QNX Technical Articles

Date of this edition: May 13, 2010

Target OS: This software is compatible with target systems running QNX^® Neutrino^® 6.4.0, 6.4.1, or 6.5.0.

Host OS: You must have already installed the QNX^® Software Development Platform 6.4.0, 6.4.1, or 6.5.0 as a self-hosted QNX Neutrino system, or on one of the following hosts:

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For information on installing this package, see the Installation Note.

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A client application compiled against QNX Aviage Multimedia Suite (MME) 1.0.n must be recompiled in order to work with QNX Aviage Multimedia Suite (MME) 1.2.0. You must update all system components to QNX Aviage Multimedia Suite 1.2.0. Your environment must not contain multimedia components from both 1.2.n and earlier releases.

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Contents

• What's new in this release
• Known issues
• Documentation
• Technical support

Throughout this document, you may see reference numbers associated with particular issues, changes, etc. When corresponding with our Technical Support staff about a given issue, please quote the relevant reference number. You might also find the reference numbers useful for tracking issues as they become fixed.

What's new in this release

iofs-ser-ipod.so

• The default baud rate is now 57600; we no longer support third-generation iPods.
• We've removed the nopoll and noreadloop options, and added poll and readloop options, to reflect the module's new default behavior.

iofs-ipod.so

• The iPod driver now supports the Identify Device Preferences and Settings (IDPS) handshake, which is a key capability required by Apple for device manufacturers who wish to achieve “Made for iPod” certification.

  We've used Apple's ATS tool to test the driver to ensure that it meets the test requirements set out in the Made for iPod Self-Certification spec. (v. R31). Although device manufacturers are still responsible for certifying their devices with Apple, the driver in this release meets the technical requirements set out in the above specification.

• This driver now requires a configuration file. By default, it looks for /etc/ipod.cfg, but you can specify a different location on the command line when you launch the driver. For example:

  io-fs-media -dipod,config=/path/to/config/file
    

  We ship a sample configuration file as $QNX_TARGET/etc/ipod.cfg. For more information about the configuration file, see the entry for iofs-ipod.so in Working with iPods.

• This driver now supports the Extended Accessory Framework (EAF), which allows for communication with iPhone OS 3.0 applications. For more information, see “Communicating with applications running on an iPhone” in the Connecting to and Using iPods chapter of the Working with iPods guide.

Known issues

• The iPod driver may fault when you synchronize an iPod Classic with a very large memory store of files (80 GB or more) and a sync time of 1 hour or more. We generally recommend that you not synchronize iPods with the MME (see “Synchronizing iPods,” below). (Ref# 72073)

Synchronizing iPods

Synchronizing media stores with the MME is supported, however, we don't recommend synchronizing iPod devices. There are a number of reasons for this:

• iPod synchronization is a time-consuming process.
• Storage capacity of iPods continues to get bigger (160 Gigs now), and can easily fill your database, taking up a lot of memory.
• The iPod already has its own internal database, and there's no need to make a copy of it.

You should use the Explore interface instead to navigate the content of an iPod. The benefits include:

• low overhead, making for fast response
• low memory requirements
• you can enter a folder with thousands of songs and display only the songs that fit on the screen (e.g the first 10 songs). If you press the end button, you can immediately jump to the last 10 songs in the folder. If you synchronize, it takes much more time to get to the end of the folder.

Essentially the Explorer interface is very reactive and fast, fetching only small amounts of data from the iPod at a time (which makes it responsive). It doesn't grow your database, whereas synching a single iPod can fill all allocated database space.

Documentation

The documentation for this release includes:

• Installation Note — please read it before starting your installation.
• Release Notes — please read them before starting your installation.
• Working with iPods

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  The Working with iPods guide replaces the information about iPods included in the documentation for earlier releases of the MME.

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Technical support

If you have any questions, comments, or problems with a QNX product, please contact Technical Support. For more information, see the How to Get Help chapter of the Welcome to the QNX Software Development Platform guide or visit our website, www.qnx.com.