Apple IPOD authentification chip sucks!

[96tahoe]

As you may know, the latest generation of Ipods don't play well with 3rd party accesories. More specifically, apple has made it so any device that connects to the 30 pin connector have an authentification chip inside it. Alot of people who want to use the TV out feature will be disappointed when they have to buy apples $50+ av cable. I am really disappointed because my headunit in my truck that can control older ipods won't work with my ew 3rd generation Nano. I've heard that maybe the chips are fake and nothing more than resistors and depending on what resistance the ipod see's it will either enable its output or not. I don't know if this is true. Any input on how to bypass this chip?

[gain]

GM used to do something similar back in the 90s with their ignition keys ... there was a little resistor pellet in the key that made contact with two brushes inside the lock cylinder when you inserted the key. only if the resistance was the correct one would the car start. made it impossible for the owner to duplicate his key, while providing little if any protection from a competent car thief.

i would beg, borrow or steal one of those apple interface cables you mention and reverse engineer it to figure out how it communicates with the ipod. then, build a circuit to interface the nano to your truck's radio.

try google. there are lots of sources of info on the net for doing ipod hacks ... perhaps someone has already figured it out.

[gain]

hey did some research on apple.

found out that in the '80s they tried to monopolize software by making sure the only software you could get that would work correctly on their mac's was stuff written and 'certified' by apple.

now, riding the wave of the success of their ipod, they are in bed with the RIAA in efforts to make even more money. their i-tunes site charges $0.99 for a single song. not an album, mind you, but a single song! one song costs $0.99 !!! yes, in the age of the internet these people are trying to get $0.99 for ONE SONG! this is when you download it, produce it and manufacture it yourself. all apple has to do is host the file, and they will charge you $0.99 per download for the privilege of doing so. even if you have already paid and downloaded it before! they will charge you the $0.99 all over again. do you think it cost them anywhere near $0.99 per user per download in overhead to host that file? not even close. i host over 15TB of mp3's on my web server, and it costs me about $4.95 per month. CD's cost little over $0.03 to produce, in quantity, and these are entire albums. where does these scam artists get off charging $0.99 for a single song when they don't even give you the physical media?!?!

might as well charge $1000 for a gallon of dirty water. imo, stay as far away as you can from apple. do not buy their products. tell your friends and family not to buy their products. they are crooks. they do not have the consumer's best interest in mind. all this company seems to care about is profits.

[kevinkr]

Originally posted by gain
hey did some research on apple.

found out that in the '80s they tried to monopolize software by making sure the only software you could get that would work correctly on their mac's was stuff written and 'certified' by apple.

now, riding the wave of the success of their ipod, they are in bed with the RIAA in efforts to make even more money. their i-tunes site charges $0.99 for a single song. not an album, mind you, but a single song! one song costs $0.99 !!! yes, in the age of the internet these people are trying to get $0.99 for ONE SONG! this is when you download it, produce it and manufacture it yourself. all apple has to do is host the file, and they will charge you $0.99 per download for the privilege of doing so. even if you have already paid and downloaded it before! they will charge you the $0.99 all over again. do you think it cost them anywhere near $0.99 per user per download in overhead to host that file? not even close. i host over 15TB of mp3's on my web server, and it costs me about $4.95 per month. CD's cost little over $0.03 to produce, in quantity, and these are entire albums. where does these scam artists get off charging $0.99 for a single song when they don't even give you the physical media?!?!

might as well charge $1000 for a gallon of dirty water. imo, stay as far away as you can from apple. do not buy their products. tell your friends and family not to buy their products. they are crooks. they do not have the consumer's best interest in mind. all this company seems to care about is profits.

gain:
Sorry, how is any of this news at this point? Why shouldn't Apple make a profit? Steve Jobs isn't exactly the only person over there getting rich off of their success, not to mention all of the semiconductor vendors, manufacturing facilities, flash, lcd and HD manufacturers?? I've had several iPods, and iTunes has been around for a long time running on this business model. Most of the money charged by Apple for Itunes downloads goes right back to the record companies and (some to - not enough IMO) the artists who produced the music in the first place. CDs of new material around here actually retail for as much as $18 if you walk into the typical record store. Apple makes most of their money on hardware. My main beef with iTunes has to do with DRM and the lousy sound quality of AAC at 128K.. (Nothing I like so far without DRM at 256K)

Apple itself is noted for its secrecy, the bugs in the classic firmware (battery discharge problem etc.) were well documented and they remained silent to the chagrin of many, myself included. They could do a better job in many respects, but few if any electronics companies these days even do as well.

I'm not sure what to make of your comment wrt 15TB of mp3 files via a webhost. I assume these are not available for download, and you must have literally millions of songs hosted.. FWIW I don't like RIAA any more than you do.

96tahoe:
FWIW I agree that the new iPods are a PITA with existing Ipod capable car stereos. I have a Classic 160GB and an Alpine CDA-9985 I bought last year. They didn't play too well together initially and I filed several bug reports over the next several months and Apple ACTUALLY fixed them all. It now works just fine. Try filing a bug report with Apple, they might just eventually get around to addressing your issues, provided that your player was originally approved by Apple for use with the iPod. Have you updated the Nano's firmware lately or ever? There have been quite a few updates since the release last year.