john.pithed.org

My hopes for a built-in podcatcher for the iPod touch is nearly realized. As I was scanning the Cydia package list I discovered two cool new things.

The first is a Mobile Safari download plug-in that allows you to download many types of files. This makes the browser a lot more functional then it was. The plug-in has come leaps and bounds since the version in the link.

The second package is dTunes, a music player that plays files downloaded with its built-in browser. But as I discovered, it saves the songs to the same directory as Safari does, and plays any song in that directory regardless of where it came from. I like this because you don’t have to open up dTunes when you find an mp3 in Safari, you can just download it on the spot. It also means I can ssh files over and play them totally independent of the iTunesDB.

This is a huge advantage to me, as I can actually get CONTENT onto my ipod (finally!) However, through all my googling, I have not seen any podcatcher that ties into this new functionality. Granted, dTunes is only 6 days old, has already been updated twice, and gained video support (pretty impressive). I just know that it has to be on the horizon.

This has strengthened my confidence for the iphone app community outside of the App Store, who are doing really cool stuff. Apple won’t let their guard down for a while, which means that the foreseeable future will be fun for the hackers who get to introduce their programs to a very large userbase. As a consumer of these programs, I am enjoying getting more and more functionality out of a device that originally had much lower aspirations.

I’m finding myself more and more engrossed in the ongoing efforts to make the iPhone/iPod touch usable with Linux. As it stands, they can’t mount via USB, and can’t be synced over ssh under the 2.0 firmware. I know that I could easily revert the firmware on my ipod and do it that way, but I thoroughly enjoy the apps, whether they’re from the App Store, Cydia, or Installer. So I’m resigned to tracking the efforts of others.

The first effort is the ipod hash project. There’s not a lot of information there, but the goal is to break the hashing algorithm used on iPhone OS 2.0 so that Linux users can sync their iPods/iPhones. I’m wondering if they will contribute this back to the gtkpod team, they don’t have much information about this.

The other effort is iFuse and libiphone, a project to mount an iPhone/iPod touch via USB. It looks like they have been successful to a degree, but are only recommending that developers install it. Syncing via USB is also still impossible because of the new hashing algorithm. This interests me because I’ve tried using my Touch with iTunes on VirtualBox, but since it doesn’t mount to USB, it can’t be connected to the VM. If the hash-breaking efforts take longer, I may have this to fall back on.

In the meantime, I’ll try to learn more useful and scholarly stuff. That oughtta kill some time.

Once again, I had a post on the go but it wasn’t very interesting, but now I definitely have a reason to blather.

Through a complicated series of transactions, I find myself with a new ipod touch. This was pretty high on the list of things I wanted, because I love computing on a small scale, and this lets me do a lot more then with my old iPod 5G (Classic, if you accept the retrograded title).

First I wanted to see what the official store had to offer, but I didn’t want to pay the $10 for the iPhone 2.0 firmware update. Who wants to pay for firmware? Luckily, it is very easy to get the firmware update for free. I actually didn’t end up looking at much of the apps there, so I moved towards jailbreaking it. Unfortunately, I felt the repercussions of that misdeed quite quickly.

I had every intention of syncing music to the touch with Amarok, but with the 2.0 firmware, Apple changed the hash algorithm used to sync music with iTunes. So I am stuck waiting for the algorithm to be broken again, unless I go and reinstall a Windows partition and run it by VM.

Another problem I have is with having to use iTunes to do podcasts, even though the thing is web enabled. I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I’ve always wanted a DAP with Wi-Fi that could download them directly. But as I found out (and expected), the touch doesn’t work that way. The file system on the touch (which can be viewed from the MobileTerminal app from Cydia or Installer) is only half there, the music and movies locked into the iTunes proprietary filesystem. Safari’s downloading capability is limited to saving photos.

The only respite from that particular issue is a webapp, the Wizzard Media Receiver, which can manage subscriptions and stream them. Originally, I didn’t really think it was useful because I had to be in a hotspot, and it’s hard to find those on the subway. However, I’ve grown fond of it, being able to listen to podcasts at home. It is a little buggy, but its in beta, so that’s expected. It also doesn’t remember where you last paused it, which is great for long podcasts that you can’t listen to in one sitting.

By this point, I should be pretty annoyed at the whole process, but I find myself becoming less fanatic about things. It’s really all my fault for buying the thing in the first place. I jumped on an opportunity (thanks, sis!) and then working to make it useful to me. And I’ve had a lot of fun in the process. I’m playing with applications and enjoying how much better the Cydia and Installer applications are then the App Store ones. I can read books on it, I can use it as a flashlight (with maximum brightness, something you won’t get from the App Store)… who needs music?

In life news, I moved, started 4th year of university, and am helping to take care of a lovely Golden Retriever named Ollie. More on that later.