[Michaelm8000]

Think about it. If it is a FW HD also can't you plug it into a PC and put music on it. Just njot throgh iTUnes? You would think the music is just keped in a folder on that HD and you could mount the HD on a PC and mess with the songs and stuff. Any one think this is possibel?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

Probably. When I get one, I'm sure as heck gonna give it a try!

My guess is, if it didn't work on a PC, it may need some sort of driver for whatever exotic non-OHCI Compliant Controller Bridge they may have used, that won't be available right away for the PC. As it is now, when I plug a FW hard drive to my PC, the Firewire bridge must be driven by the generic Windoze firewire drivers.

Apple seems to get off with the illusion of standard devices appearing to only work with Macs, IE: the 'super drive' and 'iDisk', etc. Meanwhile back in reality, it doesn't take people long to figure out they can go get a 'superdrive' and use it with any computer, and I have all my iDisks mounted on my Windoze 2000 desktop with less hassle than setting them up the first time on a Mac takes.

I doubt that even barring a driver, it'll take some enterprizing hack all of a week to come out with a way to use the iPod with a PC.

Anyway, I've got Firewire Macs, I've got PCs all with Firewire. Whichever the iPod works with, is fine with me.

[ 10-25-2001: Message edited by: CRASH HARDDRIVE ]

Does Win 2000 support HFS+ drives (the format for the iPod and all Mac drives)?

[CRASH HARDDRIVE]

I suspect that Apple may have used ISO/9660 formatting. If they want to later market the iPod and iTune to the PC world (As I've heard rumors they will-not sure if it's true or not) then it most definitly would be ISO/9660.

I've noticed that Apple has sort of quietly moved toward PC compatiblity with many of it's products. Go to burn a CD with disk burner, and the default setting is Mac/ISO 9660 hybrid.

According to the FAQ at Apple's site, in disk mode, the thing can even have the MacOS stored on it, and boot a Mac! They say they don't support it though. One thing I noticed that sucks... it says that any music copied in disk mode, can't be played in the player mode! So there goes the whole theory out the window... though I bet a firmware hack can eventually fix that.

[JC Denton]

If one reads the iPod FAQ, they mention that in order to enable the iPod as a FW drive requires a trip to the iTunes preferences to turn on the Firwwird Hard Drive. That's why when you hook up an iPod (I'm guessing) it autolaunches iTunes but won't show up on your desktop right away.

I'm guessing that means it'll require some kind of hack or applet for someone to run on their Wintel machine to say to the iPod, "Hey, become a HD now.", since it won't just mount no matter what platform you're on.

Iso9660 doesn't support rewriting. That is, once you make the volume, you can't modify the contents. So Apple can't use that on iPod. UDF is the follow on to ISO9660 and does support random access and rewriting (with UDF 2.0). I think Windows even has built in support.

[John B. Smith]

I read an article that said you could activate a "forced" firewire mode for the iPod

BUT all of the songs are somehow kept hidden when it is in this mode, so that any mp3's that you put on via the FireWire disk mode will not actually show up when you try to play them in the normal mode

doesn't bother me a bit tho..

[amphibious]

The Apple engineers said they'd release PC software "when they have time." Which, IMO, is f'in stupid.

[Mr Heliums]

Originally posted by amphibious:
<STRONG>The Apple engineers said they'd release PC software "when they have time." Which, IMO, is f'in stupid.</STRONG>

Care to explain why? Genuine question: I just don't give a monkey's whether PC/Linux/Amiga users have access to this product. I'm lucky enough to have a Mac, what do I care about those losers?

Or are you talking about the financial benefit to Apple? (again, I'm sure they've worked out the economics)

Originally posted by Mr Heliums:
<STRONG>

(again, I'm sure they've worked out the economics)</STRONG>

Steve Jobs cares more about his ego than economics.

He saw Amazon's one-click, he liked it, and he told his people to get the Apple store a license for one-click, damn the price, damn the economics.

This is the ego from whence an Firewire Mac only mp3 player sprung.

Originally posted by &lt;wiggles&gt;:
<STRONG>

Steve Jobs cares more about his ego than economics.

This is the ego from whence an Firewire Mac only mp3 player sprung.</STRONG>

Since you delight in the broader availability of all thing Windows, why should it bother you in the least that there's something Mac only? You've got all the spoils of the Windows world to keep you company. I guess it's just never enough.

Maybe someday the horrible and inconsiderate lack of Windows and USB support on this device will be addressed.

[FormerLurker]

The he11 with ackward (bass-ackward?) compatibility.... who needs it?

[zekemon6]

Think about it. If it is a FW HD also can't you plug it into a PC and put music on it. Just njot throgh iTUnes? You would think the music is just keped in a folder on that HD and you could mount the HD on a PC and mess with the songs and stuff. Any one think this is possibel?

From the iPod FAQ on Apple's website: "iPod is smart enough to keep your data files separate from your music collection so that they will not be accidentally erased when you are updating your music. Note that music files copied to iPod in disk mode cannot be played in music mode."

[Michaelm8000]

Originally posted by zekemon6:
<STRONG>

From the iPod FAQ on Apple's website: "iPod is smart enough to keep your data files separate from your music collection so that they will not be accidentally erased when you are updating your music. Note that music files copied to iPod in disk mode cannot be played in music mode."</STRONG>

There must be some hacks to get past this. I am shure smart computer users could hack iPod and get it to work on a PC. But yes I read the iPod FAQ and it dose seem like you migh need iTunes.

[michaelb]

Originally posted by &lt;Schmoo&gt;:
<STRONG>Does Win 2000 support HFS+ drives (the format for the iPod and all Mac drives)?</STRONG>

The iPod most likely WILL work as a Mac-to-Windows hard drive solution. The product you need is called MacDrive from MediaFour.

It allows Windows to read HFS (standard and extended) formatted hard drives, both installed as IDE devices, and through FireWire.

In fact, we use a standard 30 GB FireWire drive every day to instantly transfer video files to a PC running Windows 2000. It works just fine.

My guess would be that the iPod would be identical for access to its HFS side of things.