Linux iPhone sync draws near

posted Oct 29th 2009 11:00am by Mike Szczys
filed under: iphone hacks, linux hacks

linux-iphone-sync-support

[Emuboy] lets us know about some software advances that will make iPhone and iPod Touch syncing possible under Linux. Apple made big changes to how the iPhone syncs compared to legacy iPods. Locking out all communications other than through iTunes was surely part of their motivation. This has left Linux users out in the cold with shoddy sync capabilities which should be coming to an end. If successful, syncing will be be possible with phones that have not been jailbroken.

One of the biggest hurdles in reverse-engineering the new protocol is the non-standard way in which the devices communicate over USB. The usbmuxd developers have been working to implement communications and now have a Release Candidate for the 1.0.0 version. Along with testing of this package, libgpod is now being updated to play nicely with the new database format and hash of the iPhone.

This isn’t quite at the plug-and-play level of convenience yet but if you’re comfortable working with Linux packages you should be able to get this working and help report any bugs you might find. But if you’re tired of open source playing cat and mouse with Apple you can always switch over to a device based on Android.

Comments [9]

tagged: iphone, ipod touch, libgpod, linux, sync, usbmuxd

Reader Comments

Apple, once again graying the line between proprietary and anti-competitive practices.

Posted at 11:15 am on Oct 29th, 2009 by Skitchin

Why make it easy for the iPhone to communicate with anything other than OSX? We ARE talking about Apple here. We all know Apple doesn’t “play nice” with others in any sense of the term.

Posted at 10:49 pm on Oct 29th, 2009 by Heatgap/Ho0d0o

just avoid Apple, problem solved. Other companies learned lesson

Posted at 1:01 am on Oct 30th, 2009 by therian

People obviously want to keep using iPhones, otherwise they wouldn’t be working so hard on this.

I don’t get it, but apparently the iPhone’s just so much better then all the competition… /sarc

Posted at 7:15 am on Oct 30th, 2009 by the Madman

Why are people excited about a ton of wasted effort to implement what Apple should have done? A real solution is to grab something like the DS or a phone running Linux and run a real media player that supports direct file loading and more formats. Can’t sync? No problem, any computer with a card reader and the ability to read FAT32 can play nice with these non-crippled devices.

Posted at 10:14 am on Oct 30th, 2009 by Shaun Taylor

Yeah. Imma’ going to get a Zune … It’ll work with OSX, right?

Posted at 3:27 pm on Oct 30th, 2009 by Bort

Some of us *like* reverse engineering proprietary devices. It’s a challenge. By the way, I’m not sure where the heck the DS came in Shaun’s comment. The DS is even worse than the iPhone: it’s a much inferior platform and you need custom *hardware* to use it for homebrew. At least on iPhones you can jailbreak via USB.

Sure, open devices are nice and desirable and you should spend your money on them, but Apple’s stuff is hugely popular, generally *good*, and worth supporting if possible.

Posted at 3:34 pm on Oct 30th, 2009 by Hector Martin

why woudnt a zune work with osx?

Posted at 10:28 pm on Nov 1st, 2009 by moo

Apple; I love them and hate them.

Posted at 2:36 pm on Nov 4th, 2009 by xDATx

Linux iPhone sync draws near

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