IPod Access for Windows serial key or number

iPod Q&A - Revised November 22, 2011

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The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the use of an IOS devices with Arch Linux.

Installation

Install the libimobiledevice libraries and optionally ifuse^AUR the mounting utility

Connecting to a device

Usbmux daemon

is required to make connections to iOS devices all. systemd comes with udev rule to automatically start and stop this daemon so no user interaction is required.

Insert the iOS device and verify that automatically started.

Pairing

In order to be allowed to connect to iOS device it must be paired with computer.

If you have multiple iOS devices connected parameter can be passed to target specific device.

Application integration

Applications which use GVFS, such as some file managers (GNOME Files, Thunar) or media players (Rhythmbox) can interact with iOS devices after installing the gvfs-afc and gvfs-gphoto2 packages. Restarting the file manager or application might be needed.

Manual mounting

Install the ifuse^AUR package.

Mounting the media directory

The simplest way to mount your iPhone's filesystem to your mount folder, is using the following:

If you do not use the allow_other option, you will not be able to access the mountpoint folder, even if you attempt to sudo into it.

Application documents are not included in the iPhone's media directory and are mounted separately.

Mounting application documents

To list all available applications (and their APPIDs), run the following:

For example, if VLC is installed on device, you can mount VLC's files:

is the APPID listed in the output of the previous command.

The mountpoint field is where you want to have it mounted.

Changing iPod mountpoint

Traditional iPods are accessed just like a normal USB storage device containing a vfat file system (in rare cases hfsplus), and can be accessed as such. See the USB storage devices article for detailed instructions.

If udisks2 is installed, it will mount an attached iPod to .

If the volume label of the iPod is long, or contains a mixture of spaces, and/or lower-case and capital letters, it may present an inconvenience. You may easily change the volume label for more expedient access using from the dosfstools package:

• Get and confirm the current volume label:

• Set the new volume label:

where is the current device node of your iPod.

Importing videos and pictures

Both videos and photos can be found in typically in .

HTML5 videos

Typically you want to convert MOV files to a HTML5 video format like OGV using ffmpeg2theora. Note that the creation date metadata is not in the converted video, so you need to use a script like:

And use or in order to preserve the file's date & time.

Importing pictures and deleting them

You can move photos and videos out of , however you need to trigger a rebuild of the "Camera Roll" database by deleting the old databases.

Converting video for devices

Handbrake

Handbrake is a nifty tool with presets for a variety of iPod versions. CLI and GTK versions are available with the handbrake-cli and handbrake packages respectively.

If you do decide to take the CLI way, a good guide is available at http://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide^{[dead link 2020-03-29 ⓘ]}.

Avidemux

Install the avidemux-qt package.

This can convert to mp4 files. If you enforce a hard max of bit rate @ 700ish and keep the video size to 720x480 or 320x240 than it works fine for video file exporting.

Mencoder

Install the mplayer package.

Has extremely comprehensive configuration support, which will be able to spit out iPod-compatible video files. Check out mencoder(1); a lot of MPlayer opts will also affect encoding.

A basic guide is also available at MEncoder.

An example command to encode iPhone/iPod Touch-compatible video:

FFmpeg

Install the ffmpeg package.

Another encoder with comprehensive configuration support. Example command to encode for 5G iPod:

or iPod Touch/iPhone compatible video output:

Device specific

iPhone/iPod Touch

By default, neither the iPhone nor the iPod Touch present mass storage capability over USB, though there is a solution for accessing your files.

The proposed solution is to use a FUSE file system called ifuse^AUR, which allows you to mount your device through USB, as you normally would. After installing ifuse, for instance, you should see your iPhone appear in the left navigation of Gnome Files and other supporting file managers.

Refer to this page:[1]

The iFuse Way

Install the ifuse^AUR package.

Now make sure that you have the fuse module loaded by doing , assuming that you do not have it in already.

You can now mount your device. Make sure it is unlocked before you plug it in, or it will not be recognized.

The mountpoint field is where you want to have it mounted.

And you are done! You should be able to point your syncing software of choice to the mount point and be able to transfer files.

To unmount your device:

Members of group can mount devices as regular user:

To unmount:

Generating HashInfo file

If you have never synced your device using iTunes, you will get error messages telling you that the HashInfo file is missing. This can be fixed by syncing once with iTunes in order to create it. Alternatively one can create this file using the site http://ihash.marcansoft.com/. Enter the serial number of the iPod on the website. It will generate a file named which you will place under the directory. Unplug the iPod device and plug it back.

Unobfuscating the Database

Since firmware version 2.0, Apple has obfuscated the music database. If you are using recent firmware, the file can be modified to enable use of the older, non-obfuscated database. If that file does not exist then try to copy from to then replace:

with:

Then reboot your device.

If syncing fails with "ERROR: Unsupported checksum type '0' in cbk file generation!", you may need to leave this at 4. libgpod seems to expect a hashed database.

iPod Classic/Nano (3rd generation)

You need to set up the iPod to make libgpod able to find its Firewire ID. For this, you will need to get your FireWire ID manually

1) Mount the iPod as a rw mount point. In the following example, use .

2 ) Find the serial number by typing

this should print a 16 character long string like 00A1234567891231 (it will have no colons or hyphens)

3) Once you have that number, create or edit . Add to that file the line below:

(replace ffffffffffffffff with the 16 digit string you obtained at the previous step and do not forget the leading 0x before the string)

Your iPod can now be managed with Amarok or gtkpod.

iPod Nano 5th generation

Follow the instructions above #Generating HashInfo file in order to set up the hash file, it is needed to write into the device music library. To be able to use the iPod Nano with libgpod, a file is also needed to be placed in the directory . It can be generated using:

for example:

iPod Nano 6th generation

By default libgpod does not seem to be able to syncronize on a iPod Nano 6th generation. It copies data, but as soon as USB is disconnected, everything is as before. The package libhashab-git^AUR fix this.

iPod Shuffle 1st and 2nd generation

Due to the simple structure of the Shuffle (compared to the "big" iPods), it is possible to use the player almost like any other USB flash MP3 player. What is necessary is rebuild_db.py file stored in the iPod's root directory. Simply copy MP3 files onto the iPod Shuffle (sub-folders are allowed too) and run:

Source

iPod Shuffle 4th generation

In order to use this version of the iPod Shuffle under linux, you can use the python based command line tool ipod-shuffle-4g^AUR. It also provides advanced voiceover and (auto)playlist generation support.

iPod management apps

These tools use the libgpod library:

• Strawberry — Fork of Clementine aimed at audio enthusiasts and music collectors.

https://www.strawberrymusicplayer.org/ || strawberry

• Rhythmbox — GTK clone of iTunes, used by default in GNOME.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Rhythmbox || rhythmbox

http://banshee.fm/ || banshee^AUR

• gtkpod — GUI for Apple's iPod using GTK. It allows you to import your existing iTunes database, add songs, podcasts, videos and cover art, and to edit ID3 tags.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/gtkpod/ || gtkpod^AUR

• Amarok — Mature Qt-based player known for its plethora of features.

https://amarok.kde.org/ || amarok^AUR

• Yamipod — Lightweight application for managing ONLY music on your iPod (not on your computer)

http://www.yamipod.com ||

These tools use their own implementation to communicate with the iPod:

• Floola — GTK interface

http://www.floola.com ||

• GNUpod — Command line only, collection of tools written in Perl.

https://www.gnu.org/software/gnupod/ || gnupod-git^AUR

• qpod — KDE/qt front end for GNUpod

https://qpod.sourceforge.net ||

• jakpod — JakPod is based on Java and allows to copy music and video files to your iPod

http://www.jakpod.de/ ||

See also

With a few mouse clicks and keystrokes, you can uncover the unseen files and locate your music. By enabling the disk mode on the iPod (see previous page), you can then search for the holy grail: a folder called ipod_control. The ipod_control folder is hidden when you open up the iPod as an external drive.

­Here's how to find it if you use Windows:

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Toggling back to the contents of the iPod disk drive, you should see the ipod_control folder. Open that, and behold the Music folder: it contains multiple folders with clusters of song files. The songs' filenames probably won't be recognizable. That's because they're derived from ID3 tags. Those mP3 tags embed information such as title, artist, last time skipped and other data -- not the original filename. Internally storing music files with ID3 tags allows iTunes to catalogue and cross-reference music more easily [source: Hollington]. On the flip side, the ID3 tags make it harder to retrieve specific songs or albums.

Accessing ipod_control in a Mac takes a little more work. Once you open the iPod icon on the desktop or from Finder, here's what to do on a Mac:

[source: Buskirk]

The ipod_control folder should then appear in the iPod disk contents. Once you've located ipod_control, create a folder on the Desktop to copy the Music folder contents. Then, import the music into iTunes using the Add Folder option.

Once you find and transfer your music, don't forget to disable the file-showing operation. On Windows, retrace your steps and deselect "Show hidden files and folders." For Macs, type FALSE instead of TRUE in the Terminal application.

To save yourself time and panic of losing your library, it's always a good idea to back up your music. Apple has made that a bit easier with iTunes 8. It includes a feature that allows you to up your entire library on CD. Then, all you have to do is remember where tucked away that disk.