libgpod

[TeutonJon78]

I don't know how you're syncing to Apple devices, but since it seems that it won't work well going forward (iTunes 10.5+) at the moment, you might want to look into using libgpod if you aren't already.  This way, you can offload all of that work to this library, and they seem to keep it pretty up to date, as most/all Linux music players use it for syncing to Apple devices.

http://gtkpod.org/wiki/Libgpod

Of course, with it being GPL, you'd have to comply with those license requirements if you made any alterations.

[Steven]

thank you for highlighting that - i will definitely check it out when i can get the time likely to be around feb timeframe i guess

[greenday1987]

That's good news

[VX]

Before it's implemented into MusicBee, you could check Amarok 2.5, which is the first version officially declared to work stable on Windows. The standalone Windows installer is 88 MB to download. Amarok makes use of libgpod to communicate with Apple devices. More info about Amarok and libgipod can be found here.

[Steven]

having a look at the documentation for this, unless its out of date then it doesnt really support IOS4 on iPhones and makes no mention of IOS5.
I'll dig a bit deeper but as it stands its not worth the effort to implement this when its not gaining over whats already in MB

[greenday1987]

I don't really understand it. Do iPods have IOS?

[Maleko12]

Well, only the iPod Touch has iOS. The others (iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, iPod Classic) have their own GUI and software. However, a considerate amount of people have an iPod Touch or an iPhone, and unless you have the original iPod touch or iPhone (which only can get to iOS 3), you either have iOS 4 or iOS 5. Also, the latest releases for the supported devices that VX linked in this page only goes to 2008, and we're now in 2012! Not surprising given how Apple constantly makes sure to make their devices as closed-source (AKA source code is not released to the public) as possible. Hopefully that info is REALLY outdated, otherwise the library Steven uses now will have to do.

[greenday1987]

Oh, okay. I have an iPod classic (a new one.) I'm just keeping my eyes peeled RE this thread

[TeutonJon78]

For the iOS devices, there might have be an additional library: libimobiledevice

http://www.libimobiledevice.org/

Just like for Windows, iTunes could talk to iPods, but needed the new mobile device server in place to talk to newer iTouch and iPhones.  I believe it's a similar setup in Linux.

[Maleko12]

This is much more promising. Recent development, works for iOS 4 (and somewhat on iOS 5). Wish it could work with iPod Classic/Shuffle/Nano, but certainly something to look into.

[VX]

The page about libgpod and Amarok, which I've linked above, was last modified on 16 June 2010, at 19:58, so it might be outdated.
The best way to find out whether the latest libgpod library works with iOS 4 and iOS5 is to install the latest stable release of Amarok and check it out. I used to like Amarok as an audio player for Linux, but for Windows no one is better than MusicBee.

http://www.libimobiledevice.org/ - seems promising indeed.

[TeutonJon78]

Well, the problem is that there is two different interfaces.  libgpod works with the older devices and the libimobiledevice takes care of talking to the new iOS devices (or so it seems from my readings).  If you look at how iTunes progressed, it was originally self contained to talk to the iPods.  Then with iOS, they introduced a new service (at least in Windows) for the communication.  These two open source libraries seem to work in the same fashion.

I don't know library Steven is currently using, but as he said, it isn't really supported anymore and doesn't seem to work reliably with new iTunes.