(technically this falls under the "Duh, Read The Manual" category, but I find it really stupid, so I'm going to complain about it)
Now that TWO of my children have iPods, I find it VERY frustrating that they do not support Firewire on a Windows machine. That's just.. . I just wasted $18 on a returned Firewire PCI card for Amanda's computer so she could use Firewire instead of USB via a hub. (sigh) What is that.. a "perk" reserved for the tiny masses that use Macintosh still?? *phbtbtbtbt*
(if anyone knows a hack that allows use of Firewire for file transfers via Windows onto an iPod, let me know)
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Does the manual say that firewire doesn't work with Windows or something? The way you've worded your first sentence leads me to believe that it does, but I find that odd.
ReplyDeleteMy ipod is USB only, but I know many people that have ipods/ipod minis that connect to Windows via Firewire with no problems. Isn't USB faster than Firewire anyway (480 Mbps vs. 400)?
I think that a low battery in the ipod can sometimes cause sync issues. It does not make sense to me, but if mine is totally dead, sometimes it will need to be charged for a couple minutes, then removed and reconnected to the PC before it is recognized.
On a slightly more unrelated note, Apple totally missed the one interface that 99% of everything has these days, ethernet. In all seriousness, can you think of a system that doesn't support ethernet, but does support USB?
ReplyDeleteIt would make life so much easier, no driver headaches, no iTunes, no "oops, I connected the ipod before installing the software, let's reinstall the %#$%$# OS", not to mention the fact that as of the last time I checked, you HAVE TO HAVE ITUNES INSTALLED to use an ipod shuffle as a USB drive. What the hell is the point of telling people they can use their ipod to carry files between computers, do they expect you to install iTunes on your work and school computers? Well, actually they probably do, but it's the principle of the thing..
Just make it work exactly like a NAS. Put a little ftp or samba server on it, plug it in and you're golden.
Sure it would only operate at 100mbps, but that's still enough to move almost 200 songs a minute.
Your idea about ethernet is interesting.. though probably costly (for the parts needed for ethernet, NAS, etc, versus USB which is the "accepted norm" for such transfers). In Amanda's case, she has ONE USB port for her mouse on her "older" computer, and I saw the $18 firewire card at Best Buy and said "makes sense, get it" (I ASSumed that a much newer iPod Nano would not be crippled thusly - and for $18, it wasn't a huge investment).
ReplyDeleteThe USB thing is noted in the manual (from a very brief journey I took through it in Dani's iPod when she got it last year) and Firewire will "only charge" the iPod if I recall correctly (from Windows). Bizarre, either way.