iPod Hacks - Hacks, iPod downloads, Cracks, Mods, Utilities

Apple today released their updates for the iPod touch and iPhone. On the iPod touch we saw the general updates and one very nice one. It would seem that some people who were experiencing problems with their negative screens don’t have the issue with this update! Yea! Now, this hasn’t fixed everyones, but it has fixed a good number. The only bad side is that the jailbreak might be even slower with this software update.

This screenshot of a crash report in the iPod Touch indicates that the Bluetooh framework was intentionally left in the iPod Touch, or it’s simply further evidence of the sloppyness we’ve seen in the port from iPhone to iPod Touch:

I don’t know about you, but I would like to see this solved once and for all…

Gizmodo is reporting that they exchanged their faulty iPod Touch for one with a good screen.

“iPod early. I thought I was stuck with a wonky screen. I waited a couple of weeks to see what was up, and once Walt Mossberg said the defective screens were only an early production problem, I was off to the Apple Store to exchange mine. While we still don’t know if the problem has been resolved completely, I can say that my iPod touch has a screen that looks as great as advertised.”

“I made an appointment with the Genius Bar guys who did some video tests of their own, and came to the same conclusion I did. No questions asked, they took my old iPod touch, handed me a new one, and I was on my way. Pretty painless overall.”

Good news for all those who have faulty screens, go get yours.

Well it’s a dream come true for all the eager soon-to-be iPod touch owners, they seem to be shipping earlier than the 28th. Some of the pre-orders seem to have been shipped already and my iPod (which I order on the 14th) is “prepared for shipment”. We will see in the next couple of days if this is true or not.

Well it’s almost 6 days till the iPod Touch is “released” and almost ten for the web orders to arrive. I think it would be a good time before it’s in your hand to tell you some of the not so great parts.

1.Negative Screen Issue:

This has effected a good amount of the earlier ones. Comparing their screen to an iPhone’s screen you can see that some of the color is “washed out” or even inverted. Now, Apple has come out and said that this was only in some of the first ones, but it’s still something that could effect yours.

2.Not the Claimed Battery Life:

Battery life is something that some iPod owners have had good experiences with and some not so great. In Walt Mossberg’s review, he reports that the battery life falls short of Apple’s 22 hours of music and actually gets 17 hours of music . All little disappointing considering the rest of them got their claimed battery life.

3.A Slow Jailbreak

If you were like me and expecting a rapid jailbreak like the iPhone, hold your horses. From what hackers have said, the jailbreaking of the iPod touch is going to be a slow process. It will happen, but just don’t expect to do it the night it’s released. Hopefully once Apple “releases” it more hackers can get their hands on it and help the process.

Hopefully Apple will fix their screen issue and we won’t have that. We just have to live with the other two.

For those of you with a Mac, and not afraid to get your hands dirty in the command line, you can use Media Folder tools based on iPhuc to copy files to and from your iPod Touch.

If you have an Intel Mac, use MedUtils.

And if you have a PPC Mac, download the above MedUtils, and then download this copy of iPhuc. Rename iPhuc to “util” and copy it into the MedUtils folder, overwriting the existing file.

Personally, I just gathered up all my flash drives and set them on fire.

As expected, the release of iTunes 7.4.2 has pushed crispSofties into releasing a new version of their iPod.iTunes software for compatibility reasons.

For those of you who don’t know:

“Unlike other iPod copy tools, iPod.iTunes provides real synchronization of MP3/AAC tracks and even playlists entries from your iPod(s) to your Mac(s). iPod.iTunes saves your time because it automatically only copies those tracks which are missing in the iTunes library, excluding duplicates. It provides also an option to build a list of tracks which are not in iTunes and to copy only desired tracks from that list.”

Apple has released a new version of iTunes yet again. The new version will fix an issue with creating ringtones using iTunes Plus song purchases. And it also includes the unrefutable bug fixes to improve stability and performance (translation: report back all your illegal downloads).

That last part was a joke.

Apple released an update to address performance issues in the new crop of iPods. Due to the increased graphic capabilities of the new iPods, especially that of Cover Flow, users were experiencing slowdowns in their interface.

To receive the update, dock with iTunes and select your iPod in the device browser and click “Check for Updates” in the Summary tab.

For those who don’t know, Apple had released the new iPods with a checksum to the iPod database that would restrict non-iTunes products from adding music.

However, wtbw of #gtkpod, managed to crack the checksum after only 36 hours. The upshot of this is that people using Linux can now manage their iPods.

From Will’s Home:

1. Download the code.
2. Plug your ipod in and make sure it is mounted and run:
   

   sudo lsusb -v | grep -i Serial
   

   Look for your iPod device, and the firewireID should be the 16 character long hex string shown.
   

   It should look something like this: 00A1234567891231

3. Edit main.cpp in the hash_crack directory and read the commetns at the top. You should insert your firewire ID where the comments specify, then run make to compile the hash program.
4. Next, sync your ipod with gtkpod, rhythmbox, banshee or Amarok, or whatever ur used to just like normal. Once this is complete, you should have an ipod with songs on it, that refuses to view the songs. To make it “see” the songs, u need to run the hash program we just compiled on the iTunesDB file. This should happen something like this:
   

   ./gethash /path/to/iPod/iPod_Control/iTunes/iTunesDB
   

   This should output the proper hash for the current state of the iTunesDB, as well as the old hash for the previous state of the iTunesDB. We just need the first value.

5. Write this new hash value to the proper location in the iTunesDB where the hash is stored at address 0×58 of the iTunesDB file. This can be done with a program such as bvi.
   

   Note: You will need to do the process of getting the hash on your iTunesDB every time you even so much as change a song name, or upload new music or video files.