There’s No Step 218!
Since becoming a Mac user, I’ve become accustomed to things just working. Back when I used Windows, Linux, and FreeBSD as my desktop machines I was used to researching for long hours before buying anything just to make sure that it was possible to use with my particular OS of choice. When I got the new toy home, I knew that it would be at least half a day before I could actually play with it since I would inevitably have to grab some updated driver, compile something, fix the Registry, or something equally ridiculous. Every device that I have plugged into the Mac has just worked. Printers magically install themselves and set themselves up for network sharing just by plugging in a USB cable and checking a box in the appropiately named Sharing area of System Preferences. New peripherals just spring to live without any secret incantations to the driver gods.
What happens when the damn thing doesn’t just work?
I got my iPod yesterday when I got home from work. They delivered it five days earlier than Apple originally predicted and two days earlier than FedEx themselves predicted. Considering that this little machine came from China, I was suitably impressed. When I got home, I put dinner on to cook and then plugged my new iPod in and expected it to work. It started downloading the music immediately but gave me a warning that my iPod software wasn’t up-to-date enough to play all of my music. This seemed reasonable to me. I remembered an iPod update from January that I obviously had to install.
I opened the iPod Updater application, and it showed me a picture of the wrong iPod and demanded that I plug my iPod in via Firewire if I wanted to restore it. The kink in this plan is that my iPod doesn’t do firewire. A bit of digging revealed that I had been bitten by this bug. Apple’s solution for my dilemma as a 10.4 user? Install the latest OS updates—which I had—or if you’re already running the most current version, reinstall OS X using the Archive and Install option. Now call me crazy, but I think that reinstalling the OS to make a digital music player work is a bit extreme. I tinkered with the damn thing nearly all night. I reinstalled the latest OS updates. I used Pacifist to reinstall portions of the OS and iTunes. Nothing effing worked. In a last ditch attempt to try something before biting the bullet and reinstalling OS X, I decided to install the OS X 10.4.5 combined update—even though I had theoretically reinstalled all of the pieces in comprised—and after that, my iPod started syncing with no further issues.
Let me stress that the issue was clearly with my Powerbook and not with my new iPod. The new iPod worked just fine with Allyson’s Mac Mini. I checked. Twice.
The new iPod is magnificent though and certainly worth all the trouble. I watched one of my French videos on it, and the picture quality was surprising to me. The screen is large enough that my eyes didn’t feel strained at all. The color screen is beautiful and brightly lit. The size and weight is very pleasing. The difference in controls will take some getting used to coming from my third-generation iPod, but I already think that I like them much better.
Technorati Tags: Bugs, OS X, iPod, iPod Updater