A few days ago, I wrote about iPhonebrowser which enables Windows users to retrieve music from their iPod Touch or iPhone since neither have a "disk use" mode like other iPods.  However, if you are using Windows Vista 64-bit, you are out of luck with this software.

Most other software designed to pull music off an iPod relies on the "disk use" mode and will not be compatible with the iPhone or iPod Touch.  Examples of these include Ephpod and Xplay 3 which are great if you have any other iPod.

iPhone and iPod Touch users definitely get the short end of the stick here, thanks to Apple.  Maybe the company just doesn’t want those devices to have a "disk use" mode to help curb piracy or something; your guess would be as good as mine.

One reader pointed out that the company might have done so to extend the life of the memory cells in the iPhone, iPod Touch, plausible but I have my doubts about that.  Most flash memory devices divide up the number of read/write cycles per cell evenly so no one cell gets more use than the other.  Some statistic show that your average flash device will last 100,000 hours of constant reading/writing which translates to about 10 years of constant use.

And since the other flash based iPods have a "disk use" mode, that theory doesn’t make much sense so it’s still up in the air.

Now it’s come down to iPhonebrowser which is great if you are using 32-bit Windows but it absolutely will not run on Windows Vista 64-bit and I’ve yet to find software that will retrieve music off an iPhone or iPod Touch in that environment.

Yes, I am saying you are out of luck unless you can bum a few minutes off a friend’s computer that happens to have either 32-bit Windows XP or Vista.

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Entry was posted on Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 7:07 am under Free Apps, iPhone, iPod Touch.  Print This Post

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