The Secret Is Out
Shortly after Apple released its latest version of iTunes, version 4.5, someone has found a way to circumvent it. In the same vain, people are starting to write tools for you to take advantage of the new features within iTunes 4.5, keeping the open-source option alive. Below is an excerpt of the step-by-step instructions to make it work on a GNU/Linux platform. I’m sure that more such ideas will be coming out the woodworks really soon.
Enjoy, and read the complete details here.
Be aware that you do this on your own risk. If the steps below
set your cat on fire and melt your iPod, you are the one to blame!
- Go to http://www.apple.com/ipod/download and download the Windows updater application (setup.exe).
- Go to any Windows XP or Windows 2000 box and install the application (I know this sucks, blame Apple not me
- If you can connect your iPod to this box, run the updater and be happy.
- If you only have a firewire card in your Linux box, copy the updater.exe file from the target installation path (default is c:\Program Files\iPod\…) to your Linux box.
- Open the updater.exe file in a hex editor, e.g. khexedit
- Search for Copyright
- Delete everything before these lines:
0000:0000 7b 7b 7e 7e 20 20 2f 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 5c 20 20 20 {{~~ /—–\ 0000:0010 7b 7b 7e 7e 20 2f 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 5c 20 20 {{~~ / \ 0000:0020 7b 7b 7e 7e 7c 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 7c 20 {{~~| | 0000:0030 7b 7b 7e 7e 7c 20 53 20 54 20 4f 20 50 20 7c 20 {{~~| S T O P | 0000:0040 7b 7b 7e 7e 7c 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 7c 20 {{~~| | 0000:0050 7b 7b 7e 7e 20 5c 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 2f 20 20 {{~~ \ / 0000:0060 7b 7b 7e 7e 20 20 5c 2d 2d 2d 2d 2d 2f 20 20 20 {{~~ \—–/ 0000:0070 43 6f 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 28 43 29 20 32 30 30 Copyright(C) 200
- Save the file under a new name, e.g. firmware_new.bin
- Connect your iPod to the Linux box and backup your old
firmware (just in case so if anything goes horribly wrong you can use
this file to restore your iPod):# dd if=/dev/sda1 of=firmware_backup.bin
- Upload your new firmware:
# dd if=firmware_new.bin of=/dev/sda1
- Disconnect your iPod
- When the Plug-in image appears on the display, plug the iPod
back in (you need a powered firewire cable or the AC outlet for this
step!)- Wait for the iPod the extract the new firmware (watch the progress bar)
done…
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