So, it's finally happened. Unhappy with other media players being better than iTunes, Apple have apparently decided to stop them from working with the new range of iPods begins the post at iPodminustunes.
What's happened? Apple has updated the way that the music database works on the new iPods.
The iPod keeps track of the songs and playlists in your iPod with a database file - the iTunesDB, found in the iPod_Control/iTunes/ hidden folder on the iPod.
Now though...
At the very start of the database, a couple of what appear to be SHA1 hashes have been inserted which appear to lock the iTunes database to one particular iPod and prevent any modification of the database file. If you try to do either of these, the hashes will not match and the iPod will report that it contains "0 songs" when the iTunesDB would otherwise be perfectly adequate.
The result is that you can't install Linux onto these iPods, and you can't use any media program other than iTunes to put stuff onto the iPods.
A dastardly plan by Apple to prevent people using something other than iTunes? Weeellll, maybe, but another possibility suggests itself: if the database is encrypted, that presumably locks out programs which read the iPod database and pull the music tracks from it. That is, programs which let someone plug your iPod into their computer and suck up the music (and video) from them. Which in theory you Ought Not To Do.
My own take on this - very personally - is that it's been driven by labels bugging Apple about the possibility of people taking content from others' iPods, even if it's just a theoretical loophole. It seems reasonable to assume that on older iPods, content from the iTunes Store is not encrypted, because the decryption process would take too much CPU. That would mean it could be sucked up onto another machine. (Correct me if I'm wrong.)
On the newer machines, with faster CPUs (again, I'm presuming; haven't checked) there's enough to do some sort of hashing on the fly to produce the music. And so they could implement this step.
(Via regular Technology section contributor Tim Anderson, who has also blogged it on his personal blog.)
There's a Slashdot discussion which adds no light, and not even useful heat. What's your take?
