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  1. What ubuntu applications provide support? (guides, how to's, status)

  2. Also, specifically, details on support for syncing music to iPhone's and iPod's with the latest OS version, as of writing iOS 5:

    • Can you sync music to apple devices using iOS5? (iPhone & iPod)
    • What applications allow you to do this and how? (guides, how to's, status)

What has already been established is:

  1. Apple does not support Linux and has no plans to.
  2. libimobiledevice seems to provide some support but does not support syncing music with devices using iOS5. (I can't test libmobiledevice with anything other iOS5, so I can't provide details on how that works)
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This a constantly moving target. If you find a tool that works, Apple breaks it in a 'security update' (they sometimes use the term subjectively). For some iPods, try replacing the firmware with Rockbox. For iPhones stick with Windows or a Mac, or try setting up a Windows guest OS with VirtualBox in Ubuntu.

Apple will never allow this kind of interoperability to happen, long-term. You are going to have to accept their rules for their devices, or find a device that you can root and load with alternate firmware.

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"Apple breaks it in a 'security update'", yes, when I tried to sync it broke a few things. But, why don't the applications say "Look, you're trying to sync with an apple version we don't recognise, if you continue, it is very likely that the sync will break something. Do you want to continue? You've been warned." Instead, the applications seem to just try and sync, knowing only too well that there's a good chance the sync is going fail and break something. It's infuriating, and I don't think blaming apple is a very good excuse. – BullfrogBlues Dec 20 '11 at 17:21
Once you step outside Apple's walled garden you are on your own, they have no obligation to deliver such further warnings. You agreed to this already and have accepted their unilateral terms. I think this is infuriating, too. I can't blame Apple though. Their obligation is to the shareholders. If you applied an update or tried to sync outside their approved ecosystem and it broke something, you can only blame yourself. Harsh, but true. Meantime just vote wisely, choose your devices wisely, and give what you can to organizations like the EFF. Good luck. – Tom Brossman Dec 20 '11 at 18:24
I agree, however I'm not talking about apple providing warnings (you're 100% correct, they have absolutely no obligation to provide support, warnings, anything. If it's not in their business interests, why should they?), I'm talking about applications like banshee, rhythmbox, etc, that provide a "kind of" support, they should provide warnings when they encounter an untested apple device version. Or maybe it's impossible for them do that (I'd be surprised if it is), Also, don't get me wrong, I know people work hard on those projects for free – BullfrogBlues Dec 20 '11 at 19:02
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up vote 2 down vote

Just going to add that it's libgpod that currently can't handle DBVersion > 4. The most recent release goes back to July, as does the most recent commit ( http://gtkpod.git.sourceforge.net/git/gitweb.cgi?p=gtkpod/libgpod;a=summary ) I don't know what the status is but my guess is that it's currently on hold and not being worked on.

They however implemented the following in version 0.8.2 so who knows when someone out there will provide a solution to this.

iPhone 4/iPod Touch 4/iPad/Nano 6g are still unsupported in this release. However, libgpod now has a mechanism to dynamically load a module named $libdir/libgpod/libhashab.so. This will be useful to easily enable support for these devices if someone comes up with a way to compute the music database checksum.

You can read the full release note here : http://old.nabble.com/libgpod-0.8.2-td32125543.html

=================

Update: User Israr Khan seems to be working on this right now, you can get a quick idea of the status on his twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/isrark

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up vote 1 down vote

Go to http://www.libimobiledevice.org/#Status and scroll down to the table under "Status:"

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Very confusing to say the least, I don't think the video helped matters either. I'm particularly interested in iOS5 support, which as far as syncing music goes I understand support to be zero. – BullfrogBlues Dec 19 '11 at 20:03
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up vote 1 down vote

Apples support of Linux is non-existing. There is not a single version of iOS that supports Ubuntu. Please file a bug with Apple.

Also, Apple frequently uses obfuscation techniques, which are likely to break the music database on iDevices.

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