Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

Do you think it could be possible to make the N900 report itself as an iPod to iTunes like Palm Pre is doing when connected via USB to enable syncing music and playlists?

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

I know this doesn't answer the question but why would anyone want to sync with itunes. iTunes was one of my major gripes with the iphone. As a media "organizer" it's not very good, at least imo.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

I heard that Apple stopped the loophole that Palm were using, so it no longer works for that device. I don't agree with Apple locking down iTunes like that, but I'm just saying that it probably won't work.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

I think there are 3rd party programs that take iPhone's playlists and syncs them (your choices) to a device that connects as a USB drive. That's how I plan to sync some medias to my N900 anyway when I get it.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

I don't like iTunes either (in fact I abhor it and every time I have given it a shot in Windows it ends up uninstalled in 1-2 days), but it's what the common folk use. And if they purchase the n900 (unlikely due to its price) they're going wanna know why it doesn't work with iTunes and demand it does.

Apple and Pre are having a back-and-forth cat and mouse game. Apple blocks Pre. Pre updates. Rinse and Repeat. It has to do more with the Pre identifying as an iPod. If Palm would develop their own app to work with iTunes like Blackberries do

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/service.../mediasync.jsp

Then Apple would be fine with it (though I'm on Palm's side). I think the problem about the Blackberry sync is you don't have full access to everything in iTunes (ratings, etc..?)


Yes there are but I don't think of them sync perfectly (playlists yes, but not ratings and such).

You could try a round-about way of using Songbird (which can read and write to the iTunes library). But yeah there is no good solution..

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

Ug, hate iTunes...

Just tag your collection properly and sideload it...

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

Hate iTunes, it easier said than done.
I've come a loong way from my first iPods, but everytime I tried to replace iTunes with something else I sort of surrender and crawl back to iTunes.
knowing that most people here most likely are Pro-Nokia, but I would say that the media sync software I've seen from Nokia have been really bad compared to iTunes, please note I do not use the iTunes shop, just organize, play-back and sync my 20gb MP3 collection (11gb on N95).
I have bought a 3rd party Salling media sync,http://www.salling.com/ it worked fine at first but then it could not sync due to TOO big media file, I wrote support and asked WTF, the replied NOBODY can have that much MP3 to sync...I told them "wake up and smell the coffee"

anyway, if somebody have some other Media organizers that are as extensive and nice looking as iTunes tell me.
and I do think that Nokia should take some responibility and come up with a solution

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

i think what appeals about itunes is the "autorate" database...

from what i understand, it will do all kinds of "magical" monitoring of your actions, like skipping a song, look at time of day, type of music, time of year and whatsnot, and then re-sort the whole playlist based on that.

and the ipods and iphone share this database with itunes, so that the longer you use both, the more both will learn to "guess" your mood and preferences that day...

basically its the same as clippy, only without the attention grabbing avatar. Think of it more like the stereotypical efficient butler or secretary...

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

iTunes shop is ok, they've done away with DRM nowadays.

I also wonder about people who (seemingly) b*tch about iTunes without giving detailed reasons. Sounds like they don't know how to properly use iTunes.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

This is nice stuff... No wonder why people love Apple / iPhone apps / services. They are near perfection as features, yet simple and intuitive to use.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

Well my collection is 60GB, all tagged easily with mp3tag, so a 20GB collection is hardly a barrier... This way my music collection is perfect no matter which device I'm using it on (which is important when you go through half a dozen phones across several different OS a year, in addition to needing PS3 playback etc).

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

You mean smart playlists? There's several media players that do that now. Songbird is one of them (though it looks like iTunes >.>)

But part of the appeal of iTunes is that it syncs the database with the iPod/iPod Touch/iPhone. So your play counts, ratings, etc.. sync with the main database, so the smart playlists become more accurate. There's yet really to be any software that does something similar in this regard.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

I know it's not true syncing, but do you know that you can do this:

Make an iTunes playlist with the songs that you want on your tablet. Connect your tablet via USB. Within iTunes, select that playlist then "Select All" to highlight all the songs in that playlist. Drag that selection into a folder on your tablet and wait (a long time) for the music to be copied. The directory structure of your music is maintained, which suits most Maemo music players.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

It's really restrictive. It only allows you to sync you library with one computer. When trying to a song from another computer in asks you "Are you sure you want to erase all songs on your iPod and start a new sync". Also who the **** came up with the idea that you are limited to transfer any songs on your iPod only with ONE app? Yes, Apple, Their stuff works nice and dandy unless you try to do something they don't want. Also iTunes is a piece of bloat, 200MB download and sometimes almost 100MB updates. This is almost as bad as Nokia PC suite.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

why not try zune. Maybe an app to mimic zune features and sync and it wouldnt be itunes. Plus the zune pass for 14.99 all u can download. This would be great in the usa. No comes with music here.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

If iTunes was perfect, we'd all be using it right now, knowing perfectly well how to properly use it.

iTunes only works very well if you use it the Apple way. a rant from 2008.

iTunes is also one-way sync. When I download an update for application on my iPod touch, iTunes on my Mac wants to download that very update again. Why is that? Waste of bandwidth.

Something based on rsync would easily do the job. Just, during sync you need to have the database on a journaling FS, and replace the one on USB & FAT32 only after the rsync is complete.

Re: Palm pre kind of iTunes sync possible?
 

Great, now we have some common meats to chew :D
(It's good to talk about the problems and try to come up with solutions than just talk about the problems as an excuse to vent).

Re: sync to more than 1 computer

This has been bugging me more so on my PIM data than media library. Can anyone point me to a simple implementation of 1 device to many hosts sync, that doesn't implement a common back end?

I had the impression that this is not such a straightforward issue to be implemented in automatic fashion.

In iPod\iTunes's case, you can disable auto-sync to manually manage your library with multiple machinse, right?

@allnameswereout: good points

about the one way sync, you're right. but they do have the option called 'transfer purchases' (or something like that) to move updates\purchases you've made on your touch back to your iTunes to avoid downloading it more than once.