rhapsody, you will likely have no problems at all.


The rant about greed and insider trading is BS non info.
OP is pissed and lashing out, and I can understand the frustration - but the misinformation is irritating.

people don't know this. many of us don't know any of this stuff. thanks for the info and any more you feel inclined to post. :hi:

and I absolutely love it! The video display is better than the IPOD imho.

Get your money back and buy a Zune.

I bought one for my daughter recently and had no problem loading it up. I just shifted the songs she wanted from folders on my hard drive into iTunes and there was no problem.

"required" firmware update and you should be good... Still wouldn't buy an iPod though..

What exactly is the issue, can you explain? I have tons of MP3 files from various sources and they all work on my iPod and new iPhone. Are you sure it's not a bug or issue with your computer?

I looked at the various options. I was looking for a 4 Gb something or other that plays music easily and accepts my music with no sweat. I don't download, but I do buy CDs and rip them. My previous MP3 was truly ancient -- a 4Gb early version of the Creative Nomad Jukebox. It's huge, and was fairly dependent on the Creative software.

I discovered in my early searches the "Anythingbutipod" website. After a few anti-testimonials from the contributors, I was convinced that it would be a cold day in hell when I bought an iPod of any kind. After a full week of online shopping and consulting with my audiophile son, I settled on the Sansa 4Gb number. I love it. Simple to load, simple to unload. No subscriptions, no proprietary software. Drag, drop, delete, blah blah blah. Someday, if I'm in the mood to be tortured, I can watch a video on that tiny screen (I think not).

Sorry about your iPod experience.

(by the way -- I just bought a new phone/kitchensink. Again, I balked at the Apple and went with the Treo. Again, it's sweet.)

I just ordered teh 8gb version of the Sansa. The reviews on it were excellent so I decided to go that route -- also because it has an FM radio, recording capability, an expansion slot (microSD), and a replaceable battery. That means I can buy an extra batt if I'm traveling so swapping it out is easy. I did buy the AC adapter for charging. The whole deal -- MP3 player, AC adapter, and a travel case with express shipping -- was $200 on Amazon. It will be here Thursday! Woohoo!!!!

Yeah, I've got my eye on a travel kit (including wall adapter) and the FM modulator. Probably get it in the next week or two.

To be honest, I hadn't paid much attention to the expansion slot, but not that you mentioned it, I now see it. I stuffed my Sansa to the gills in about two hours. Taking music off and on is so easy I'm not worried much about space, but a couple of gig more might come in handy in the future.


btw -- the radio works great. I listen to the news when I walk the dog.

That was one of my plans. I have a long commute -- and I also need to walk the dog. If it doesn't work out for that, oh well. I'm looking forward to getting my new toy!

So, I went here:
http://www.audiobooks.org/Books/The_Red_Badge_Of_Courage.html

and downloaded chapter one of Red Badge or Courage. A two-minute download of the 30+ Meg file, 20 second transfer to the Sansa, and I'm listening to chapter one. No sweat.

I was thinking I'd borrow the books on CD from the library, copy them to my computer as MP3 files, then transfer them to the Sansa. Is this feasible?

Unless CD books are totally different from CD music, it shouldn't be a problem at all. (For example, the CD of Red Badge of Courage is in an MP3 format already. That would be totally simple.)

Have fun!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5182721

I heard about this awhile back and I intend to check it out myself. Ordinary people reading books, making them available on the I'net.



Cher

Had it a few months now. Very friendly interface. two itsy quibbles:

1. I wish its FF/RW were speedier (it hits one speed and never increases, which makes scanning an hour-long podcast rather dreary).

2. And I wish it weren't quite so ornery about reversing from one menu level back to the previous level (it tends to jump back farther than you want when you go "back").

Other than that, no complaints. Have fun.

It should be here tomorrow. I'm gonna have so much fun with it!

The one on the left -- Creative Nomad Jukebox vintage 1999 or so. My new Sansa is on the right.

Same memory, but the Nomad cost about $150 more and is slightly larger. :eyes:

I still love the Jukebox, but Creative quit supporting it last year, and my only comp with the software died.

slightly larger indeed.

I'd never seen that model. Wonder if there's a museum gathering up all these devices? There should be, it'd make for a fascinating display.

The Nomad was the first portable MP3 player with a hard drive rather than flash memory. At a time when a 64 Mb flash MP3 player cost nearly $100, the Nomad was around $300 for 4 Gig. My son and I both bought one the first time we saw it. It never ceased providing clear music, and the menus were no more difficult to navigate than any of the "modern" devices. But, yes, the damned thing is "enormous" (exactly the same size as a portable CD player). And my downloads were all from Napster -- not the RIAA approved commercial shit pot, but the good old illegal and totally fantastic version.

sigh.

and she loves it. She even loads DVDs onto it for long car trips.

I bought the 6gig Sansa from Costco for $150 CDN. I can add a 2gig MicroSD card to increase capacity if I want. I can also change the rechargeable battery myself, when the time comes.

I've been nothing but happy with the Sansa.

Sid

You're doing it wrong.

Figure it out and then come back and apologize to Mr. Jobs

:rofl:

But DS! is correct.

You're doing something wrong.

Slow down. Take a breath. Try it again.

Honestly. Just because you have a small problem downloading your iTunes library into the new iPod why do you think you have to attack Apple and claim they've made a "bad" product?

Where the hell have you been the last 25 years while Bill Gates and crew foisted windoze on the world?

In line forking over more dough for every upgrade, I'd imagine. The OP doesn't sound too tech savvy if she can't figure out an iPod.

PC users tend to expect everything to be as convoluted and complicated as Windows, and when they encounter something that isn't (like an iPod), they have to believe it is just Steve Jobs being a putz.

Of course, you might not have much of a music selection, either....!!!

during the last SuperSaturday half price sale. Best place to buy books!

The Ray Coniff Singers. Really great music.

Up Up and Away (In my beautiful balloon)
The Age of Aquarius

I could listen to that stuff all day. :sarcasm:

and the last radio thingie i bought looked something like this:

I have an ANCIENT Hitachi (before Hitachi was a brand here) like that that has the battery backup feature.

I have a depression era radio that I had restored about fifteen or twenty years ago. It's got tubes, and picks up shortwave, fm and am brilliantly. Can't beat it!

My son laughed his head off when he first saw the old transistor radio :)

I suppose that keeps the sand out of it when ya take it to the beach!! It has a snazzy handle, too! Gets great reception! I've listened to many a Red Sox game on that baby!

I never could figure out why it was black, though--gets hot as hell in direct sunlight!

You were able to load your music library on your older 4 gig Nano and not your new 8 gig.
I am able to load my old Itunes library to my new 8 gig nano that I purchased this January.
I had previously loaded it to my 60 gig photo Ipod as well and my husband's 30 gig 5th
generation ipod as well. No conflicts at all. Have you contacted Apple support?

I love this thing, I'm always loading my ipod with music and radio shows from all kinds of sources, maybe you have one with a glitch or something.


The Ipod was spendy but worth every penny!

What do you mean "non-itunes library" anyway?
That doesn't compute to me.
Files are files. What's stopping you from putting them into the iTunes library?
If it only played tracks purchased from iTunes I'd kind of understand, but you say it plays stuff ripped from a CD also and those files shouldn't be any different than any other file not purchased from iTunes.

http://www.madebymark.com/madebymark/2006/11/itunes_7_new_ip.html

Have you authorized the new Nano?

P.I.T.A., but a lot less painful than paying for the same thing twice.

And I'm fully upgraded to the latest version. Which, by the way, I had to choose to do -- I've never not been offered to choose whether or not to accept the latest upgrade. As far as I know, iTunes does not push upgrades against your knowledge or wishes.

I don't know why the op is having a prob... it's easy.

I have music from all different sources. No problems.

The OP is having trouble because REAL did something wrong.

REAL wanted to get music that contained Harmony,
their Digital Rights Management (DRM) scheme onto
the Apple iPod (which uses Fairplay, Apple's DRM
scheme).

I don't know whether REAL couldn't come to terms
with Apple or what, but REAL ended up reverse-
engineering Fairplay. This may or may not have
been a crime under the DMCA, but Apple didn't
take legal action.

Instead, last November, Apple changed the Fairplay
implementation in the firmware of *SOME* of the
latest iPods so that REAL's reverse-engineered
implementation would no longer work.

Apple is entirely within their rights to do this
although it does cause problems for the OP. But
his complaint is really with REAL, even though
he's using this thread to vent his spleen at Apple.

Tesha

I always feared problems with the iPod because every couple of months someone posts on DU how awful iPod is. But last Christmas my husband won an iPod at a christmas party and gave it to me. I love it, it's absolutely wonderful. I've never had a problem.

Calm down, and either check some tech boards to find out what you're doing wrong, or call Apple support.

(it's really not a big conspiracy)

I transfer my ... ugh.... not-totally-legal collection (my entire collection actually) to my 60 gig iPod. I didn't have any problems and they play just fine.

:shrug:

I couldn't read files that I know were there. When I looked in Properties for particular folders for a band, I'd see that 15 songs were contained within it. But there were only 6 files showing. I still haven't been able to find out what happened.

:wtf:

Sorry all you Apple haters. The OP is doing something wrong. There is no truth to that post.

.

...is the complete ignorance of most of the comments. Okay, so you hate Apple...it's a free country...but please don't make yourself look like an ignorant ass by spouting off about something you clearly don't understand.

:rofl:

easier to get done, so you can spend less time fiddling with your computer and more time being outside looking like a smug jackass

oops :hide:

from the true geeks who just snych and go. :D :P

That he did it is public knowledge. I really intended to discuss the implications of this approach. I should have known that Mac Zealots would turn it into something else.

Like I said on another thread, I have a 10 yr old PC and have always used PCs until this year.

I'm just honestly surprised someone as seemingly intellegent as you didn't know that before you bought the iPod.

I hesistated for a year before I bought my iPod precisely because I didn't know what music vendor i wanted to go with.

You can't copy Yahoo or Napster music to your iPod using iTumes....duh.

Why should apple be able to MAKE you buy through iTunes and not Napster?

you don't have to buy through itunes ... anything that you can play on itunes should be able to load on your ipod.

Napster is the ripoff, in my mind, with the whole "cancel your subscription and your music disappears" policy. :eyes:

:thumbsup:

Is it stored on a computer, or is it just on your older iPod? Is there a problem transferring your music from the old iPod to the new iPod, or is it a problem importing your music from the computer into the new iPod? Are the files .aac files or regular .mp3 files?

You're doing something very wrong. Apple has made no such update, and you've misunderstood something. You can take any mp3 and put it into iTunes, and then onto your iPod. You can rip them yourself, download them from websites, whatever, and any file will play on both. There are also many non-mp3 file formats you can use, many of them lossless.

Take a deep breath, and remove the tinfoil hat. :tinfoilhat:

Deal?

I love everything about my iPod except that I can no longer put the music that I bought on it.
Not being able to put my music on it is kind of a deal breaker.

So are you eventually going to tell us what this music is
that used to play on your old iPod and now doesn't play on
your new iPod?

You know: What encoding? Where did it come from? Etc.

Otherwise, I'll top the previous offer and give you
$12 for your new iPod.

Tesha

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/15/apple_vs_real/

I especially liked this part of the article:

"That's bad news for Real - partly because the move limits
the company's ability to sell to iPod owners, but mostly
because no one has noticed until now, almost a month and a
half later. That suggests that Real's iPod-owning customer
base is rather smaller than it would like."

I guess there are some advantages to owning the device(s)
supported by the majority player in a market space and
consequent disadvantages to owning a bit player's device,
ehh?

By the way, the article mentions that Real did their
porting into the iPod by reverse-engineering Fairplay
rather than by reaching any agreement with Apple and it
goes on to say that Real is working on a fix, so maybe
you need to put your pressure on Real instead of
complaining here in about how bad Apple is.

Tesha

some I made myself from "needledropping" which is recording vinyl into the computer, as well as concert bootlegs and out of print music from Limewire. Never had a problem playing anything on the iPod or iTunes. Most of my files are Apple Lossless too which is a proprietary format that only plays on their hardware & software.

Buy this book, and you will be able to do more with your iPod than you can possibly imagine.

http://www.amazon.com/iPod-Missing-Manual-Jude-Biersdorfer/dp/0596529783/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-0697257-8776615?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184113077&sr=1-1

(wrote before reading)

my third party library. This is not a technical glitch. They want you to buy your music from iTunes. It is just that simple. If you don't believe me Google it. If Jobs was sincere about removing the file locks he would not be doing this.

I am not anti-Apple. I am upset that I will have to return my new iPod and try to find a way to transfer my iTunes files to a different player. I suspect that this will not be possible. At least I doubt that is will be possible without a substantial loss of quality.

Over 80% of the music in my Itunes library is not from Itunes.
It all loads just fine on every Ipod we own. Call Apple and ask!

that you can only play iTunes music on iPods or similar. Not that you can't play previously collected MP3s on your new iPod.

I could burn a bunch of CD and rip to MP3 but that is not the answer. The file size of an equivalent MP3 file is much larger. You would certainly loose quality in the conversions. THis is also very time consuming and expensive. I would also need to manually enter in all of the album and track information for thousands of tracks.

It also does not address monopoly issue. You are essentially trapped in a captive market. My intial post was primarily about that.

I own music downloaded legally (perhaps that's part of your problem?) from many different sites, from daytrotter.com to epitonic.com, including lots of purchased music from iTunes. I've even purchased music from other sites, and about 2/3 of my 30gb iPod is filled with music ripped from my own CD's. We bought a second iPod for my wife. We hook it up to the Mac and she drags and drops her own playlists to it, including the paid-for stuff from iTunes.

You're just doing something wrong. There is no monopoly issue. You don't EVER have to purchase one single song from Apple to use an iPod. Not one. Ever.

.

you bought a high tech product without knowing whether or not it would fit with your existing toys?

*whistles*

prevented me from transferring any new or existing files files to the device with my 3rd party library. Yes, it may be possible to convert the files to mp3 but I have already explained why this is a problem.

You have to import your library into iTunes to play it on the iPod. It's that simple.

There's nothing FIRMWARE about it. That does not mean you cannot keep copies of these originals elsewhere.

There are many, many articles about this. Steve Jobs himself would admit that he did it!

Apple pushed an updated that essentially orphaned my library. The OP was intended to discuss why he did it and if this is really good for consumers.

Making baseless assertions about people is really rude!

or who ever you purchased your music from to supply you with a DRM converter that will convert your music to MP3? Or better yet buy noteburner for $35 dollars and convert all your songs without having to burn them to a real cd.

http://www.noteburner.com

B-) :7

or Burn your music to cd then rip to MP3. Your complaint is petty and there is an easy solution to the issue. I don't own an iPod however I buy all my music from iTunes and immediately after I buy an album I burn it to disk and rip it to MP3. I do this for two reasons, I want the ability to listen to albums on a CD player and my MP3 player does not support Apples M4P AAC format.

FairPlay is a digital rights management (DRM) technology created by Apple Inc., based on technology created by the company Veridisc. FairPlay is built into the QuickTime multimedia software and used by the iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and iTunes Store. Any protected song purchased from the iTunes Store with iTunes is encoded with FairPlay. FairPlay digitally encrypts AAC audio files and prevents users from playing these files on unauthorized computers.
The majority of FairPlay-encrypted content is purchased through the iTunes Store, using the iTunes jukebox software. The iTunes jukebox software relies on Apple's Quicktime multimedia software for decoding and playback of the encrypted files. Every media player capable of utilizing QuickTime is capable of playing back FairPlay-encrypted files, including RealPlayer, Media Center, and Media Player Classic.

DRM prevents you from playing your Itunes purchased music on unauthorized computers or other MP3 players. It does not restrict
you from playing other mp3, acc, or aiff files on your Ipod.

You've got something else going on.

My Sweetie's iPod has all the updates, and no such problem
exists.

You're doing something wrong.

you can tweak the preferences to NOT allow automatic updates, only manual ones. that's your work-around. sorry you had to go thru this:(

Okay, you've got thousands of tracks in your iTunes library. You've played them on your 4 GB iPod. (With just 4 GB, I take it that you only had a selection of these tracks on your iPod at one time, unless you imported them in at a really low fidelity.) When you plug your new iPod in, what happens? When I plug my iPod in, I see it listed under "Devices" in the iTunes screen. Clicking on it brings up the summary page for my iPod. Do you have "Manually Manage Music" checked? Is "Only Sync Checked Items" checked? Are the songs in your library checked? Clicking on the "Music" tab at the top of the summary page brings up the music settings for the iPod. Do you have "Sync Music" checked?

Are you trying to load songs from your old iPod that are no longer in your music library? ITunes won't allow that, but you can find some shareware that will do it. I had to do that when the hard drive I had my music library stored on became corrupted. I still lost about 500 tracks, some on CD's that I no longer own, but I've got over 8,000 in my library, so I'll get by.

http://www.macfixit.com/

Sounds to me like you have some sort of glitch going on.

Every iPod we own plays anything we want from mp3's to ripped CDs.

Maybe you should go sign up in the MacUsers forum here at DU.

But that block will not keep you from loading your non-Itunes Store music on your new Nano.

problem solved. Unless it's not MP3 format.

Looks like there are several suggestions here that might work.
I haven't had a problem but then I also haven't updated to 7.3 which looks like it had some problems a few days ago according to the support groups at apple:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=4899021?

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=4844530#4844530

Also looks like some possible suggestions such as reverting to 7.2 or taking video podcasts out of the library, but I can't vouch for them since I haven't had to run any of them.
Another thing mentioned in there makes it look like there may already be a newer version of 7.3 that fixes it.

I was getting an error message. It took me a couple of hours to figure out what the problem was, but this is what solved it:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93313

You zeroed right in on that. I read through most of them but missed it & it does sound like the solution.

I have had excellent luck over the years getting all sorts of questions answered at the macfixit forums. And also great advice on the DU MacUsers forum. By great advice, I mean answers you can USE to FIX the problem.

I've been thinking about going with Zune and after hearing stories like this I think even more that Zune's the way to go!

Jesus, why are you willing to write of an excellent product just because some jamoke can't figure out how to use it? How many actual iPod users have to sign in on this thread and tell you all that THERE IS NO TRUTH TO THE OP. He's just wrong. Go ahead, buy a Zune, get a crappy inferior product because some stranger on DU can't figure out his iPod. :eyes:

.

:D

Please take out your bad day on someone else. Thanks.

Unless Zune's have been radically updated, I've read some pretty terrible reviews on them.

:evilgrin:

;) mmmm nothing says funner than brown--am i right or am i right?

does know how to use an iPod.

I have over half my music from other sources and have not had to do ANYTHING special. Just get them into your itunes, and it will upload them to ipod...

did not even have an issue with my new ipod

load songs onto to your old nano if it doesn't work, shouldn't that also be dead?

1/2 the price of an Ipod

The only thing apple is good for, IMO, is marketing.

I know about a dozen people who have swithced from Windoze PCs to Apples the past couple of years. Apple haters like you will never convince them to go back to that piece of shit Windoze crap. Most of them also love their iPods.

Yes you can rip CDs to iTunes and yest it will play mp3 files. I have already explained why this is not an option.

...that's not in the mp3 format, which is the universal standard for digital music files.

It's like blaming your Prius for not running on the 12,000 gallons of diesel you bought.

Damn that evil genius Jobs!

I try to convince no one.
Apple PC's are great for some uses. I won't argue against that.
It really depends on what applications your using a PC for and your personal preferences.

My beef is with the Ipod.
IMO, is all hype and marketing.
Same with the IPhone, those things cost a fortune.

DRM music and a battery I can't replace?

No thanks.

I assume this is because of the pissing match between Apple and Microsoft, since .wma format is specific to Microsoft.

By the same token, if you purchase music from iTunes, it will be in Apple's proprietary .m4p format that only works on iPods.

You can convert .wma to iPod friendly by burning CDs with the files and then ripping the CDs with iTunes, and you can convert .m4p to a format playable on non-iPod by the same process, but you lose some quality and it costs you CDs.

There are software ways to do the conversion but technically I think they are not legal because they strip the digital rights encoding from the files, so it's probably against the End User License Agreement.

.mp3 format files are playable on all players, as this format is neutral in the Microsoft/Apple pissing war.

I can convert and put any sound file I want on my iPod and it works. :shrug:

to you iPod. Apple broke Harmony. Any files in your Rhapsody library are blocked. This is well documented. A simple google search will yeald many many links. Yes, the iPod will play lower quality mp3 files but I have already explained why this is not really an option.

I don't hate Apple but I can not do business with them if I can only buy music from iTunes. For one thing almost every other source sells greater that 128 kbps files. They are also more expensive and only offer a 30 second preview. I prefer to buy music and not hype.

I explaind my concerns with this approach in my OP.

What are their file formats?

The point is Apple orphaned my entire leaglly purchased music library. The firmware in my new iPod will not permit me to transfer any of this protected music to it. Apple also pushed an update to my existing iPod that had the same effect.

I did not know about this until I attempted to transfer music to my new iPod this afternoon. I spent some time on Google and learned that Apple did this on purpose. It is well documented Apple policy.

This link explains the file format better than I could:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay

ACC, AIFF, WMV, MP3, etc?

The actual file extension that they save is RAX. RAX as I understand it is essentially an AAC file with their own DRM. Harmony was a conversion utility that converted it to an iPod compatible AAC. Apple did not like this so they pushed a firmware update out to iPods that prevented the files from being read. Real could have adjusted Harmony to fixed this but Apple threatened to sue them.

There is no off the shelf application that will covert the files because Apple would sue any company that tried. I have not really found a black market program to do the job in a lossless way either.

There should be some universal file format for DRM protected music but there is not. You are stuck in a proprietary zone.

No need to be stuck in a proprietary zone. There are numerous ways to circumvent these types of restrictions.

Good luck! :hi:

Apple Lossless (also known as Apple Lossless Encoder, ALE, or Apple Lossless Audio Codec, ALAC) is an audio codec developed by Apple Inc. for lossless data compression of digital music.

Apple Lossless data is stored within an MP4 container with the filename extension .m4a. While Apple Lossless has the same file extension as AAC, it is not a variant of AAC, but uses linear prediction similar to other lossless codecs such as FLAC and Shorten.<1> iPods with a dock connector (not the Shuffle) and recent firmware can play Apple Lossless-encoded files.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Lossless

If you look at the bit rate column in iTunes i bet you will see that all of you music is 128 kbps. My theory is this enables them to inflate the number of songs in the marketing bullets and many people won't notice. This will also enable them to sell you the same song again when they get around to increasing the quality.

Apple announced a few months ago that they were going to start selling some files at a slightly higher bit rate. I think that the bit rate was 192 kbps but I could be wrong. I believe that they said the the files would be more expensive. I have not seen any of these slightly higher bit rate tracks yet. Most of the other online services offer higher bit rate files now.

CD quality would be more that 320 kbps.

Apple does NOT sell any lossless files.

You can rip a CD to a lossless compressed file. This would be a great idea if you have a large iPod and you went to connect it to a high end sound system.

Considering the market share dominance of the ipod, this would be like buying a diesel car and then complaining that hardly any US stations sell diesel and blaming the gas station.

As I understand it Apple pushed an update to iPods to make it incompatible. Harmony could have easily been adjusted to correct this but Apple threatened to sue them if they did. Apple apparently wants to prevent other companies from selling music for the device. THey want iPod users to buy their music from iTunes.

Given the size of the iPod base that is a very big captive market.

It would be like apple updating the firmware on all of their computers to prevent them from running any software that was not purchased from the Apple Store.

That's illegal, and they were getting financial gain from using Apple's software without paying or getting permission. Of course when Apple caught them it stopped that- if a neighbor was breaking into your house with a stolen key you'd change the locks, wouldn't you? Your beef should be with Rhapsody for selling you a file you can't use because they didn't do what they needed to do.

Apple was not about to "license" the right to sell music that will play on an iPod. If you own an iPod you MUST buy your DRM music from iTunes.

The "reverse engineering" language sounds like something from Apple's PR department. In any case we would not have "IBM Compatible" PCs without "reverse engineering".

If Apple pushed an update to all of their computers that prevented them from running any software that was not purchased purchased from the Apple store would that be okay? I'm sorry Microsoft but you may not sell your software directly to consumers. We are tho only vendor "licensed" to sell software on the copters we make. That is not the way that we do business in the Country.

Anybody can sell music that works on an iPod (in MP3 for example) but they do have to pay Apple if they want to use a patented technology, such as FairPlay.

Why you insist on blaming Apple when everybody and their mother has an iPod and almost nobody has any problems, I don't know. In tech support parlance, PLBKAC.

There has been some movement in this area but most major record labels are still singing the same song. In any case this would not permit me to move my current DRM protected library to my iPod. I was able to do this for years and Apple pushed an update that broke it.

If you try to buy music from any online source other than iTunes you are probably going to have a problem. Apple is actively restricting this.

Most people that own iPods buy their music from iTuens, download it illegally, or rip it from CD.

Since they charged you perfectly good money, there's no reason they couldn't have paid Apple to use their technology. They did not, and it's silly to blame Apple for changing the locks to keep the thieves out. Go after Rhapsody, and have them fix your files so that they're usable or refund your money, because they're the ones who created the problem.

It is not owned by anyone.

That fix has been mentioned by more than one poster and you seem to be ignoring it.
Plus, per your original post, you still have your 4 gigger which works, correct?
Why not use it?
I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill personally.

The size of the library makes me laugh frankly also.
If you were talking about a real library, I wouldn't find it so amusing, but 4 gigs.?!?!?!
That's peanuts. 4 gigs of AAC would be about 40 gigs of wav or aiff. How long would that really take to burn, even with a slow computer?
Oh, the hardship. The torture.
It would take so much time out of your life and cost so much to burn that much to CD.
You could have done a bunch of it in the time you've spent on this thread.
What are CDs these days, 50 cents each?
Man, the expense must hurt big time.
I really feel for you.

Actually, I'm finding it hard to take this at all seriously (especially since it appears that you are selectively listening to advice and only responding to that which allows you to continue the particular drumbeat you started with).

The 25+ gigs of ripped and downloaded off Usenet/BitTorrent/Limewire mp3s and podcasts on my 30gig 5G iPod beg to differ. I keep my firmware updated and I've never had a problem playing any mp3 on my iPod, including my gigs of merrily pirated music. You are seriously the only iPod owner I know, "Nono" or otherwise, out of the dozens that I personally know with current iPods, that has this problem. But hey, if writing an incoherent smear against Steve Jobs makes you feel better about what's likely a glitch with your own hardware/software setup, more power to you. :shrug:

Yes, DRM free MP3's will play on an iPod. Other online sources also sell protected files. You can not transfer a protected file from another source to the iPod. Apple is using DRM to force you to buy from them. Personally, I have a big problem with that.

Jobs has admitted that he did this. That he did it is NOT in question. Thisd is part of the Apple Business model. A few minutes with Google will produce more lionks than I could possibly post in a message.

Not familiar, thanks.

google it

In your original post you wrote this --

"Apparently Apple has decided that only tracks purchased on iTunes or ripped from a CD can be played on an iPod. They quietly pushed an "update" to prevent it from playing my non iTunes library."

which includes that DRM free MP3s not purchased from iTunes or not ripped from a CD will not play on your iPod now.
Now you are qualifying your statement which changes it to mean that what is not playing on your iPod are DRM MP3s acquired from something other than iTunes.
That's a completely narrower and different issue.

Makes me feel like you've been wasting our time.

You have music from some source other than Apple that has DRM'd their music. iTunes can't play it and you can't load it on to your iPod.

Sounds to me like your bitch is with the company that you got the DRM'd music from -- rather than Apple.

You first claimed that your iPod was locked, then that iTunes was only allowing you to play Apple DRM'd music, than that iTunes wouldn't work with music DRM'd by someone else.

Sounds to me like you need to complain to whereever you downloaded your music from (that's the DRM you need to worry about). As far as I can tell, Jobs is just about the only one interested in pushing the DRM-free model.

Will DRM Die Today?

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/04/02/will-drm-die-today/

Harmony has worked for years. Apple intentionally broke it. They used DRM to do that. They did this to force iPod owners to buy all of their music from iTunes. Do you really believe that he is going to dump DRM?

Apple says over and over against that the bad record companies are holding a gun to their heads. That is only part of the story.

My complaint is not just that Apple blocked me from playing the music that I own on my iPod. Blocking competition is bad for all consumers. Given the level of misunderstanding in this thread I doubt that almost anyone understands what they are getting when they buy an iPod.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/05/30itunesplus.html

"CUPERTINO, California—May 30, 2007—Apple® today launched iTunes® Plus—DRM-free music tracks featuring high quality 256 kbps AAC encoding for audio quality virtually indistinguishable from the original recordings—for just $1.29 per song. iTunes Plus is launching with EMI’s digital catalog of outstanding recordings, including singles and albums from Coldplay, The Rolling Stones, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Joss Stone, Pink Floyd, John Coltrane and more than a dozen of Paul McCartney’s classic albums available on iTunes for the first time.

iTunes will continue to offer its entire catalog, currently over five million songs, in the same versions as today—128 kbps AAC encoding with DRM—at the same price of 99 cents per song, alongside the higher quality iTunes Plus versions when available. In addition, iTunes customers can now easily upgrade their library of previously purchased EMI content to iTunes Plus tracks for just 30 cents a song and $3.00 for most albums."

Of course, you have to pay extra for it, but that's capitalism.

I think the level of misunderstanding in this thread has a lot to do with how you complained about something different in your initial post than what was really bothering you. That is, you were unclear originally about what was really happening.

Also, I don't see what the big problem is in "forcing" people to buy music from iTunes if they are using an iPod (not that I agree that that is precisely what is going on). If you want to use Microsoft Word on a Mac you have to buy the Mac version of Word after all, not the PC version. Seems like roughly the same thing here.

that the manufacturer said wouldn't work with your existing collection, right? and this is THEIR fault? how you figure?

you remind me of someone who bought an 8-trak player when they own a bunch of vinyl and them complaining about it. do some homework before spending money, why don't you? you seem to have easily found this out on Google now, why not google 'ipod raphsody' before spending cash money?

My legal collection consists of ten songs I bought with an itunes gift card for my b'day and a bunch of itunes distributed podcasts. The rest? Well, the internet may be a series of tubes, but let's say that they fell off a truck somehow. I've never had any issues playing any dodgy format obscure file, but I'm not buying them from someplace that has decided to sell me the audio equivalent of betamax tapes, technically meritorious but too obscure to be of any real utility. And I certainly wouldn't blame Apple if I had, I'd simply find a way to convert the files.

Just wondering.

I'm not sure I get it. I have an Apple, with iTunes on it. I loaded all my CDs onto iTunes, bought a few songs at the iTunes store, and that's pretty much my collection. I thought you HAD to have iTunes to load stuff on to your iPod in the first place, that other stuff didn't work. I didn't know that it ever had, and that this was something new.

Are you a PC user?

You are in a monogamous relationship whether you want to be or not.

You are not likely to find another vendor that is willing to sell content on the internet that is not copyright protected. You will not be able to play protected files from another source on your iPod. Also, you are not likely to be able to easily transfer the music you bought on iTunes to another player.

This was not always the case. I have a vast library of songs that I legally purchased from another vendor. I have been playing them on my iPod for years. Apple sent an iPod "update" out in November that prevented non iTunes protected files from being transferred to iPods. THat this was done is public knowledge. It is published all over the place. Jobs would not deny it.

I explained why this is a bad thing on my OP.

I can add that most other vendors sell files that are higher quality because they are greater that 128 kbps. Also, other vendors let you listen to the whole song before buying it. Buying a much hyped CD that turns out to be bad really sux. Other vendors are also often cheaper that iTunes.

Competition is a good thing and monopolies are bad for consumers.

Thanks.

Let me try to explain.

Apple iPods will play any music if it is in a format it recognizes (mp3 is fine for example, while wma is not), and if that music has no DRM. That is why so many of you have been able to transfer files from your computer to your iPod with no trouble, they have no DRM protection. I'd also bet that most of you who did this got those files from a file-sharing program such as Limewire, eMule, or the old Napster. You will usually only get DRM free files from such places. You can get a DRM protected file that way, but it won't work so there is no point, thus they tend to get weeded out.

The problems comes in when you try to import a file to your iPod that has been purchased from a service that is similar to iTunes, but uses a different DRM. DRM's require that you have the super secret decoder key in the hardware you use to play it, or it doesn't work. Thus, companies that employ such techniques have to keep the details of their DRM secret or it will be hacked before the next morning. Since the various companies only know the details of their own DRM, music purchased at an online store that is NOT iTunes will not work on an iPod.

The whole thing is pretty stupid really. Apple is kind of up a creek here; it really isn't their fault. You see, in order to sell their music on the iTunes site, the Big Four record companies (Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI) insisted that Apple employ DRM protection. Since those companies produce something like 75% of the music sold worldwide, Apple was forced to comply. The stupid part is that those same companies sell the CD's with no DRM protection whatsoever. You can buy music from a Sony label artist from iTunes, and it will only play on your iPod, or you can buy the CD directly and share it with 5 gazillion people.

What it all boils down to is DRM's don't protect anything, they just piss people off, and in the end they will go the way of the Dodo. In the meantime I intend to stay away from any DRM protected files, no matter where they come from, just to avoid the headache.

I'm getting an education, anyway.

DRM protected files are just a headache, but not a significant barrier. it's like a hurdle, 1 or 2 is fine, but if you buy 100+ albums online and get DRM files you're looking at a marathon of hurdles. doable, eventually, but just annoying. but nothing like some sort of bank vault the OP is making it out to be. if you really want to get around these things there's a multitude of ways, so in the end it's not an insurmountable problem at all.

And your subsequent solution to the OP's problem.

Thanks much. I've learned a lot.

Audacity. That program will fix your problem. If you already know how to do this I apologize, but if you don't google it up. DRM is pretty easily defeatable if you are so inclined.

NT

basically, if you are really paranoid, remember to store/convert things in .wav so that it's easily imported into everything else -- this essentially means burning a CD of your downloaded music. it's a good thing to do anyway because it's a "hard copy" in case anything untoward happens to your other memory units. after getting it into .wav it's all gravy and you can do as you please, import it anywhere, play it w/ anything.

so many companies are doing their own DRMs to keep markets locked to them, or "protect from them evil pirates!", *ahem*, but anyone worth their keyboard can figure out how to legally keep, copy, and play their music just about anywhere. besides, if you search around in google half the time you've been telling us to google all this old news about DRMs you'd already would have found an even easier, though not necessarily 100% legit, means to convert your library w/o having to burn/import everything. it sounds like you want to rant more than anything.

get in the way of a good rant. :-)

compatible formats. Certainly a helluva lot easier than trying to convert vinyl to cds. Mountain out of a molehill.

There is no off the shelf application that do this in a lossless way. Apple would sue anyone that tried. They shut down Harmony because it did that. Apple wants to restrict competition.

Yes, it is possible to burn thousands of tracks to CDs and then rip all of the tracks to ACC files. Blank CDs are not that cheap. This would be very time consuming. I don't believe that burning an ACC file to CD and ripping it to ACC again would be lossless. I also believe that I would have to enter a lot of the ID tag information again.

There are a couple of black market products that will remove DRM from Apple files. I found one that claimed to do this for RAX files but it looked especially shady. There is also a conversing tool that exploits the "analog hole" but I don't believe that it is lossless and message boards say that it is unreliable.

Unfortunately there is no good solution to the problem.

Relatively anyway. At the time I was ripping all of our thousands of cds and that took much longer.

I know for a few things I did burn stuff to RW cds and rip it.

seriously - first off why don't you list the error message you ran into while trying to import your music.
second off - i call bullshit on your entire claim. i have over 100gigs of music i've collected over the years - ripped with various tools along the way. I've had NO issue with any of these tracks on my 60 gig ipod.

make with some screen shots and an exact error message. otherwise, this is pure bullshit.

He(?) has purchased music from another online music retailer, who uses an encryption scheme (or what have you) that is incompatible with the iPod. He links to information on Apple's Fairplay system, which isn't really relevant AFAICT, because that only applies to music files bought from Apple (ie. you're licensing music from Apple, for play on their music player).

Whether it's the iPod's fault for not supporting every other online music retailer's music file licensing scheme, or vice-versa, isn't clear to me.

Record companies have generally not wanted to sell music without DRM. Any company that wants to sell music has to do this with some form of DRM. Harmony is a system that Real was using for years to converted their files to a form that Apple's DRM could read. Apple was not happy about this and pushed an update to iPod firmware to break it. Real could have easily fixed this with their software but Apple threatened legal action. Apple wants all iPod owners to buy their music from iTunes.

Digital Rites Management is not really the issue. As I understand it Apple is using DRM as a tool to restrict competition.

There is a section in the link that discusses this in more detail.

This is a bit like Apple updating the firmware in new and existing computers so that they will only run software purchased from the Apple Store.

-------------

I did not know about any of this until yesterday. I was the happy owner of a beautiful new iPod. I attempted to put my music on it and got a very rude surprise.

Lots of folks here have explained what the problem is,
but you just don't want to hear it.

I have a brand-new iPod and LOVE it! I had absolutely no problems adding all my music to it.

formats to compatible ones. It wasn't difficult and it didn't take long. We didn't lose any of our music. We back it all up onto dvd anyway so even if it did get screwed up we could do it again.

Besides, at 37 I'm pretty used to having music formats change on me over and over. I used to buy vinyl. Then I'd buy vinyl but immediately tape it so I could play it on my Walkman. Then it was cds, which forced me to rebuy everything I had on vinyl that I still wanted to own. Having to switch some of our music to iPod-compatible formats was certainly easier and cheaper than doing that.

My new 30 gig Ipod was filled by transfering all the content from my old creative labs. I've never had a problem putting anything on it from any source. Cept Ogg files. That's a legit complaint.

your ipod.

The problem is not with ipod only allowing certain sources of music; rather, the problem is with certain sources of music placing restrictions on their music files. With napster and yahoo, for instance, you can "download" songs, but they are only good on compatible players and you don't *own* the song--it disappears when you cancel your subscription.

Music that you download (legally, even) from any number of sites--some free, like epitonic, some subscription, like emusic or audiolunchbox--work fine with the ipod. (Illegal downloads should work, too, I would think, provided they are in a recognizable format for the itunes player, but I'm hardly an expert on that.)

http://digital-lifestyles.info/2004/02/27/audiolunchbox-drm-free-music/

"Audiolunchbox.com specialises in indie music and amongst many bands we’ve never heard of (All Natural Lemon and Lime Flavors, anyone?), the site provides non-DRM restricted legal downloads of tracks and albums from Moby, Sasha and even The Pretenders."

DRM free is clearly the answer. Using DRM to lock people into proprietary competition free zones is not in the public interest.

Although some industry standard for drm format would prevent the problem as well. Jobs has actually encouraged the record industry giants to give up on DRM, but they won't license their music to itunes (or any other store/service) without it, which is why non-DRM sites like audiolunchbox are largely indie. (That doesn't bother me, personally; indeed, it's part of the appeal.)

I've looked into all the downloading services over the years, and all of the big ones had too many restrictions for my taste. (I don't download from itunes, either, except what I can get for free.) Emusic, on the other hand, I'm totally in love with.

I'm very late in the thread, but you should take a look at the RockBox replacement firmware for the iPods.

http://www.rockbox.org/

It's an open-source replacement firmware for a variety of software players. It adds a TON of new functionality and generally un-cripples the iPod. Here are some of the available "themes" for the Nano release:

http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WpsIpodNano

That might get me out of trouble with my existing iPod. I'm going to miss the Apple interface.

Have you tried this?

Before trying Rockbox --Make sure you do some research first on whether it plays RAX format - Or you will be in the same situation as you are now.


Real Networks is the culprit here - Apple HAS to protect their IP or they lose the rights. That's the law.
Rob Glaser of Real is a putz, and has a real bug up his butt over apple. An old grudge.
You should write them some angry emails, but Real has never been responsive to anything, IMO.

Scaring off others from the ipod because 1% of them might want to use Rhapsody is backwards - I would say get an ipod, but don't touch rhapsody!

Sounds like Translation is your best bet. Good luck!

Oh, and don't forget backups, my friends! Hard drives are subject to the laws of physics, no matter the platform! :argh:

Apple is enforcing a captive market.

Framing this as a personality conflict is just spin. It sounds like something cooked up by the Apple PR department.

Translating an AAC to an AAC file is not the issue. Apple does not own AAC. Designing an AAC file that will play on iPod is not an issue. Apple is essentially using the DRM as the music player equivalent of a cell phone lock code.

If Apple updated the firmware in all Apple computers to prevent anyone from installing software (regardless of the manufacturer) that was not purchase from the Apple Store would that be okay with you?

I believe that Apple's market share is something like 80%. Forcing that many people into a competition free zone is not how we should be doing business in this Country.

and give you a heads up to check whether an altOS in your pod would work before you leaped into it.
On rereading the thread, you are apparently more interested in bashing apple than discussing solutions. I can understand your frustration, but would rather point to some positive options, as others have tried to do.

Maybe the best solution for you (even though it seems you don't want one) would be to sell (or give away) your pods and then do some research to see what the best media player hardware would work with your files. I am well aware that your investment in music is probably a bigger investment than the hardware to run it on. This is quite common.

Just to be clear, I am on no one side of this issue, except for this:
**I would prefer open standards and no DRM anywhere! **
But that is not the world we live in, alas.

Accusing me of spinning stories from apple PR was uncalled for and inaccurate - I have been in the multimedia biz for 15 years and know the long history of apple vs Real, and how personal it got on Rob Glaser's part. Pretty well known in the industry. So I would know better than to trust Real/Rhapsody DRM to work with apple DRM or vice versa.

I am a media consultant and have Macs, Windows, Linux, (hell even SGI Irix, Amigas, BeOS and so on). Not a zealot at all. Just old enough to find platform wars lame and boring. As a consultant, it is my responsibility to match clients with the best solutions for them, not to go off on childish blame rants.

The company for which I am chief designer is developing a SMIL system using Realplayer because they are the only company that really supports SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language), so I don't want to just bash Real either. Our livelihood depends on them! -- at least until MS, apple, Adobe or someone gets on the ball regarding SMIL. You should read the developer lists to see what developers think of Real/Rhapsody/Harmony and their software. Pretty brutal. Too bad, because they have some good ideas, just don't quite follow through. And we have a helluva time getting them to respond to issues. But nobody is perfect.

Sorry to be wordy, but i hope I helped someone here even a tiny bit..
I really do hope you find a good solution that works for your specific needs.
It's all about the music after all.


So for the non-tech people, the bottom line is this -- Rhapsody and ipods don't play well together.
Regardless of blame, it is a bad mix.
I would welcome simple workarounds for this, and will pass on any good info if it ever comes up.

Good luck with your issues - tech can be a pain sometimes!

How did you post that?

I won't even get into the aspect of the computer chip in your car. Hell, there are computer chips in new toasters.

You don't use technology? Right.

.

I am posting this on a clay tablet.
Oops, that would be technology. Doh!:dunce: