# MP3 Players and My New eMac. I. just.Don't. Get. It **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 1, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167 "2005-04-01T02:39:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/1 "2005-04-01T02:39:47Z")
For some reason, there are certain things that I just don’t get. Mp3 players for one. Macs for another. Long story short, I just got a new eMac, and kinda like it. My daughter LOVES i-tunes nd has put together quite a library. The problem is, how do we get them from the Mac onto her mp3 player (Creative NOMAD II)? Jamoke that I am, I was under the impression that I could simply plug the player into the USB port, and drag the music files from the computer to the player. Problem is, when I do so, the player is nowhere to be found. Huh. I tried connecting it to our older iMac. No joy. I plugged it into my laptop. Whammo scallamo, there it is. So, what the haitch-E-double-hockey-sticks is going on here? Am I naive in thinking that this (mp3 player) is basically an external drive and should be seen by the Mac? Is there some widget or setting that I’m not aware of in OS X? Is there anyway to move files from a mac to a non-i-pod mp3 player? Am I too stupid to live? Please help…my daughter’s happiness depends on it… ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/2 "2005-04-01T02:43:42Z")
Itunes is only directly compatible with an iPod. Also, iPods are about the only mp3 players compatible with Mac computers. To get the music from iTMS on an Apple to Creative MP3 player (and I’m guessing the laptop that it showed up on “whammo scallamo” is a PC, not a mac), burn a CD of the music, then rip it to MP3s on the laptop, transfer them over to the MP3 player from there. An inconvenient workaround? Yup. Price of non-compatibility between the Creative MP3 player and the Apple computer/music store. ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/3 "2005-04-01T02:45:33Z")
I forgot to add the positive spin: If she was ever planning on having a hard copy of the music on a CD anyway, it’s done and done with the workaround. Just keep the discs around, since iTMS will only let you burn a given playlist (songs in a specific order) a given number of times (I think 10, but I don’t use iTMS). ---
**Author:** ![Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@Only\_Mostly\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Only_Mostly_Dead)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/4 "2005-04-01T02:48:51Z")
Oh, and a mod might come in and yell at me for giving you a potentially illegal way to do things. I argue “nay!” to that. iTMS customer support would tell you the same thing. This is the way you need to get iTMS songs onto an MP3 player that’s not an iPod. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/5 "2005-04-01T02:49:11Z")
Thanks, **OMD** , looks like theres an ipod in someone’s future. Simply because the Nomad software is so freaking painful to use. In the meantime, I’ll use your wor-around. ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/6 "2005-04-01T03:35:18Z")
According to Apple, the Nomad II is compatible with iTunes ([http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93548](http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93548)). Did you try that? ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/7 "2005-04-01T05:08:49Z")
My guess is that if the files were purchased through the iTunes Music Store, they will have the DRM attached to the files and can not be copied to a non-iPod player. If they are standard MP3 files, then it should work fine. I could be wrong though, maybe Apple will allow you to copy to a non-iPod? Anyway, if the player IS compatible with iTunes, as Cleophus pointed out, then it should show up in iTunes, on the left-hand column (where the Library icon is et al.) Then you should be able to drag the music from the list within iTunes onto the Nomad icon. That’s how it works with iPods, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/8 "2005-04-01T09:46:17Z")
- - - If I was using iTunes, I would look for a crack to convert the DRM protected files into regular unprotected MP3’s, ASAP. It might be in violation of the EULA but so what. If in the future Apple wishes to place any further restrictions on the songs from iTunes, the DRM is how they wil identify the files. I remember the Divx player fiasco, do you? ~ ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/9 "2005-04-01T09:50:59Z")
It’s wrong to say that iPods are “about the only MP3 players that work with Macs”. My Archos Multimedia is a 20GB hard-drive MP3 player and that mounted on my old iMac desktop as an external drive with no problems – once I had reformatted the HD to Mac format, of course. Trouble is, once I’d reformatted the HD, it wasn’t recognised on a PC, so when I ditched the Mac and got a PC I had to reformat and retransfer all my music. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/10 "2005-04-01T14:03:44Z")
My Sony Clie (a Palm OS PDA which has an MP3 player) even works perfectly with iTunes. And Clies aren’t supposed to work with Macs, period. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/11 "2005-04-01T17:30:04Z")
> [@DougC](#): > > If I was using iTunes, I would look for a crack to convert the DRM protected files into regular unprotected MP3’s, ASAP. This has got to be Misconception #1 with iTunes. _ **There’s no crack!** _ The \*\*official, Apple-sanctioned \*\* way to do this is burn your purchased AAC files to an audio CD, then use iTunes to rip it back in as MP3. It’s not so much a DRM issue as a format issue. AAC is Apple’s proprietary format. It’s (AFAIK) not been licensed out to anybody else, so the only way to play AAC files is by using an iPod or iTunes. Or, do the burn/rip routine. ---
**Author:** ![Cleophus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a88e57/32.png) [@Cleophus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cleophus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/12 "2005-04-01T18:38:13Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > This has got to be Misconception #1 with iTunes. _ **There’s no crack!** _ The \*\*official, Apple-sanctioned \*\* way to do this is burn your purchased AAC files to an audio CD, then use iTunes to rip it back in as MP3. > > It’s not so much a DRM issue as a format issue. AAC is Apple’s proprietary format. It’s (AFAIK) not been licensed out to anybody else, so the only way to play AAC files is by using an iPod or iTunes. Or, do the burn/rip routine. This is entirely incorrect. AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) is MPEG-4 audio. It is not Apple-proprietary at all ([http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/](http://www.apple.com/mpeg4/aac/), [http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/standard.html](http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4aac/standard.html)). _Any_ application or player that supports MPEG-4 audio can play AAC files, provided they are not DRM protected. The Nomad II, however, is not one of those players. Second, the DRM can be cracked ([hymn-project.org](http://hymn-project.org)). Needless to say, doing so violates the store’s terms of service as well as the DMCA in the US and I suspect re-ripping protected files with a CD does the same. Can you offer a cite otherwise? ---
**Author:** ![galt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@galt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galt)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/13 "2005-04-01T21:21:23Z")
Has anyone come up with a “virtual CD burner” that appears to iTunes as a CD-R drive, letting you burn CDs to .ISO files which you can then rip back to mp3s without wasting a CD blank? Seems like the way to go. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/14 "2005-04-01T21:47:52Z")
Thanks to all…She’s not purchasing files, but ripping mp3 files from her CDs…I will try looking for the player when I get home. Thanks again to all… ---
**Author:** ![FyreFiend](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/919ad9/32.png) [@FyreFiend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FyreFiend)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/15 "2005-04-01T23:32:37Z")
I used to have a Nomad II that I used with my iBook. It won’t show up on the desktop but iTunes will see it and let you copy over any mp3s you have. **Colophon** , Mac OS from the 7.5 days up until today should be able to mount your Archos without a problem as long as it’s formatted as Fat16/32 and not NTFS. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/16 "2005-04-02T01:14:46Z")
I always thought it odd that MP3s. those things that were so reviled with their availability through Napster, are now actively supported by many high profile companies. So they invent the portable MP3 player to take advantage of the MP3s portability and compatability. And how do they do this? By putting a thousand and one awkward restrictions on it at every step, making life hell for people who aren’t technically minded. Hey there important folks, here’s an idea - stop fighting against the system and go with it. If you make things simple and easy and fully compatible, there will be less abuse. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/17 "2005-04-02T01:18:52Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > I always thought it odd that MP3s. those things that were so reviled with their availability through Napster, are now actively supported by many high profile companies. So they invent the portable MP3 player to take advantage of the MP3s portability and compatability. > > And how do they do this? By putting a thousand and one awkward restrictions on it at every step, making life hell for people who aren’t technically minded. > > Hey there important folks, here’s an idea - stop fighting against the system and go with it. If you make things simple and easy and fully compatible, there will be less abuse. Isn’t that why Apple made the iTunes Music Store? ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2005, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/18 "2005-04-02T01:38:56Z")
> [@FyreFiend](#): > > I used to have a Nomad II that I used with my iBook. It won’t show up on the desktop but iTunes will see it and let you copy over any mp3s you have. > > **Colophon** , Mac OS from the 7.5 days up until today should be able to mount your Archos without a problem as long as it’s formatted as Fat16/32 and not NTFS. Ding Ding Ding!!! 10 points awarded to **FyreFiend**. As stated, the nomad II _does_ show up in the itues screen. It’s my own stupid fault for listening to a 15-year old who swore that it wasn’t her player, but a playlist. What tipped me off was the fact that the player icon would disappear if I unplugged it. The source of my confusion was that, after dragging files over to the player, and seeig them listed on i-tunes, the player itself was reporting that it had no music files. I think the problem is that by default, itunes rips CDs to “AAC” format, which the Nomad doesn’t recognize. I have changed the default setting to import songs as MP3s, and have the feeling that this should fix everything. Color me chagrined. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/19 "2005-04-07T03:57:53Z")
> [@Cleophus](#): > > …violates the store’s terms of service as well as the DMCA in the US and I suspect re-ripping protected files with a CD does the same. Can you offer a cite otherwise? Sure can: [http://www.apple.com/itunes/burn.html](http://www.apple.com/itunes/burn.html) From that page: > [@](#): > > Unlike some applications that limit the number of CDs you can burn, iTunes lets you burn as many custom CDs as you like. > … > > You can burn songs from the iTunes Music Store an unlimited number of times. > … > > iTunes also lets you make MP3 CDs Too bad everything else out there isn’t so clear, but Apple makes it pretty clear that you are free to use the iTunes software to convert their AAC files to MP3. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2005, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167/20 "2005-04-08T02:26:43Z")
> [@galt](#): > > Has anyone come up with a “virtual CD burner” that appears to iTunes as a CD-R drive, letting you burn CDs to .ISO files which you can then rip back to mp3s without wasting a CD blank? Seems like the way to go. CDRW. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mp3-players-and-my-new-emac-i-just-dont-get-it/297167.md?page=2)