INTERACT FORUM
Devices => Androids and other portables => Topic started by: Deivit on July 11, 2008, 03:14:13 am
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Hi,
Today is D-day here in Spain for the launch of the new iPhone 3G. It's on my list ;D
Should I expect MC to handle it out of the box or not yet? I'm probably not going to buy it until I can use it with MC. It's impossible with my current setup to start using iTunes.
Thank you.
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Hi,
Today is D-day here in Spain for the launch of the new iPhone 3G. It's on my list ;D
Should I expect MC to handle it out of the box or not yet? I'm probably not going to buy it until I can use it with MC. It's impossible with my current setup to start using iTunes.
Thank you.
We don't know. We'll need a phone or a tester.
Apple has gone out of their way (i.e. unnecessary encryption keys) in the past to make it hard for us to support their hardware. Hopefully they won't again.
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I see. As soon as the lines clear up a little I may take the plunge and buy one.
The first generation iPhones never made it into Spain since "Telefonica" (spanish exclusive dealer) did not want it without 3G, a technology which was already widely used here by Telefonica-Movistar and Vodafone at the time that 1st gen iPhones were out.
I'll be happy to test it for you if I finally get one. Will keep you posted.
Thanks, Matt.
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What Does 3G Mean?
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What Does 3G Mean?
The service costs $3000 a year.
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What Does 3G Mean?
Well, basically is the third generation (3G) of mobile phone standards. It allows more services, such as video calls, live TV over mobile phones, video on demand, high-speed internet, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3g
The service costs $3000 a year.
To the user? Not here. It's a flat rate between 15 and 25 Euro a month (25 to 35 US$) depending on the speed needed.
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I'm going to get one next week probably (possibly the week after) so I can help then.
The service costs $3000 a year.
I see... Everyone is pointing this out because it is more expensive than any other Smartphone (like a Blackberry) from AT&T?
Oh, wait... No, it is exactly the same data price as both the Blackberry and PDA Connect plans from AT&T.
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he was making a joke about 3G
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he was making a joke about 3G
I know... There have just been a lot of similar reports on Engadget and other similar places.
The monthly price went up, which sucks, but isn't surprising because it now matches the cost of it's main competitors. The initial cost came way down though, because AT&T is now subsidizing the phone. I'm personally fine with that. The total cost remained roughly the same (went up by about $68 dollars over the course of two years), and is still roughly the same as competing devices.
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A G is an old way of saying "a grand", meaning $1000. As in, "My neighbor just paid 6 G's for a new Cadillac. Can you imagine paying that much for a car?"
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A G is an old way of saying "a grand", meaning $1000. As in, "My neighbor just paid 6 G's for a new Cadillac. Can you imagine paying that much for a car?"
Yep, I got it. Just explaining my reaction. There has been a lot of bru-ha-ha in the tech media about this, and I think a whole lot of it was quite overblown. Either way... I'm excited about it, and I'll let you know when I get one. For now, I'm following my standard Apple purchase rules:
1. Never purchase a 1st Gen Apple device. The second gen always fixes a bunch of the "simple, low-hanging" problems and is usually a much better deal.
2. Never purchase an Apple device on Day 1. There are always problems that get sorted out in the first week or two.
So far, I'm really glad I waited on both fronts. I really wanted one last year, but felt it was best to wait. All in all, four of the big things I was waiting for were addressed: much better audio, GPS, 3G (even though I don't have 3G coverage where I live), and 3rd party Application availability. I still can't believe they haven't enabled cut/paste support, but it'll come. That's a software not a hardware feature.
Next gen is probably going to be mostly about storage, CPU speed, and battery life updates (in addition to shiny new software features that I'll probably get on my 3G version for free). I can live without those things on my phone for a year till my contract's up and then get a 4th Gen version...
As far as MC... My guess is that if 2.5G iPhones with the 2.0 software still work, then the iPhone 3G will work just fine. Anyone upgraded their 1st gen phone or Touch yet?
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...Anyone upgraded their 1st gen phone or Touch yet?
I upgraded two 1st generation iPhones with no problem. For now I'm not trying to sync them with MC. I'll give the JRiver team time to unravel the changes that Steve Jobs put in to try and keep the iPhone closed.
Locally the 3G iPhones are sold out, but I ordered one from AT&T. I'm looking forward to the increased speed and GPS. Everything else is available on the old iPhones by updating the firmware.
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You haven't even tried? Has anyone tried a sync with MC on a phone/touch with the new firmware?
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You haven't even tried? Has anyone tried a sync with MC on a phone/touch with the new firmware?
OK, you talked me into sacrificing one of the iPhones.
I did a sync using MC12. Everything looked fine from within MC.
When I tried to use the iPhone, I could no longer see the pictures - they were in the list, but it could not display any images.
For the songs and videos, they did not show up on the iPhone, even though I could see them in MC.
When I connected to iTunes, it said it had to be restored. So I restored it.
So, as I suspected, Apple changed something that caused the iPhone to become corrupt when it is synced with MC.
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Well... Guess it won't support the 3G yet then. Bummer.
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Well... Guess it won't support the 3G yet then. Bummer.
My guess is that it will be fixed pretty quick. It's just a shame that Apple plays these games.
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As posted on another thread, had the same experience with syncing my iphone with media center, sigh!
I did get some sort of message that the data structure or something wasn't what media center expected when I first plugged it in.
Looking forward to being able to sync my music again through the software I actually like to use!
;D
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Please guys, fix this soon. I use flac, so I don't even have the choice of using itunes to sync in the meantime.
>:( Apple >:(
Where's the smilie giving the bird when you need him?
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Well I'm finding just launching MC while my 3G iPhone is plugeed in kills it (ie iTunes says it needs a restore) I was running MC 12.0.520 and see 523 is out but I'm reluctant to sacrifice my phone contents a FOURTH time and the relese notes are not exactly clear. Has anyone with a 3g iPhone had the latest version NOT kill their phone?
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Well I'm finding just launching MC while my 3G iPhone is plugeed in kills it (ie iTunes says it needs a restore) I was running MC 12.0.520 and see 523 is out but I'm reluctant to sacrifice my phone contents a FOURTH time and the relese notes are not exactly clear. Has anyone with a 3g iPhone had the latest version NOT kill their phone?
Build 523 should work better for you. It's worth a try.
It won't sync, but it also shouldn't cause any problems.
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Bad news
Installed 523, it saw my iPhone and let me a copy a music file (no warning about any incompatabilities), but again no joy - the new track I copied didn't show in the iPod interface on the phone and again iTunes reports a corrupt iPhone so I'm now doing restore #5 :-[
Once that's done I'll be extra foolhardy and try just launching 523 with the phone plugged in and see if that corrupts things. I've also added my serial details the to the serial number list
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I can confrim that even with build 523 just launching MC with the iPhone 3G connected trashes the phone and requires an iTunes Restore
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I haven't had trouble with the iphone getting corrupted except for the one time I tried to sync to it.
Now, this morning I had media center running and plugged in the iphone - forgetting that MC was running. MC crashed. Phone fine and synced fine with itunes. I'm not diligent about updating though and I'm on MC 512. If later builds corrupt the phone just by being plugged in at the same time, maybe I'll hold on the updates....
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Well, virgin iPhone 2.0 and I installed latest iTunes and latest MediaCenter 12 524. I didn't read the forum for issues (mistake).
I tried to push some audio to iPhone using iTunes, it said not compatible file types. I didn't spend the time to research what the issue was, remembering that MC12 did an autoconvert.
I then opened MC12 and saw my iPhone (cool). I dragged files from my server's library to the iPhone. Put into Queue. (cool). I then synched and it looked like things working (cool).
I then disconnected and launched iPod and ......no media (not cool).
I connected to my car to try to move the files to the car and ....no media (sigh)
I connected to PC, iTunes as default opened and said "unidentified file types found, do a Restore (not cool)
I connected to MC12, and the files ARE there (at least they appeared to be there).
Deleted all files from iPhone, hopeing to get rid of the troublemaker file.
I connected back to iTunes and same Restore message. I sighed and said "Do the Restore". itunes downloaded and then said "undefined problem - can't Restore " (very not cool).
Dead in the water.
But it does still work non connected fine, other than no media.
I had to restart the PC before a Restore would work in iTunes.
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I am waiting for my Iphone 3G to arrive, but I am wondering what the current status is regarding MC's Iphone 3G support.
Apparently it is not working now and Iphone recognition has been disabled in the latest MC version.
But is it being worked on? Can we expect Iphone 3G support in the (near) future?
It would be a pain to go back to Itunes.
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I'm hating having to sync my music through itunes, too, believe me. :'(
Also hoping to hear something. :)
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Hi All,
I did upgrade my 8Gig iTouch from 1.1.4 to 2.0 (jailbroken).
Results: I cannot use MC12 anymore: My sync screen within MC12 (526) always refers to 500 Mo of which 350+ are already used.
Doing some research with SSH and WinSCP, I found that MC 12 may point to a wrong folder to transfer music, a lone MP3 was sitting there unknown (/iTunes_Control/Music). Most likely in the partition reserved for apps and OS.
Most probably a non documented change?
For reference, I tried iTune to transfer files and found that the files are in:
/private/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/Music
Hope that help.
As for others, most of my files are FLAC and APE, so I do rely on MC for transfers.
I am confident that our magicians will find the trick!
?
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My 16gb white iPhone was ordered on Saturday from an AT&T store... They said Apple was giving them a maximum timeframe of 21 days currently, however, most reports I've read show they're shipping them quicker, particularly for the less-popular white variety. Not really sure why the white is less popular (it shows fingerprints and scratches less), but whatever.... I'll take it.
I'm bummed that I'll have to deal with iTunes for a while. I've never even had iTunes installed on any of my Windows machines, but I'll have to now to get access to the App store.
I figure it'll be relatively easy to have MC use a generic handheld that points to a "cache-like" folder on my hard-drive, and automatically converts there. However...
I was setting up my wife's new iPod Nano (I get a phone and she gets a tiny little powder-blue 8GB Nano, which is perfect for her) and a great thought occurred to me.
While you get the new iPhone/Touch figured out it would be really cool if there were a special option when adding a "generic" Handheld called "emulate iPod". Selecting this option would have the "handheld" in MC provide all the same exact conversion options as it normally would for an iPod. You would also need a manually set "size limit" for the folder, so that you can see it fill up just like on a regular device. Then, I can use MC to cause it to sync 14-15GB to a folder on my hard drive, and I can set iTunes to just monitor that folder (with some third-party utilities, natch) and use it to sync my iPhone and still use MC to get all the sweet conversion goodness that I get with my wife's Nano. It'll be a two or three step process, so native MC support would be preferred, of course, but it would serve us for the time being. Plus, it would "future proof" against future Apple product shenanigans, by giving us a "fail safe" option to get us through the painful process to get it all figured out.
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Any feedback? I think this idea would be simple and awesome, and would help a lot until native support is worked out.
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I would of course prefer native MC support for the 2.0 firmware itouch and iphone.
However, not being able to apply ratings from the touch back to MC is getting a bit old.
I would settle for having to use itunes for the actual syncing IF the ratings and play stats could make it back to MC.
All my stuff is in flac, so itunes is less than worthless for syncing on it's own.
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Any feedback? I think this idea would be simple and awesome, and would help a lot until native support is worked out.
I think it's a pretty good idea, because even if it is a workaround that requires a bit of fiddling, I'd be willing to do that extra bit of work to avoid using iTunes for anything *but* plain syncing. That program just infuriates me every time.
I also second the request for an app or web app (which I just discovered are two different things - I know, I'm slow) for MC.
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I played with this a bit more tonight, since my iPhone actually came in (though I can't pick it up until tomorrow because I'm stuck working)... Either way, I got iTunes all set up with an auto-importerish third party app (no where near as good as MC). However, what I really need is for MC to be able to do the easy on-the-fly Video conversion. I really hate having iTunes installed on my HTPC, but oh well... I'll have to live with it until MC gets it all figured out.
It works perfectly for my wife's iPod Nano (well, the Aspect Ratio gets messed up but that's another story for another thread). However, when I set up the "generic" handheld, I can't set Video conversion to any of the iPod presets. That's just silly!
Can we get access to all of the standard iPod conversion options in the dropdowns for Generic Handhelds? Right now, MC seems to assume that they are Windows Media based handhelds. This is probably often true, but doesn't help me out at all!
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This is from my new Jesus-phone!
Just playin' ... But so far, I don't see what people are complaining about the keyboard for... I'm not having that much trouble. And the auto-correct is really quite good.
Oh well.... Back to making dinner!
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OT, but the auto-correct is a huge pain if you're bilingual, because there's really no way to switch it on the fly. Also, the Swedish one involves a LOT of guess work, since it has to compensate for the lack of å, ä and ö on the keyboard and you never really know if it will even do it or when it does, which of the possible words it will choose. For instance, I'd type "ar" and it would give me "år" (year), rather than "är" (is). Now, which one of those two would you think is more common in a written sentence?
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I too just got a new iPhone and figured out one way to sync videos reasonably painlessly. Here're the steps:
1. Go to the Program Files\J River\Media Center 12\Plugins folder
2. Edit the ffmpeg.xml file in some text editor (you might want to make a copy first in case something goes wonky)
3. Edit the <phone3gp> line to be something like:
<phone3gp>-y -acodec libfaac -ab 128kb -ar 44100 -vcodec mpeg4 -b 1000kb -r 30 -s 426x320</phone3gp>
You can adjust the 1000kb to the bitrate of your choosing. You can also adjust the -s parameters to the size you want. 426x320 is 4:3 and 568x320 is 16:9.
4. Save the file and restart MC.
5. Next time you sync video choose the 3gb option and it'll convert your videos to 3gp files that can be played by your iPhone.
6. Celebrate by watching the movie ;)
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Wow, good hack. Shouldn't be necessary tho...
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After playing with it quite a bit over the weekend, here's what I've come up with. It is certainly quite a bit less than perfect, but it works for now...
First of all, because iTunes is ridiculous, you need to pick ONE computer to be in charge of syncing your iPhone/iPod Touch. You CANNOT sync to multiple machines, because iTunes will stupidly erase everything on your phone if you switch to a different machine (even if the files themselves are identical). So, I chose my laptop since I almost always have it with me and that gives me the most versatile syncing options. The big downside is that my entire media library is generally NOT available on my laptop. So... The question becomes:
How do I get my media off of my home library (HTPC and other home machines) using MC and onto my laptop and into iTunes to sync it to my phone?
1. Getting media to my laptop from MC. This has finally made me break down and decide that I need a secure wireless network at my house. Up until now, my Wireless network at home was Internet access only and was unsecured (rate limited so that my neighbor kids don't kill my access using it for Bittorrent). If you wanted to get access to any of the network shares on my LAN, you needed to plug into the network with a cable, which kept it pretty well locked down. Since I need to use my laptop though, always plugging in isn't very workable. I still want to keep my unsecured WAP (for visitors and my iPhone and other similar uses), so I'll need to buy a new one in order to run two in my house (one secured and one not).
Once this is done, I'll set up a new library on MC that connects to and uses my regular network library at home. Once this is done, syncing over to my "generic handheld" should be simple and can be done wirelessly as long as I'm at home. It'll also serve the secondary purpose of allowing me to access my movies and tv shows on my laptop from up in bed, which will be pretty convenient.
2. Generic Handheld to a Local Folder on my Laptop. So I went into Tools --> Options --> Handheld and added a new handheld, named it "generic_iphone" and pointed it to O:\Users\Shared\media\handhelds\generic_iphone\. I can then "sync" any files I want over to this folder and MC will copy them over for me. However, this currently has some really serious limitations:
a. I cannot set a size limit for this "handheld" from inside MC, so it always shows my total hard drive space available as the limit. I'd really like to be able to set this to 14-15GB so that I don't go over the limit on my iPhone. Currently I have to keep track of the size pretty much manually, which is bogus. I considered actually buying a 16GB USB Drive and using it for my "generic", but that seems like a lot of effort and expense to work around something that could be easily added to the MC generic handheld function.
b. Conversion options are highly limited for no reason. I complained about this above, but just to reiterate... I can convert my audio to the nice "High-Quality Handheld" LAME setting and resize Photos fine. However, the Video Conversion options are completely useless in this instance. Why can't we choose iPod-compatible conversions for generic handhelds?? As is, the only way to get MC to convert video for iPod is to physically plug in and sync video over to my wife's iPod Nano, and then to copy the file over from the Nano's conversion cache. This is absurd.
c. Podcast support is all bunged up and I haven't really figured it out. For now, I'm manually transferring over the individual episodes that I want to watch/listen-to as though they are music. Then on the iPod they show up under Music with the Genre "Podcast" (rather than in the specific Podcast section). Also, video podcasts are very hard to transfer over. Many are already properly formatted, but some are not and the auto-conversion would be VERY handy.
d. I've also noticed that the auto-conversion of Video files doesn't properly respect Aspect Ratio. When I do use the iPod Nano trick outlined above, and choose an appropriate conversion setting, my widescreen video files end up all "stretched" into a 4:3 aspect ratio. This is extra ridiculous since the new iPods all have widescreen displays... I'd say a much better option for the default is to letterbox or pillarbox video as necessary in order to maintain the original native AR.
3. Ingesting new content into iTunes. This, at least, is pretty easy. I found a great little application called the iTunes Library Updater (iTLU) (http://itlu.ownz.ch/wordpress/) which is free and works great. You can set a bunch of folders for it to scan, specify file extensions to import, and save these settings into a Profile. It allows you to automatically:
- Open iTunes.
- Add new media to iTunes (scans the watch folders and can include subdirectories automatically).
- Remove orphaned media from iTunes.
- Update track info to match new info in files.
- Once this is done, it'll start the iPod sync.
- And, if you want, you can have it close iTunes down when it is all done.
So this part works great. Once all the media is in the "generic_iphone" folder, you can simply launch iTLU (it has command line support, so I just wrote a BAT that calls it with my profile loaded and runs it automatically) and it'll do the rest.
The first time, you'll want to set up your iPhone/Touch to look in the proper folder for Images and Videos. I just set up my folder structure like this:
O:\Users\Shared\media\handhelds\generic_iphone\
---> Music\[Artist]\[Album]
---> Images\<Fancy Date Expression that creates folders like: 2008\2008-06-20\>
---> Video\
iTLU scans the Music and Video folders. I have the iTunes Photo Sync feature set to use the Images folder. One problem is that I haven't figured out how to get the pictures back off of my iPhone's Photo Roll (the pictures I took with the phone) and back onto the computer. Anyone have any experience with this on Windows? I hoped they'd just sync back to the folder in a "Photo Roll" subfolder, which I could have MC Auto-Import, but that didn't happen.
4. Future Stuff. I'd say mostly figuring out Podcasts and coming up with some way to solve the conversion problems. I really, really don't want to abandon using MC for Podcasts, but that is probably 90% of what I want to use the iPod feature on my iPhone for, and I'd really rather some more advanced options for transferring. Right now, if I transfer over all of my Podcasts, I could easily fill up the whole phone. I like to keep lots of back episodes downloaded (so I can play old stuff if I want to) but I usually only want the most recent unwatched podcasts to transfer over to my Phone.
If I use iTunes to handle Podcasting, it can do this (it has a "sync # most recent unplayed" sync option for Podcasts, along with many other options), but MC cannot. We need a LOT more options for syncing Podcasts that are SEPARATE from the options for what to download. If craptastic iTunes can do it, then MC should certainly be able to! And converting these video files should be so simple (and it works great for my Wife's Nano), but right now it totally is NOT if you need to use a generic handheld workaround because your device isn't natively supported.
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I hoped they'd just sync back to the folder in a "Photo Roll" subfolder, which I could have MC Auto-Import, but that didn't happen.
It seems you have to pull photos off the iPhone yourself, because that's the one folder you can access through the regular Windows interface. At least that's what I just had to do get my pics off of it. If there's a better automatic way, that'd be great.
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I just picked up an iPhone 3G a couple days ago and have a very mixed experience with it. I've been an MC (MJ) user since 2002, and I can't believe what a POS piece of software iTunes.... BLOAT. I have an 85k track collection and it almost crashed my 4GB RAM PC at work while trying to import artwork for over 24 hours straight, taking up over 1.5GB RAM all on its own. I love how it ignores my very organized album art with folder.jpg's in each and every album folder. The lack of views is excruciating as well, and the software is just slow in general.
So.... please, PLEASE I implore JRiver to natively support the iPhone for music syncing. Twice now I have received an 'old protocol' message that has rendered my iPhone unreadable by iTunes, forcing me to do a restoral of the iPhone software back to its defaults. As it stands, I had to go into Options - General - Advanced - Features and disable iPhone support because MC will not obey the 'always ignore' dialog when my iPhone is connected. An earlier poster indicated that iPhone support is disabled in the latest build of MC. I am running 12.0.529 and I still had to perform the above operation so that the MC / iTunes combo doesn't bork my iPhone.
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Listening to: Mississippi Sludge - Somethin' Gotta Give (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/mississippi+sludge/track/somethin+gotta+give)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)
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Listening to: Blues Up Front - Same Ole Blues (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/blues+up+front/track/same+ole+blues)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)
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Twice now I have received an 'old protocol' message that has rendered my iPhone unreadable by iTunes, forcing me to do a restoral of the iPhone software back to its defaults.
Just thought I'd say... I connect my iPhone with MC12 open all the time and have never had any issues. I've never attempted to use MC to do anything with the iPhone, but I often have it running with the phone connected. It "sees" the iPhone, and sometimes opens the Sync AW. I just close it and don't use it and I've never had any issues. I can even use iTunes and sync to the iPhone with MC also open.
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I have a run into a few issues that makes MC syncing to a folder not very usable for the Iphone.
The first thing is cover art. I have all art stored in folder.jpg in each folder. Under handheld options I have checked to add cover art so tags, to Itunes will recognise it. But MC does not always seems to respect this. When it synced the first time MC added album art, but syncing after adding a new album to the playlist does not add album art to the tags. This seems an MC bug.
Second, compilation albums. The iphone 3g strangly does not fully respect the compilation tag. It does add compilation albums to compliations in the Iphone, but it also places each artist in the artist list. This makes it necessary to retag compilation albums (single artist for each album). This is not MC's fault, but that makes syncing impossible, because MC will wipe each compilation album on sync and replace it with the original one in the MC database.
Until this is solved I will need to stick to manually copying my music to a folder and sync Itunes and the Iphone to that folder.
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FYI - iPhone 2.0.2 software update is out today. I'm updating now. Reportedly... Bug fixes (gotta love those detailed change logs, eh?).
It's big and updating takes a while. Not like updating Windows takes a while, but certainly longer than updating MC or something. I don't really get why people moan about updates being big anymore. I mean, it is just over 200mb, for an OS. Are these people on Dial-up still? Why are they complaining?
Anyhow. I'll let you know if I have any issues, but so far so good.
EDIT: It just finished. Ooooh! Contacts is much better. And the intermittent text lag (which was greatly diminished but not eliminated) seems like it might be a little better too. I was pretty regularly getting a text input lag on the passcode entry screen after sleeping the phone for a while. That seems like it is gone completely.
Haven't tried typing an email yet, but we'll see.
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FYI - iPhone 2.0.2 software update is out today.
Thanks for the heads up...
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Just did some typing (including this post) and text lag is once again improved vs. 2.0.1. It is not quite entirely gone. Not quite teh snappiez like it was with 1.0.x (based on my experience with my friend's phone). So, moving in the right direction substantially, but still not quite perfect.
Much more consistent, and I'm no longer able to "get ahead" of the characters being input, as happened occasionally with the previous two versions.
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In another post I put forward the idea to develop an Iphone application that let's you connect to your MC library.
No reacties come to the post, so I would like to talk about it again in this post.
The reason is that I have installed Simplify Media from the app store, which let's you connect to your full music collection on your home computer, as well as to collections from others. This is really a great app, because I am no longer limited to 16 GB, but have unlimited storage space available. It lets your stream music over wifi or 3g and works like a charm. It can even display playlists, album art, artis info and lyrics.
Of course it would be even more nice if I could connect to my MC library, including smart playlists etc. With the innovative capacity of the MC team even more could be expected...:)
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gummbah,
I kind of like the idea of a MC app for the iPhone, but I somewhat question its benefit, at least for me. Part of what I mean is that right now I really, really, really want to stop having to use iTunes to sync and to be able to do it natively with MC. Once that's done I think I'll be pretty much satisfied with the iPhone experience. But, I'll also then be more able to consider what other interesting features could be added with a custom app. My point is it is hard to think about the advanced features until the basics are in place.
Having said that, here're a few thoughts:
First, streaming contents from MC is not a big thing for me because of the following. If it is via 3G then it'll kill the battery too quickly. If it is via wifi then I'm near my PC anyway and could just sync over the contents.
For me the killer MC app would be if the iPhone API provides the ability to install media to the iPod database, then an app to sync as a pull from the iPhone instead of a push from MC would be great.
I suppose some people would like to use their iPhone as a remote to MC, but that's not a big thing for me.
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I kind of like the idea of a MC app for the iPhone, but I somewhat question its benefit, at least for me. Part of what I mean is that right now I really, really, really want to stop having to use iTunes to sync and to be able to do it natively with MC.
I couldn't agree more. I guess I got carried away a bit.
First, streaming contents from MC is not a big thing for me because of the following. If it is via 3G then it'll kill the battery too quickly. If it is via wifi then I'm near my PC anyway and could just sync over the contents.
The main thing why I like streaming is that it gives you unlimited storage. You are no longer limited to 16 GB and that is a great benefit for people with large libraries (which many MC users have I am sure). Not sure about the battery life, but simplify media also streams over 2G (although quality in terms of bitrate is lower of course). Streaming over wifi can be extremely useful, e.g. when abroad in hotels or visiting friends with wifi networks at home. There are potentially many situations in which I can imagine streaming over wifi.
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Ok, you've convinced me :) there're good reasons to have streaming. I also believe it can be done without any iPhone development. Here's how...
A few years ago, before I could VPN to my home machine to connect directly to my library, I used MC's Library Server. At the time I had a iPaq PDA that had wifi. I wanted the ability to access my library through it (wifi), but of course there was no MC client. So, what I did was to figure out the URL that MC used when accessed via the Library Server.
I don't remember the schema off hand, but I do remember that the way I figured it out was that after playing tracks via Library Server, Internet Explorer would show the URL's in the drop-down box of recent accessed sites.
Anyway, what I then did was to create a quick script that would recursively scan my whole library path and create a HTML page with the URLs to each track. I could then access that page and access any track I wanted.
Of course the problem with this was that it didn't have playlists or anything fancy, just access to individual tracks.
But, it should be a good starting point for someone.
Oh yeah, one other thing I discovered about MC's Library Server. The first thing to do is hit the Library Server site's GetLibrary page (I think that's the name, it's been a while). This will feed you a zipped file (XML, I think) of the whole library with path's to everything in it. From there it should be easy to create an app to access any of the URLs.
I've asked a friend to return my old G4 iMac in a few days so I can install the iPhone SDK. Once that happens I'll start playing with this, but no promises.
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a. I cannot set a size limit for this "handheld" from inside MC, so it always shows my total hard drive space available as the limit. I'd really like to be able to set this to 14-15GB so that I don't go over the limit on my iPhone. Currently I have to keep track of the size pretty much manually, which is bogus. I considered actually buying a 16GB USB Drive and using it for my "generic", but that seems like a lot of effort and expense to work around something that could be easily added to the MC generic handheld function.
Look into folder size quotas if your O/S supports it. Use a hard quota, not a soft quota.
Nevermind if your O/S can't do it.
Barring that, you could also create a truecrypt volume which could be set at 16GB when you create it. Once mounted, the O/S, and MC, would see it as a 16GB drive, thus allowing you to use the ~fill in your smartlists.
Thanks for this writeup. I don't sync video to my touch, so I'm going to try this method for a while.
If I get tired of messing with itunes, I'll just have to downgrade back to the 1.1.4 firmware.
But I really want to try the new push mail and some of the other enhancements.
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Glynor, got it working and my sub-library updated in itunes. However, the ratings field in itunes is blank, which would make it unusable for me since 4 of the smartlists I normally would sync to the ipod are based on the current rating.
Is yours transferring the ratings properly?
I'm converting from flac to standard mp3 during the MC sync to hard drive folder.
If I look at properties of one of the resulting mp3 files via windows explorer, it shows the rating field is 4 stars properly.
This would indicate to me that MC did it's job correctly.
Now I run the itunes library updater. As the songs get added to itunes, the rating field is left blank ?
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Is yours transferring the ratings properly?
Had to test it because I don't actually use Ratings that much, but nope. It isn't. I think this is iTunes' fault and not MC's though. I'm pretty sure I remember a discussion way back about ratings in iTunes/iPods. I think that Apple for whatever reason didn't like the ID3 standard for ratings and devised their own. I believe that for other iPods, MC "hacks it" and converts the tags on the fly to support the iPod rating scheme and then back again on the other side when you re-sync.
Yet another reason we need an "emulate iPod" method of some kind to get us through the rough patches when Apple decides to break stuff.
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Barring that, you could also create a truecrypt volume which could be set at 16GB when you create it. Once mounted, the O/S, and MC, would see it as a 16GB drive, thus allowing you to use the ~fill in your smartlists.
I considered this but what a pain. I will have to look into folder size quotas. Can XP SP3 do it (I can look myself of course)?
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I don't have XP except on some work machines at the office.
I've got MC installed on a server O/S.
Sorry.
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I could actually live without the rating field, since there's no 2-way sync of the ratings at the moment.
That is, if the 4 playlists would show up in itunes.
If I import the folder containing only the 4 playlists into itunes, it imports all the songs, but doesn't have the playlists under that section in the tree.
Bummer, I just can't win with this.
I'd really like to stick with the new touch firmware for the push email and the RDP program.
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I don't have XP except on some work machines at the office.
I've got MC installed on a server O/S.
Sorry.
Gotcha.
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Had to test it because I don't actually use Ratings that much, but nope. It isn't. I think this is iTunes' fault and not MC's though. I'm pretty sure I remember a discussion way back about ratings in iTunes/iPods. I think that Apple for whatever reason didn't like the ID3 standard for ratings and devised their own. I believe that for other iPods, MC "hacks it" and converts the tags on the fly to support the iPod rating scheme and then back again on the other side when you re-sync.
Yet another reason we need an "emulate iPod" method of some kind to get us through the rough patches when Apple decides to break stuff.
The issue with ratings is that Apple does not store them in the file tags - they are only stored in the iTunes library. The only way to transfer ratings back an forth is manually via playlists - but pretty sure it could be automated via the API.
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3. Ingesting new content into iTunes. This, at least, is pretty easy. I found a great little application called the iTunes Library Updater (iTLU) (http://itlu.ownz.ch/wordpress/) which is free and works great. You can set a bunch of folders for it to scan, specify file extensions to import, and save these settings into a Profile. It allows you to automatically:
- Open iTunes.
- Add new media to iTunes (scans the watch folders and can include subdirectories automatically).
- Remove orphaned media from iTunes.
- Update track info to match new info in files.
- Once this is done, it'll start the iPod sync.
- And, if you want, you can have it close iTunes down when it is all done.
glynor,
Just for your information, there is another application that is similar to iTLU. It is iTSync. http://www.itsyncsoftware.com/
I don't currently have it installed, but I have used it before.
Biggest advantage of iTLU = free
Biggest disadvantage of iTLU = the author is not really interested in it and is not moving it forward. I don't know what happens if Apple changes something.
Biggest advantage of iTSync = continue to develop and test on new versions of iTunes
Biggest disadvantage of iTSync = not free, and bigger versions require an upgrade. I paid for 2 versions last year and there is a 3rd one requiring a fee that is out now (I did not buy the 3rd one). Does show how spoiled we are with JRiver.
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Well it's near on 2 months since the iPhone 3G launched and still very little progress on getting it to work with MC :'(
Given MC 13 is soon to show it's shiny new face I'm sure hoping that it's emphasis on new non music features doesn't mean the iPhone problem persists. It would be a royal PITA to have to dump MC and go back to iTunes and yet without iPhone 3G support (and yes I know the bad guy here is Apple) it would be a big ask to pay for the MC12 -> 13 upgrade.
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Tell Apple. They've locked it down.
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So does this mean JR has given up on this topic and be won't be seeing iPhone 3G support in MC13?
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So does this mean JR has given up on this topic and be won't be seeing iPhone 3G support in MC13?
I'm curious too...
If not, is there a backup plan?
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I've heard rumors that the iPhone 2.1 release (this Friday) is supposed to open the iPhone up to file access similar to the iPods. I don't know if that's true and if that will be enough to help MC support it.
As a backup plan the only thing I can think of is integrating with iTunes API to sync data to it and from there to the iPhone.
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Tell Steve he can call us to confirm or deny.
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As a backup plan the only thing I can think of is integrating with iTunes API to sync data to it and from there to the iPhone.
Right. I want to know if this is something that JRiver is considering. I think that it could be a beautiful workaround, and could ensure against future Apple shenanigans.
The situation as-is is obviously untenable, and will likely cost JRiver business.
Tell Steve he can call us to confirm or deny.
I understand that it is clearly Apple's fault. However, in this situation you are David, not Goliath. The question is not what Steve is going to do about it, but what you are going to do about it.
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I've heard rumors that the iPhone 2.1 release (this Friday) is supposed to open the iPhone up to file access similar to the iPods. I don't know if that's true and if that will be enough to help MC support it.
As a backup plan the only thing I can think of is integrating with iTunes API to sync data to it and from there to the iPhone.
The 2.1 software is out now (at least for the Touch). I am running Quicktime 8 iTunes 8/Quicktime 7.5.5 and 2.1 on my Touch - no drive access. There is a (free for a few more days) app called 'Air Sharing' that uses WebDAV to apparently allow you to easily store/share/retreive files on your device - but that would not help with the syncing issues.
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The 2.1 software is out now (at least for the Touch). I am running Quicktime 8 and 2.1 on my Touch - no drive access. There is a (free for a few more days) app called 'Air Sharing' that uses WebDAV to apparently allow you to easily store/share/retreive files on your device - but that would not help with the syncing issues.
The best WebDAV App is called "Files". Works great, but isn't free. DataCase is a close second.
Oh, and I assume you mean iTunes 8 (since Quicktime 8 doesn't exist). On that note, warning to all those who are considering bumping to iTunes 8. The library format has changed, and it breaks compatibility with iTLU. There is also no easy way to roll back to 7.1.1 without deleting your library (unless you have a backup).
I discovered this when I updated tonight on a whim. Bad idea. Sucks though, because I think you have to upgrade to 8 to get the new 2.1 firmware. We'll see on Friday when it comes out for the iPhone.
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There are already free applications for PC which give you access to the media (or even root in case of a jailbroken device) partition of the iPhone/iPod touch for firmware 2.x using USB (AppStore apps are not allowed to use USB). For example: iPhoneBrowser - http://code.google.com/p/iphonebrowser/ or DiskAid - http://www.digidna.net/diskaid/
Both give you read/write disk access to the device, but you have no way of accessing the things you copy on there from the iPhone since the music player is limited to the proprietary library stored in an deliberately complicated format.
I think the major technical hurdle is to figure out the hashing mechanism used for the library. Apparently there are people trying to reverse engineering Apple's hasing scheme, but I have no idea what the current state is, see: http://bluwiki.com/go/Ipodhash
I believe the important question for many people (including me) is:
Is JR saying "We are focussing on improving MC as a desktop media center with support for mobile devices which are not trying to actively prevent this. Apple is trying to lock us out and we think our product is convincing enough on its own, so it's not worth the effort to try to circumvent that."
This what I sense from JimH's brief responses. It is - of course - a valid position on the issue and I can fully understand it. However, it would also be interesting for people considering purchasing MC13 to know what JR's definite plan is in that respect.
BTW. Another option worth considering would be to develop your own JRMCMobile for iPhone/iPod touch which does not interact with the iTunes library at all. This would give you full control over syncing and could be really cool. To act as a full replacement for Apple's music player, however, this would probably still require a jailbreak-application and not an official AppStore app.
P.S. I only recently registered and haven't posted much, but I do follow the forum for quite some time now.
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Tell Apple. They've locked it down.
Jim thanks for the bad news. I am probably almost as pissed at Apple as you are about this. Guess I can stop holding my breath for a fix eh ;)
Given that a fix is not likely can you at least make MC NOT recognise my phone as a device. Even with the latest version my phone gets cratered if MC sees it which is a real PITA.
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I think the major technical hurdle is to figure out the hashing mechanism used for the library. Apparently there are people trying to reverse engineering Apple's hasing scheme, but I have no idea what the current state is, see: http://bluwiki.com/go/Ipodhash
However, in order to make using an iPhone/Touch (and probably the new generation of iPods released yesterday too) with MC possible, there is another way that doesn't require hacking at all.
Apple publishes an API for iTunes. It is fully scriptable and can be easily controlled by external applications, and this is a supported use. MC could use iTunes as a "proxy" handheld. Simply set iTunes to "sync all" to the iPhone/iPod and have the full iTunes library controlled by MC's handheld function. When you "sync" from inside MC, it would launch iTunes (loading a library specific to the actual device you're syncing), then update the iTunes library to match the files in the handheld queue, and then initiate the sync to the connected device.
This certainly wouldn't be ideal for most iPods, and full-on native support would be best, but it would certainly be better than nothing. And, honestly, for an iPhone/Touch it might actually be better than native support, because of all the other things that iTunes syncs to the device (not the least of which are the applications in the App Store). In fact, for my iPhone, if given the choice between native MC support and using iTunes as a handheld, I'd certainly choose the latter. With native support, every time I wanted to add an App via iTunes, I'd have to wipe the phone (because iTunes is stupid and locks the phone to one iTunes library). And what about syncing Bookmarks and Contacts (and email for people who need to use that feature)? Unless JRiver intends to crack and emulate the entire iTunes syncing functionality, including App Store support, (extremely unlikely) then this workaround would be vastly superior.
Plus, implementing it and updating it when Apple changes things would be much easier, because they publish the API. The API probably goes out of date and doesn't contain everything you need, but has got to be better than shooting completely in the dark and hacking in native support (which they'll just break again with the next iPhone OS release).
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... and what makes you think that Apple - after putting considerable effort into locking out their competitors out - would publish an API which gives them access again? I'm quite sure that this won't happen. The point why they are doing this is because they want people to exclusively use iTunes to manage their library and use it as an advertising tool for their music store.
As for the other suggestion: sure, somehow exporting to an iTunes library just for sync'ing is better than nothing. But it's still nowhere near the convenience that I had with my old iPod which synced just fine with MC. I know this is exclusively Apple's fault, so maybe I just shouldn't have bought their product ... still, if JR comes up with a good solution, I'd be more than happy to pay for it.
For me personally, I could do very well without iTunes: EMail, Calender, and Contacts are all synced online without iTunes being involved. Applications can also be installed directly from the store app on the device.
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would publish an API which gives them access again? I'm quite sure that this won't happen.
Sorry. It is already published: http://developer.apple.com/sdk/itunescomsdk.html
I'm talking about iTunes, not the iPod. That's the difference. They don't mind if you interface with iTunes, as long as the consumer uses iTunes to sync to their device. You can CERTAINLY externally control iTunes. That's how iTLU and the other similar applications work.
Applications can also be installed directly from the store app on the device.
Unfortunately, you shouldn't do so. There are threads all over the place about how using the Mobile App Store is the primary cause of crashes on the iPhone. Installing all apps via iTunes is the only way to go right now if you want your phone to be stable. Perhaps this will be fixed with 2.1, but I'm not going to believe it until I see it. Besides, even if you do use the Mobile App store, you can't back up your purchases without using iTunes. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to re-pay for my App purchases if my Phone crashes and I need to reset it (or I drop it in a lake and need to buy a new one).
And unless you use Exchange or MobileMe (and don't even get me started there), you can't sync Contacts without using iTunes. And, without MobileMe, there isn't a way to sync Bookmarks over the air. Right now, for most users, abandoning iTunes sync isn't a real option for the iPhone/Touch.
Again, I'm not saying that this should be the ONLY method of syncing. I'd still love to see native support. However, even if that happens, how long before the next iPhone OS update breaks it? What about all the new iPods that come out next year? This would be an ideal backup plan.
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I'm with glynor on this.
I don't use the itunes database for anything. So as far as I'm concerned, MC could check the playlists that I have selected to sync to the device, delete the itunes xml database, recreate it based on the sync playlists in MC.
Then next time we execute sync in MC, read the itunes database and sync back the ratings that don't match to MC (and update playcounts, though I don't care about that). This would give 2-way sync.
Now itunes database is a mirror image of what I would like to sync.
Heck, I'm ok with launching itunes and clicking the sync button manually!!
Just manipulate the database file however you need to to keep the itunes db and my sync playlists identical.
I'm sure Glynor and I could step up and doc the steps required after it's done.
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Sorry. It is already published: http://developer.apple.com/sdk/itunescomsdk.html
OK. Didn't know that.
Unfortunately, you shouldn't do so. There are threads all over the place about how using the Mobile App Store is the primary cause of crashes on the iPhone.
Hmm, strange. I installed all my apps from the phone and don't have any problems.
Besides, even if you do use the Mobile App store, you can't back up your purchases without using iTunes. I don't know about you, but I don't want to have to re-pay for my App purchases if my Phone crashes and I need to reset it (or I drop it in a lake and need to buy a new one).
Not true. The app store remembers all purchases through your account. If you re-download for any reason, you don't have to pay again.
you can't sync Contacts without using iTunes.
Also not true. Exchange ActiveSync accounts sync contacts just fine. I personally use NuevaSync ( http://www.nuevasync.com/ ) - they provide a free Exchange server which syncs your calendar and contacts with Google Calendar and GMail contacts. Works perfectly fine. When I add/modify a contact in GMail, it gets almost instantly updated on the phone and visa versa.
Anyway, there are people (I know at least one: me) that would have no problem with getting rid of iTunes completely. Interfacing iTunes might be a workaround, but it certainly not a great one IMHO. As it's still using iTunes, it also still suffers from some of the most severe issues like not being able to sync with multiple computers, no way to import music from your iPhone that's not in your library, etc.
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Hmm, strange. I installed all my apps from the phone and don't have any problems.
You got very lucky then. There are widely reported issues with the Mobile App Store. It can cause general instability. I had regular problems with Safari and the Contacts application both crashing after I had installed a few (unrelated) games on the phone via the Mobile App Store. Resetting the phone and reinstalling everything via iTunes has made it much more reliable.
Not true. The app store remembers all purchases through your account. If you re-download for any reason, you don't have to pay again.
I suspected as much but hadn't ever actually tested it. You would lose any data stored in the application, however, and for many of my apps, that is just as important (if not more important).
Also not true. Exchange ActiveSync accounts sync contacts just fine.
I said...
And unless you use Exchange or MobileMe
So no, it was true. Incidentally, I use NuevaSync too and it works great. It clearly isn't for everyone though. What if I use the POP3 email address provided by my ISP and I don't want to get a gmail account or something similar? Gmail has some serious privacy implications, and there are tons of people who would never even consider using a Gmail account.
And you're making my point, really... I too would rather not even ever have iTunes installed on any of my machines. Until I bought the phone, I never had iTunes installed on anything I owned other than my Macs. However, most users aren't going to fall into that very limited niche. And, again, what about when they spend thousands of man-hours developing native support, and then Apple breaks it again with iPhone OS 2.2 in a three months? That just isn't financially sustainable.
I agree with all the arguments you made about why native support is better. I know it is better. I've used it on my wife's Nano a ton. The point is that it isn't better than nothing, and it isn't better to have it for 3 months and then not be able to update to the newest iPhone OS without losing it again. I want the option of a solution that is still going to work next September and the September after that. Not one or the other.
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I want the option of a solution that is still going to work next September and the September after that. Not one or the other.
And that's the thing that I'm not sure about and I frankly don't understand how you can be so conviced. Obviously Apple don't care much about interoperability. If they can decide to change the hashing scheme used to store the library on the iphone, who says they won't suddenly change the iTunes library format on the next release. Why wouldn't they change the iTunes COM API? The point is: they can just as easily break a solution using iTunes automation.
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And that's the thing that I'm not sure about and I frankly don't understand how you can be so conviced.
I'm convinced because they publish the SDK. They can (and sometimes do) break the iTunes API when they release major new versions (the library format and some SDK functions changed with the new v8 released yesterday). But they then update the SDK and release a new one.
Are they probably slow to release a new one? Yes. Is the SDK probably horribly incomplete and sometimes inaccurate? Likely. Do they encrypt the iTunes database and actively try to obfuscate external access to iTunes via COM? No, not at all. They intentionally make it scriptable. Most Apple applications are. Plenty of applications, including MC, read and access the iTunes database files. Plenty of applications use the API to externally control iTunes.
Apple wants applications to use iTunes. That gets iTunes installed on your computer, and up in front of the user, which is the ultimate goal. What they don't want (and actively work to make it as difficult as is possible) is for you to be able to use your iPod without having iTunes installed.
I'm with glynor on this.
I don't use the itunes database for anything. So as far as I'm concerned, MC could check the playlists that I have selected to sync to the device, delete the itunes xml database, recreate it based on the sync playlists in MC.
Exactly. I hate actually using iTunes, but right now it is extremely annoying to use MC with my iPhone.
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Apple wants applications to use iTunes. That gets iTunes installed on your computer, and up in front of the user, which is the ultimate goal.
They want people to use iTunes because their ultimate goal is to sell stuff through the store. iTunes is just a fancy front-end for the store. They don't benefit from people having iTunes installed, they want people to use iTunes as their primary library management tool because that makes it incredibly tempting to purchase things from the store (e.g. the new genius playlist thingy is just a way of displaying context sensitive ads).
An application that just interfaces iTunes for syncing is just as bad for them as an application that doesn't require iTunes at all. So I believe they will take counter-measures.
Anyway, let's quit speculating. I think you do have some good points, but I believe so do I. We both agree that the current situation sucks, so let's hope for the best ... maybe JR will surprise us ...
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An application that just interfaces iTunes for syncing is just as bad for them as an application that doesn't require iTunes at all. So I believe they will take counter-measures.
I agree, they wouldn't like this particular use. However, I don't know what they'd do about it to "take counter measures" without breaking the API and SDK, which they do want to support. Plus, JRiver is a fairly small fish and a Windows-only one. I suspect they might not be high enough profile for Apple to care either way.
Anyway, let's quit speculating. I think you do have some good points, but I believe so do I. We both agree that the current situation sucks, so let's hope for the best ... maybe JR will surprise us ...
Totally agree! I doubt that I'll be surprised much. They'll come up with some kind of solution. It's not like they can just ignore the iPod in their target market.
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http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=204248&package_id=243989
Here's a potential replacement for ITLU.
Much more powerful, but a bit complex.
I'll need to play with it a bit more later this week.
One this it does do that ITLU doesn't, is to write tags (such as rating) to the file tags that itunes won't.
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If you get if figured out, post back your experiences.
One thing I'd be interested in would be something that could assign the Video Kind tag in iTunes in an automated fashion. All videos that import show up as "Movies" in iTunes, and I'd much prefer them to be "TV Show" or "Podcast" (so that I can set them to automatically sync without having to go in and manually check each stupid little box).
The only videos I put in my iTunes library I want to sync to my phone, so the current "Movies" kind tag doesn't really work for me.
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This thing has lots of tabs and options. I don't sync any video though. Just tunes and a handful of photos, and the apps that itunes controls.
Most tabs are for making changes to the itunes database. One tab is for making changes to the file tags.
I did glance over one that had a search and replace function. Maybe that would help you.
I'm taking the kids to a baseball game tonight so I won't get to mess with it for a couple of days.
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This thing has lots of tabs and options.
That's an understatement!
It is a useful program, though. The developer is active in supporting it over on HydrogenAudio: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=51708 (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=51708)
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Hi Glynor,
there is such a script for Windows you are looking for. It is able to update the Video Flag in all directions.
Here the link to the creator: http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/
The name of the script is "itunes_vidkind"
I have discovered the script some days ago and am using the VBS version. The user interface is not so nice, so I have updated it a little bit.
If you are interested I could email the updated version in txt-Format, so you can see what the script is doing.
You perhaps wondering why am here in this forum: I am using MC for a long time, but I have an iphone.
best regards
Peter
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Hi Glynor,
there is such a script for Windows you are looking for. It is able to update the Video Flag in all directions.
Here the link to the creator: http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/
The name of the script is "itunes_vidkind"
I was incredibly excited when I saw this. Unfortunately, the scripts do not work with iTunes 8. Hopefully he'll update them before long!
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If you made modifications, I'd be interested to see them, I suppose. I tried modifying the VBS version a bit to change the version check to pass with v8, but it still didn't work. However, I suspect this is due to the fact that the application wants you to choose from a playlist (and playlists are all different in v8 with all the genius stuff).
My needs are much simpler... I want the script to scan ALL of the video files in the library and change them all to TV Show (or Podcast would work too). That's because the only files in my iTunes library are files I want synced to my phone. The problem is that new files are imported as Kind = Movie, rather than TV Show. I can set iTunes to automatically sync all TV Shows, but it won't sync Movies unless I go in and manually check each box for each video file.
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Hi Glynor,
no problem ! Yes, there is a query for Version 7 in the original script. I have modified it so it is working.
I have Version 8 as well.
You can have it simpler, just choose Playlist number 1 , that is the whole library. Or 3 that are all movies.
I would suggest to test it with a little playlist of 2 or 3 movies first, so you are sure it it working for you.
Please use this link to get the txt file of the script. Check it and rename the suffix to vbs
http://www.peterobermeier.de/Change_Type_of_Video_in_iTunes _itunes_vidkind.txt (http://www.peterobermeier.de/Change_Type_of_Video_in_iTunes _itunes_vidkind.txt)
And again, the original script has been written by
Robert Jacobson (http://teridon.googlepages.com/itunesscripts)
I have just started a view days ago with writting iTunes script and meanwhile I have create an interesting script for iPhone as well.
There is the apps CSV Touch and with an iTunes script I can extract all my album covers from iTunes and create a searchable file with Artist, Album and album covers.
best regards
Peter
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Hi Glynor,
with the new iTunes 8 you do not need this script any longer.
Just select all movies and go to INFORMATION.
Under OPTIONS you can change the Media Type for all files.
:-)
Peter
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Well I currently see nothing in the R13 version that would make me want to pay for the upgrade. Now if it meant that I could sync my iPod Touch, then yes I would pay for the upgrade in a heart beat.
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Well I currently see nothing in the R13 version that would make me want to pay for the upgrade. Now if it meant that I could sync my iPod Touch, then yes I would pay for the upgrade in a heart beat.
+1
i really want to continue to support MC, but if it can't be my one stop shop for all my media and media related tasks, it really loses its value to me. i hate iTunes as much as the next guy. i don't want it installed on my PC... but right now i don't really have a choice.
i would love for native support to exist.
also, kudos to you glynor for coming up with some clever workarounds. i'm a member of dozens upon dozens of internet forums and you are about as helpful a poster as any i've encountered on any of them.
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also, kudos to you glynor for coming up with some clever workarounds. i'm a member of dozens upon dozens of internet forums and you are about as helpful a poster as any i've encountered on any of them.
Thanks. I do what I can. Try to get help and help alike.
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Same here
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If I can’t find a tool that does the following then I am going to write some software to do it. If you know of such a tool, please let me know, otherwise let me know what else this tool should do. I am only considering audio on the first release so let’s focus on getting that right and not discuss other media for now.
1) Search for FLAC files that are in playlists, specified directories or match an expression of user specified tags (e.g. Rating >= 4 AND Genre=”Pop”).
2) Resize album art folder.jpg or the first .jpg in alphabetical order or a .jpg that matches a regular expression (e.g. *Front*.jpg) to a user specified size. The resized jpg can optionally remain in the directory or be removed. The advantage of not deleting it is that the resize only needs to be re-done if the original .jpg has a newer date.
3) Convert FLAC to MP3 passing user specified LAME parameters, FLAC tags and the resized album art.
4) Converted MP3’s will be placed relative to a user specified top level directory e.g. “My Musc/Artist/Album/01 Track.flac” could end up in “My MP3/Artist/Album/01 Track.mp3”
5) Update iTunes library with new or updated playlists and MP3’s.
6) Update iTunes library with anything that iTunes does not support in MP3 tags e.g. ratings.
7) Tool will support two-way sync e.g. if you update a rating in iTunes it will be propagated back to the FLAC file.
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I believe most of us are using iTsfv right now. This doesn't handle the flac part, MC is doing the conversion of that for us. The biggest missing piece for me is the ability for ratings done on the ipod to get back into MC.
Are you planning a standalone app or an MC plugin?
If standalone app, then does that mean when the flac tags get updated with new rating info that we'll have to do a "update library from tags" in MC to get it to show up in the MC library, or are you going to do a plugin that would take care of that end as well?
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I haven't decided on standalone app or plugin. I'll have to research and take that into consideration.
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I believe most of us are using iTsfv right now. This doesn't handle the flac part, MC is doing the conversion of that for us. The biggest missing piece for me is the ability for ratings done on the ipod to get back into MC.
Are you planning a standalone app or an MC plugin?
If standalone app, then does that mean when the flac tags get updated with new rating info that we'll have to do a "update library from tags" in MC to get it to show up in the MC library, or are you going to do a plugin that would take care of that end as well?
I have been playing around with iTsfv and have a couple of issues. 1st issue is no matter what I try it does not seem to update the iTunes db with the rating from the POPM id3 tag, same with the playcount. Not too concerned about going the other way yet.
Other question how can I easily get the playlist from MC into iTunes? MC exports it as an m3u file?
P.S. It looks like media monkey has a beta that syncs with the touch/iphone 2.x firmware. I have not tried it yet just following their boards. The interesting thing is it requires itunes 8 to be installed so I suspect they may very well be using the API, not sure though.
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UPnP to play around with :)
http://plugplayer.com/
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Yes, I've played around with the PlugPlayer and it is promising
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Is it possible to control MC with PlugPlayer ?
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The PlugPlayer is a UPnP client, ie start UPnP server on Media Center and connect to it with your iPhone with PlugPlayer and listen to your music library with your iPhone. If you want to control your library (and send the music to your home stereo or something... zones in MC) you're better off with something else... like RiverMote. HTH John
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As an alternative to all the shenanigans about MC->iPhone syncing conversion etc.... http://www.pwnplayer.com/
Lets hope the plugin structure allows for other formats too :)
... maybe JR could even look at doing an iPhone MC ;) ... coz they've not got much else on at this point :D
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Further to my last post (iPhones are now an issue for me as my wife went and got one) ...
http://jrmwillis.googlepages.com/ this fellow has an WMP<-> iTunes metadata syncing program... maybe JR could recruit some help to make gummbah and gly's suggestion come to pass... ;)
IMHO, the API route shows some potential, although I see copytrans (copytrans.net) have managed to get past the new firmware
[edit] Another option ... (for JR)... get the source code and roll with it .. http://www.getsharepod.com/fordevelopers/
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Did some of you guys figure out yet how to copy ratings from MC to itunes using iTSFv?
My guess is that MC does not write rating tags in a standard way.
Tag&Rename does also not recognise the rating tags written in MC.
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Nevermind, this great scripting thing does what I was looking for:
http://home.comcast.net/~teridon73/itunesscripts/
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I just want to remind JR that this is not the only issue of iPhone/iTunes support that remains outstanding (although it is by far the largest). The others include (a) proper conversion of files with .cue sheets; and (b) mp4 tagging.
I've been a customer since MC 11, and I've really enjoyed using it. I hate not being able to use it now that I have an iPhone. I really hope JR is able to solve this issue, so I can upgrade to MC 13.
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We don't plan to chase the iPhone at this time. I plan to get an Android phone soon, maybe when Motorola does one.
These phones, in my humble opinion, aren't phones. They are small computers. A phone fits in my pocket without making old ladies stare at me. Not that this is necessarily bad or anything.
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We don't plan to chase the iPhone at this time. I plan to get an Android phone soon, maybe when Motorola does one.
These phones, in my humble opinion, aren't phones. They are small computers. A phone fits in my pocket without making old ladies stare at me. Not that this is necessarily bad or anything.
Understood, but disappointing.
I think this is definitely one of those "will get us new users" features.
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Understood, but disappointing.
I think this is definitely one of those "will get us new users" features.
You could let Apple know how you feel.
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I think this is definitely one of those "will get us new users" features.
Unfortunately, I think it is more of a "will cost us existing users" features.
Keep in mind, we aren't just talking about the iPhone. We are talking about ALL new iPods, from those released this year on out. It's also obvious that they are moving towards the Touch-style iPod replacing the rest of their full-sized lineup. I suspect that next year we will see the Classic will go away (hopefully replaced with a hard-drive based Touch).
I really don't see why the "use iTunes as Handheld" system can't be made to work. It's baffling. Seems like a poor business decision. FWIW... I did forward my concerns onto Apple. I imagine when they get a few hundred thousand complaints they might listen. Until then, you're probably on your own.
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Until then, you're probably on your own.
Right.
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Ok, if you want us to let Apple know how we feel, how about making that easier? I mean, who would we tell? You might consider setting up a webpage a la the "e-mail your congressman" sites, and soliciting users to use it to tell Apple how we feel. I'd be willing to spent the 2 minutes of time it would take.
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Ok, if you want us to let Apple know how we feel, how about making that easier? I mean, who would we tell? You might consider setting up a webpage a la the "e-mail your congressman" sites, and soliciting users to use it to tell Apple how we feel. I'd be willing to spent the 2 minutes of time it would take.
It's a bright idea, but I don't think it would be appropriate for JRiver to guide such a movement. Feel free to set one up.
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It's a bright idea, but I don't think it would be appropriate for JRiver to guide such a movement. Feel free to set one up.
Agreed.
Unfortunately, I think it is more of a "will cost us existing users" features.
I too think this may be the result.
FWIW... I did forward my concerns onto Apple.
Where did you do so? On the support forums? A particular email address? I'm happy to send off a complaint - I'd rather not get it swamped in the Apple support forums though. (especially by the APES - Apple Proponents and Evangelical Society)
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I use Ipod hard drive music players exclusively for my music (5 of them), all managed by MC12 (now MC13). I have hardware and hookups designed for Ipods which I happen to like very much.
Based on the comments from Jim, I made the decision to indefinitely stay with the previous version of the Ipod classic which is now sold refurbished by Apple for $249 (160 gb) - I can confirm they work fine with MC13. I can stay like this for a long time.
However, at some point in the future I am trusting that JRiver will find a way and will support the new Ipods (and other Apple music devices). I do think it is important in the long term for JRiver to do so (and certainly is important to me at some point in the future).
Good luck/best wishes to us all on this.
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Well judging from JimHs comments it sounds like JRiver does not plan to try to support the new iPods which is a shame. I know Apple is doing some stupid items however making the consumer decide between ipod and your software is not really the best battle to take. Unfortunate the ipod is very popular which means it has many many accessories for it to work with many devices/cars and makes it an obvious choice for a mobile media device over most options.
So looks like I will have to find another tool to manage my music.
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So looks like I will have to find another tool to manage my music.
Once I had decided (or better: forced) to use Itunes for my iPhone it is not so bad after all. I am increasingly also using it as my media manager and player. The genius function is one of the best I have seen until now (works better for me than radio mode in MC).
And with some third-party software it is possible to monitor folders as well (although still a bit complicated).
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Hi All,
I did follow this thread since I got my iPhone, hoping for a simple and quick way to have my selected music transferred to it.
Looks like we are heading into a dead end without creation of external workaround.
I found that others (at least one that I know) are now adding 3g and iTouch 2 support. See a famous 'Primate' software!
Would it be a solution if JRiver, can develop and create an add-on, that I am ready to pay for, or is it pure anti-Apple I-pod conspiracy?
I have most of my collection in lossless format. May be I am an old stubborn guy, but I will stick to it for 2 reasons: perfect copy and my ears pleasure at home. Media Center is by far the best music manager I have ever used and I want to keep using it. iTunes cannot give me what I need and I am not computer savvy enough to work an easy solution.
Give me hope!
Kami
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Now playing: Eric Clapton - Broken Hearted (http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/eric+clapton/track/broken+hearted)
via FoxyTunes (http://www.foxytunes.com/signatunes/)
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We may come back to the iPhone in the future, but for now, we're not going to spin our wheels supporting Apple.