iPod Megathread

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Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
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I was thinking of picking up an iPod Touch this Christmas to supplement my Archos (which is way too big to fit in my pocket) due to the rather neat homebrew stuff being developed for it (especially ScummVM), but reading that rather long rant about how it hates Vista has put me off slightly, due to being a Vista user myself.

I can always use the other computer which has XP on it, but that would be a bit of a hassle. Was that just one person who got very unlucky, or is it a serious issue that would likely affect me?

Not being able to simply drag and drop folders of music to the iPod as if it were an external HD and have them playable was one of many gripes I've had with Apple, and always stopped me even considering an iPod in the past. However, since this is just to shove on a few gigs of music, and whatever nifty homebrew things I can find (a decent calendar and notes application for a start!), so it should hopefully do okay for me. Once someone finds a way to plug a camera into it (assuming this hasn't already been done), then it'll be perfect.

I'm gonna have to go through all the albums I plan to put on it and fix the ID3 tags, unfortunately. :/

# ¿ Dec 1, 2007 20:31

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 13:50

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

SuperCaptainJ posted:

If anyone hasn't tried the new version of the GBA emulator, do it. (GPSPhone). It works great, and is now landscape-style fullscreen with transparent controls.

I'm pretty interested in this. I have a few GBA games I've been meaning to finish but I can just never be bothered bringing them around with my with my DS. Shoving them on the Touch would be great.

How are the controls, though? I can't imagine it being easy to play anything other than turn-based games, due to the lack of actual buttons.

If I do pick one of for Christmas, I gotta remember to get a leather case while I'm at it, since that thing would scratch like a motherfucker in my pocket.

# ¿ Dec 2, 2007 04:33

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

SuperCaptainJ posted:

The controls actually work surprisingly well. The only games I am truly having trouble playing are Mario and Sonic, everything else works great. This includes Mario Kart.

Well that pretty much settles it. I was planning on restarting Yggdra Union anyway since I didn't realise you could heal between battlefields, I might as well leave the cart at home and play on the Touch.

Since the price is probably unlikely to drop in the UK for the January sales, I might try to grab it in time for my birthday in a couple of weeks.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2007 17:38

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

If you're not willing to jailbreak it for homebrew, it's an overpriced bit of flashy junk. If you do jailbreak it, then it's definitely a neat little piece of kit.

I had about an hour to play about with installing stuff on mine last night - some pretty cool things. Need to get the weDict stuff working, can't remember if I downloaded any dictionaries for it or not.

Has anyone found out a way to change the Apple logo that shows up when you're starting it up? I'd love to change it to something personal.

Question Mark Mound fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Dec 6, 2007

# ¿ Dec 6, 2007 15:09

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I'm having a bit of trouble SFTPing files to my Touch. I can get quite far through uploading a file, but then the connection will be lost every couple of minutes.

I think I'll give WinSCP a try later today. If it has a resume upload function (assuming the problem is with my network, and not the software I'm using), that'd be awesome.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2007 10:36

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Whenever I change minor details in a song's ID3 tags (e.g. genre, fixing capitalisation of an artist, etc.) and go to Sync it with my Touch, it doesn't get updated and it's really quite bugging me.

I've been told my best bet is to wipe all the songs from my iPod and resync the lot of them. This is a needlessly awkward way of doing it, but whatever. The problem is, I'm not seeing an option to wipe everything in the devices section of iTunes. Any help?

# ¿ Dec 11, 2007 13:31

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

McCheese posted:

It's probably the same with the touch, but with other ipods if you do a "restore" it'll do a wipe.

Which means I'd lose any applications from jailbreak.

I think I found the answer, though. Unticking the "Sync Music" box seems to delete all the music from my iPod.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2007 14:12

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I am loving all the iPod Touch homebrew, and am making liberal use of some of them. However, I'm still waiting for a nice Spreadsheet application to come along.

People are doing tons of weird, cool, and gimmicky things, but I don't see why the talented developers aren't spending their time on very useful applications such as that. Sometimes makes me wish I actually had some effort and coding ability. :v:

# ¿ Dec 12, 2007 19:47

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Toiletbrush posted:

They're probably waiting for the SDK. I don't think that applications, that are likely going to be shareware or commercial, are going to based on a hack to make them run.

There's a point. After looking at some of the stuff that's been done for free, I kinda forgot that some people actually want something in return for weeks/months of hard work. v :shobon:

v

Well, once someone's made a good spreadsheet app, I'll happily pay for it.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2007 20:44

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I still say that if you want something just for watching video, an Archos is the way to go. The screen may be crisper on an iPod, but you can get a larger screen for the same price with an Archos - which is why I keep my old one around.

It really is the homebrew that makes the touch stand-out and become more than a fun half-hour gimmick.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2007 11:15

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Hillridge posted:

This may be a dumb question, but if I go to music->songs->shuffle to randomly play everything on my iPod, and then while a song is playing I look at the tracks on that album and play one, how do I put total-library shuffle back on without going all the way back to the songs screen? If I turn shuffle back on it just shuffles the album.

Going back to the song screen is only, what, 4 seconds of work? That's something you probably just need to deal with.

It's less of an obvious loving blunder than not including a music playlist editor in a music device for playing music. Lists of music, if you will... Lists to be played musically.
I know there's the "On The Go", thing, but there's only one of that, and you have to save it as something else back on iTunes on a PC before you can make another playlist. Hopefully someone will make a tweak or a patch to add basic mp3 player functionality to an iPod. :shobon:

# ¿ Dec 14, 2007 21:08

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Mortley posted:

Have you found compatibility to be an issue with your Archos? One of the things I was looking for in the Touch was the "just works" factor of using it with iTunes.

My only compatibility problems came up with that fact that some files were encoded with some quarter-pixel bizarre bullshit that meant they wouldn't work. This was drat rare, though, so pretty much any DivX video downloaded off the net will work fine. Plus it works as a portable HD (mine does, at least), which the Touch doesn't. And it won't obfuscate your mp3 filenames and folders so you can keep your songs laid out in whatever order you like.

The problem was that I got the 7" screen one (AV700), meaning it sure as hell wouldn't fit in my pocket. I keep it for watching videos, though - I haven't even bothered encoding it into mp4 or whatever mixed up format to test videos out on my Touch.

Oh, and you can make and save playlists with the thing. :argh:

And no iTunes bullshit. Copy/paste in Windows Explorer is a much better file management system than some horribly bloated, oversized piece of software that does very little for the actual user. And you can turn it on to play with it (even though you haven't put any music past the default couple of crummy pre-installed songs, but oh well) before getting home and plugging it into the PC, which you can't with the Touch.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2007 21:46

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I'm looking to get a nice case for my iPod Touch to keep it safe, would anyone recommend this one?:
http://www.iskin.com/touch_overview.html

I've emailed that website asking what shipping to the UK would be, since every case I can find for sale in the UK looks so very cheap and tacky. No reply from them yet, though.

Mr_D posted:

So while I'd like an iPhone, Buying one right now doesn't make sense with the 3G coming. So I look to the touch. However, I've the iLounge review says that the screen, battery, audio fidelity, everything is generally inferior to the iPhone. Is this true, or is it just bellyaching?

Admittedly, I haven't actually seen an iPhone in person, but the screen, battery life, audio quality, and everything else is absolutely fine on the iPod Touch. My only complaint is that ScummVM can be quite a battery drainer, with just over an hour of play taking about 30-40% of the battery. Then again, I've almost finished Sam 'n' Max so I won't need that for a while. Listening to music barely drains the battery at all, so you can get plenty of usage out of it.

You could always pay twice as much, as well as a huge contract fee every month, to get an iPhone, but then again you could always just jailbreak your iPod, and have everything the iPhone does other than an actual phone (and Bluetooth).

# ¿ Dec 16, 2007 14:27

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

ultimatemike posted:

There are programs out there that can grab the files off it without jail-breaking it. I don't have a link handy but a google search should turn something up.

There's tons for older iPods, but the Touch (and the iPhone, it seems) must store things differently, and most of them don't work. The ones that do work aren't free.

# ¿ Dec 17, 2007 18:41

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I wish I had done a bit of asking around for screen protectors before I bought one and put it on.

The one I have makes the screen feel nice to use, was easy to put on without bubbles, it looks pretty scratch resistant, and fingerprints don't stay long. The only problem is that it makes the screen look pretty drat grainy (especially noticable whenever a large white block is on the screen). Kinda like when you have a little bit of polish sprayed over a CRT monitor - you can see tiny little specks of red, green, and blue all over.

I feel like I just wanna get used to it, since I spend about �8 on it, but it doesn't seem like it'll peel off as easily as putting it on.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2007 00:49

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

ProvostZak posted:

I've just gotten an iPod Touch and I've two quick questions:

1) when playing a song, how in the name of almighty god do I get it to show me total track time, time played, time remaining, and a scroll-bar for seeking? If I'm listening to an hour long file I need to be able to skip to a particular point quickly, easily and consistently. Hell, even just a little bar telling me where I am in a track, and how long the track is, would be a good start. This has to be possible - its such a fundamental thing! Have I just overlooked something?

2) should I just jailbreak it now and move on, or is there a good reason to wait a little while longer? And if I do want to revert it to its original condition, just how likely will it be that the thing turns into a brick?

1) Single tap on the album artwork area of the screen. It annoys me that this stuff isn't on the screen by default.

2) Jailbreak it now now now!! I haven't heard of any cases of jailbreaking bricking an iPod. If anything does go wrong, you can do a restore of old firmware (downloadable from Apple) to bring it back to how it was when you first got it.

# ¿ Dec 22, 2007 16:55

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
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Big Hock posted:

Is the gpSPhone gameplay supposed to be so choppy, especially the sound? I've tried Final Fantasy 6 and Mario Kart so far and it's pretty much unplayable. FF6 goes into slideshow mode whenever its in a battle, and mario kart is the same when tons of crap is happening on the screen.

It all depends on the game. I've tried out a couple of the Castlevania games and they run more or less perfectly.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2007 14:32

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

thebruce posted:

OK, I give up. After looking around and trying/installing Handbrake, MediaCoder and Videora I have yet to find an easy, click-one-button DVD to iTunes convertor that my 11 year old nephew will be able to use to convert DVDs for his touch.

Any recommendations?

On a similar note, a free flv to iPod-tarded-video-format that doesn't triple the file size (and sometimes make the first 10-20 seconds go all faded and screwy) would be nice.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2007 03:07

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Peven Stan posted:

Got a quick question for jailbreaking on Windows.
Can I do this with iTunes 7.5 or do I need to downgrade?

As long as your iTunes can do a firmware restore on your iPod (assuming your Touch is on 1.1.2 firmware) then it should be fine.

I'm on iTunes 7.5 on Vista, and it worked all fine for me.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2007 22:21

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Big Hock posted:

ROM files for these can vary from 100 KB to 10 MB depending on the game

The Playstation 1 emulator for the Touch seems to be coming along very nicely, so you can expect this to change in the future. You can compress PS1 disc images, but a lot of games will still be 50-100MB I'm sure.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2007 12:29

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Cowboy Kyle posted:

That makes me feel a lot better. I'm still researching it, so I really should have waited until I had some real questions. Thanks!

Where are you guys getting your 3rd party apps? I checked the OP and didn't see anything.

The installer which is pre-installed whenever you perform most versions of jailbreak) has a few sources already included for downloading applications. It'll all make sense when you use it.

# ¿ Dec 25, 2007 21:36

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Squirrel007 posted:

How exactly do I update to 1.1.2 once I have jailbroken on 1.1.1? I tried but it just deleted all my apps etc... And is there any way to change the background of my home screen instead of the "unlock" screen?

Back on 1.1.1, you have to get OkToPrep from Installer, and then do something else. It's all detailed here:
http://www.touchdev.net/wiki/Jailbreak_1.1.2

As for changing the background, you need to get Summerboard (or was it Customise?) from Installer. You should get both, anyway.

# ¿ Dec 28, 2007 01:29

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Xinopay posted:

OK, I'm not trying to troll you or anything, but can you seriously not work out how to operate it? Just touch the screen and it does what it says...there's really nothing much more to it than that.

There's always the shortcut keys like double-tapping the Home button to bring up music controls while using another application, or single-tapping the album artwork to bring up the progress display. Basic functionality that isn't hinted at anywhere, and the only way to learn is to watch the smarmiest man alive for 5 or 6 minutes.

A basic little manual included with the Touch for that kind of stuff wouldn't cost Apple much, surely.

# ¿ Jan 8, 2008 11:01

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

oblomov posted:

You are one week away from Macworld. You would seriously go and buy it right now? I mean, if you get it at Best Buy, Circuit City or Costco you could always return it I guess.

I'm new to iPods as a whole, but would Apple really announce a new upgrade to the Touch a mere 4 or so months after its launch? Is it really commonplace for an iPod to be updated so soon after one has been launched, expecting people to treat mp3 players as incremental upgrades 2 or 3 times a year?

# ¿ Jan 9, 2008 01:22

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Does the new firmware allow you to create playlists on the Touch? That was the most retarded lack of a feature, since I hadn't seen an mp3 player for years that couldn't make playlists.

Not that I'll upgrade until it's been jailbroken, but it's nice to know.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2008 00:41

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

Do you mean with just the Wifi set to on, or actually using Wifi with an app?

If it's the latter, then yeah, four or five hour battery life is about what I see.

e: the old firmware let you make On-the-go playlists.

It lets me make one On-The-Go playlist. I have to go back to iTunes on my computer to be able to give it a name so that I can clear On-The-Go and make a second playlist.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2008 01:26

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

kevdude posted:

Is Apple being ignorant here or am I?

Apple are employing the tried-and-tested business practise of "charge the user for a service that is inferior to what they are already getting for free". So clearly you're the ignorant one here. :v:

# ¿ Jan 16, 2008 22:07

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

WithoutTheFezOn posted:

and some people at ipodtouchfans (admittedly, most people there are morons) claim they were told the magic date was 12/27.

God that forum is painful to read, but I don't know of any others to find out about new applications.

Also, I'm having a bit of trouble with the Wifi, though I don't know if the problem is the Touch or my router. I've tried DHCP and Static IP on the Touch, but I seem to be able to get a connection from my wireless access point in short bursts, then it disappears again, then comes back, etc. Anyone have any idea what the problem might be?

It used to do that, then I remember doing something that made it work perfectly for a while, but I forget what.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2008 15:52

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

VibrioCholera posted:

I know there are 3rd party applications, but my iTouch is showing NO album artwork at all. All the songs on my iTouch are actually from my own CDs that I ripped to my computer a long time ago. What gives? Am I doing something wrong?

Assuming the CDs aren't too obscure, go into iTunes, highlight all your songs, right-click, and select the option to search for album artwork. That should hopefully get most of them for you.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2008 20:28

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

tuna posted:

It uses plain text formats like .htm and .txt. Just put them in /var/root/media/ebooks/bookname and split them up into a few smaller chunks so they don't take so long to load in the reader. I've read a few books this way, it's really handy.

What's the difference between the eBook reader, and just opening a text file in the TextEdit app or have .htm files from an iTouch Apache Webserver?

And argh, I'm getting angrier at my wifi thingie by the day.

# ¿ Jan 19, 2008 02:23

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

stoops posted:

this will proably sound dumb, but if i can ssh, can i make my touch a webserver?

Somewhere in Installer is an Apache webserver, so you don't even need SSH (though it'd be best to have anyway).

# ¿ Jan 26, 2008 00:11

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

I had a scan through recent posts in the thread, and the only 1.1.3 jailbreak posted is for the iPhone, and the FAQ specifically says not to use it with the Touch.

Have any Touch-friendly 1.1.3 jailbreaks been released? If so, one that isn't installed entirely (or at all) over Wifi would be fantastic. If it's a messy job to do, I might just wait until the SDK is out, and hope that my few favourite apps get ported over to the SDK and I'll just upgrade normally then.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2008 19:46

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Axim posted:

If I am not mistaken, NES and Sega ROMS are okay on SA due to age, if not, then sorry.

GBA, on the other hand...

# ¿ Feb 1, 2008 17:45

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Christoff posted:

Holy crap! Someone put all of wikipedia in a file and you can put it on your touch/iphone. Awesome! I'm downloading the 2 gig file now.

Let you guys know how it goes. I don't think there is pictures though.

I was excited when I first read about this, until I realised that, at 16Gb, it was really pushing it to have to pick and choose what music I want on it, and I couldn't afford 2Gb of space for wikipedia.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2008 00:52

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Bit of an awkward one, but does anyone know if it's possible to insert chapter points into a video to put onto a Touch, so you can press the >>| button and skip to the next chapter. A program to rip a title from a DVD and include chapter points would be perfect, but I'd be happy to just work out the chapter points and include it onto a full video rip myself if it was still somehow possible.

The only alternative I can think of would be to rip each chapter as a separate file and group them together as a TV Show in iTunes.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2008 23:58

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Stutes posted:

Handbrake will rip movies to mp4s and automatically insert chapter points for you.

http://handbrake.fr/

Fantastic, thanks! This makes up for my iPod mysteriously loving up last night and needing a restore.

(And my wifi is too unreliable to jailbreak it again, argh)

# ¿ Feb 15, 2008 08:47

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Pardot posted:

Is jailbreakme down for good or just temporarily?

edit: just temporarily

Is it back up for you? I've been trying for the past two days to re-jailbreak my iPod after it hosed up on me, and I just can't get the hacked tiff to load at all (on the rare occasion the main site loads)!

It sucks not having handy stuff like weight converters and stuff on my Touch.

Also, to the poster who helped me find Handbrake earlier for ripping DVDs, it won't seem to find any titles after I point it to the right folder for some reason. :/ (Running Vista and running the application as Admin)

# ¿ Feb 16, 2008 01:35

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

Disappointing Pie posted:

Anyone know why my ratings and smart playlists are not syncing between itunes and my ipod?

I'll rate songs on my ipod they'll pop into my top rated playlist on the ipod but when I sync they do not carry over to my PC or my playlists on the pc.

How do you rate songs on the Touch anyway? I've never seen that feature show up anywhere.

Also, are jailbreakme.com and that other one at a tinyurl address being buggy right now? When I try to open the hacked .tiff file, my iPod will immediately quit out of Safari and still isn't jailbroken after about 20 tries. Would completely restoring it to 1.1.1 and not doing anything (e.g. syncing music) fix it and let me jailbreak again?

# ¿ Feb 21, 2008 11:43

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

LordOfThePants posted:

Tap the album art when something is playing to go to the track listing. You can rate the current song that's playing right below the song tile and above the track listing.

Ahh, I thought those dots were just there for decoration. This is why the Touch should come with a proper loving user manual, since nobody ever bothers to download online ones.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2008 13:17

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 13:50

Question Mark Mound: Jun 14, 2006; Tokyo Crystal Mew
Dancing Godzilla

stoops posted:

if anyone still has any problems. i recently found Ziphone which jailbreaks any iphone to 1.13, even OTB, in about 50 seconds.

i've tried it on my touch and it works flawlessly.

i have an 8 gig touch though. ive heard of errors on the 16 gig.

http://www.ziphone.org/

It glitched about for a little while on my 16Gb, but I got it working after that - thanks! :woop:

# ¿ Feb 21, 2008 22:14

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