Thursday, September 24, 2009

Old firewire iPod still working with iTunes 9.01

Since Apple's been tweaking iTunes to block the (USB) Palm Pre, I wondered if my old firewire iPod would be collateral damage.

I wasn't too worried, it's unlikely that Apple will have to block a firewire fraud, nobody's going to build a device with that connection.

Happily my @2003 30GB "3rd generation" iPod (dock connector) still works with iTunes 9.01 and it's still much faster to sync than any other iPod.

The old firewire iPod is an antique by now, but it's still a pleasure to hold and use. It even has the original battery, for which at one point I received a $50 settlement check (battery life is about ten minutes, so it's always in the cradle). I'm surprised it's still running -- it was the 3rd of its kind after two others were replaced under warrantee -- AND the USB-sync never worked (it was perhaps first iPod to incorporate USB sync, even though it wouldn't charge by USB. My model was/is defective.)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I think it was never meant to be charged through USB. I remember that strange cable which forked in two: one part going to a firewire charger, the other to a usb port.

You couldn't sync properly sync over usb without it, the battery would run out very quickly.

Unknown said...

I have a 10 gig from 2002 and a 4th gen 20 gig, both on their original batteries. I have to agree that they are quicker to sync that the USB Classic 160 and the 32gig Touch that i have. My 2002 with the buttons around the circumference of the wheel is still my favorite.

JGF said...

Yes, I still have dual-head cable. My 3G was supposed to sync by USB (not charge) -- but it didn't work. At the time I was annoyed because I wanted to use the 3G as an external drive on my XP machine, but after 2 prior exchanges I was done fighting Apple.

Their quality control, bad as it is, may be better than it was five years ago.

George gets the prize for the operational 10GB!