Re: [Bug-gnupod] 4th generation iPod Nano

[H. Langos]

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 02:38:31PM +0200, Richard van den Berg wrote:
> On Fri, May 29, 2009 14:16, H. Langos wrote:
> > It certainly wouldn't hurt to put some iTunesDB files away to have some
> > data for verification if somebody sits down to reverse engineer that part
> > of the iTunesDB format.
> 
> I don't have the Nano anymore (it's on a plane to a sunny destination),
> but I can always borrow it later and make the dumps you suggested (my own
> approach was rather limited). It's rather interesting that the Nano didn't
> seem to mind the type 32 mhods were missing from the iTunesDB.

Sometimes apple actually tries to make its cash cow hardware product somewhat 
compatible with more than just one specific version of their cash cow 
software (or rather the software that dives the average user to their cash 
cow music shop). ... why do i get the picture of an abattoir in my head ?

Well, actually it amazes me to a great extend that the iTunesDB and iTunesSD 
files created by gnupod are understood buy so many different iPod models.

This means that most of the time an iPod has to be able to read iTunesDB
files from several generations of iTunes software. Naturally it has to
deal with new tags that it doesn't understand (if the iTunes software is 
younger than the iPod) and with tags that are missing (if the iTunes software 
is older than the iPod).

Only when they do big changes, they break that compatibility. Back then when
they introduced the first hash the new iPods didn't accept databases without
the hash. Now last year with the ipod touch 2.x and iphone 3g they introduced 
another hash check that requires a new version of itunes.
Also the new talking iPod shuffle seems to have a completely new iTunesSD
format. It "requires iTues 8.1" while the current nano_4g, the current 
classic, and the touch _only_ require "iTunes 8".

I've got a sample of the new iTunesSD here that looks pretty straight 
forward but I didn't have time to get into the details yet.

cheers
-henrik