I can't transfer Apple Music to iPod Nano

No, FairPlay is dead as the proverbial doornail. While the generic term digital rights management (DRM) is used frequently there are many, many types of it used. Companies employing it go to great lengths to NOT allow any specific information out and as we all know Apple is a master at keeping things secret.

I have enough technical knowledge to know that your argument about not being able to transfer the play count was specious. That's purely about good software design and trusting the person with the Nano to plug it into iTunes once in a while. And we've done to death the question about whether that will happen.

I also have enough technical knowledge to understand that the CPU overhead in unwrapping different levels of DRM encoding can be wildly different, irrespective of the underlying operating system, so if that's what the nub of the problem is then why didn't you say so in the first place rather than go off at a tangent arguing about royalties?

I have to admit to being a bit confused about "FairPlay has been gone for a decade" because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay says it is currently used for Apple Music downloads (and, yes, I have enough technical knowledge to know that I should treat info from Wikipedia with some scepticism). Reference [4] in that article says that FairPlay Version 2 is used, and I've found discussions about that version dating back to 2008 (see iTunes songs (fairplay version 2) on iPod Touch). So why can my iPod Nano 7th Generation that was released in 2012 not unwrap a DRM scheme that was released 4 years earlier? Clearly my technical knowledge is lacking somewhere.

Yes, apparently it is. Can you explain how my fact about transferring play count is specious? If you manually manage your music there is no transfer of data from the iPod to the computer you sync with. So you are saying for play counts, and contracts with artists, Apple is supposed to tell them that they are trusting people to auto sync and transfer the play count? Or can you not understand that when you manually manage your music it does not transfer that information?

Glad you understanding different levels of CPU performance, kernels, OS and I/O. The CPU for the Nano was designed at least 4 years ago and has not been updated since. It is designed to run the limited Pixo and play music/videos and FM music. It hasn't even been hacked (earlier versions of the Classic were and had forms of Linux on them). And ask Apple and Taylor Swift about why I included royalties.

FairPlay for music is dead and has been dead for a decade. There was an update that was designed for movies but it was also discontinued.

Bottom line, Apple Music is not available for the only remaining non-iOS iPods left, the Shuffle and the Nano. You can write to Apple and ask that it be made available. Perhaps there will be a new line in the future that will have it. But for now neither you nor I have it available. No amount of Google searching will make it available. No amount of posting here will make it so.

Play count transfer speciousness...

Apple managed to develop iTunes to refuse to transfer Apple Music FairPlay 2 DRM protected content to iPods, so clearly iTunes knows it's talking to an iPod that isn't playing by the right rules. So now Apple need to develop new firmware for the iPod that does the play count transfer that Taylor Swift wants, and develop a new version of iTunes that works out that it's talking to the new version of iPod, and all is well with the world - iTunes can transfer the Apple Music to the Nano and the Nano will return the play counts. At least, as long as the user plugs the iPod into iTunes once is a while. And if they don't, the new iPod firmware refuses to play the DRM-protected music.

As for DRM, I still haven't seen anything concrete to say that Apple Music is known to be using a version of FairPlay that's too complex for the Nano to unwrap. Or do you work for Apple?

I have no idea what you are going on about. I doubt you could do what you want with just a firmware update it would probably take a hardware update as well. The other problem with just a firmware update is there is no way to force people to do the firmware update.

No companies release information anymore regarding what sort of security or DRM they are using. But you can bet it is new with the release of Apple Music or it would have been cracked already. I seriously doubt any executive would suggest using a 7 year old DRM for a new service in 2015.

Bottom line: you can't put Apple Music on the iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano, Apple just released "new" iPod Nano's and they don't work with Apple Music so I'm betting it isn't going to happen with the current line of iPods. No matter how many times you post here.

"So now Apple need to develop new firmware for the iPod that does the play count transfer"

I'm sure that Apple have evaluated the costs of making such changes and determined that these outweigh any possible benefits. I'd not be surprised if the agreements between Apple and the media providers for Apple Music are based on a 100% cloud-based solution for DRM and artist remuneration, agreements that would have to be renegotiated to include a technically distinct method.

The other problem with just a firmware update is there is no way to force people to do the firmware update.

This has been mentioned before and is trivial. Apple can make it so that if you want to store Apple Music files on an iPod then you must do a firmware upgrade.

No companies release information anymore regarding what sort of security or DRM they are using.

So we don't really know if the hardware of the Nano/Shuffle/Classic is technically capable of handling the DRM or not...

If you aren't tasked with doing the project and don't have any software/firmware development background it is trivial. If you have to make it work it isn't trivial. You would have to add even more firmware/software to make sure to block it from people who don't update and allow it for those who do. You would also have to add code to prevent putting the Nano into disk mode. And you have to do all of this within the restrictions of a very simple CPU and an extremely simple OS. It will also cost money. The best time to do this would be when you are releasing a new version of the iPod Nano so you could add a new chipset (remember the amount of firmware is limited) and update everything. Then it would work on that model but not previous ones. But Apple did not do that so I think that is a pretty good sign to show that it isn't going to happen.

No, I haven't tried to reverse engineer any of Apple's DRM with Apple Music if that is what you are asking. But it is reasonable to assume that it is quite more complex than anything that was used 5 years ago. As hackers figure out how to break DRM companies have to keep improving it. After awhile it takes more power than older components can handle. If it could be handled Apple would have included the ability in the recently released Nano.

Bottom line: Apple Music doesn't work with the current and past Pixo driven iPods. You can send feedback to Apple and say you want it, you can not use Apple Music, you can switch to a device that uses it or you can keep using your device the same way you did before Apple Music was announced.

If you aren't tasked with doing the project and don't have any software/firmware development background it is trivial.

You said it was impossible to force people to do a firmware upgrade. I said you just make it a requirement for using offline Apple Music. We weren't talking about the process of creating the firmware. Of course that requires a lot of work and is something Apple is unlikely to want to do.

But it is reasonable to assume that it is quite more complex than anything that was used 5 years ago.

No doubt about it. But we really don't know if the old hardware is up to the task or not.

If it could be handled Apple would have included the ability in the recently released Nano.

As you've pointed out yourself, there's a lot more to the firmware upgrade than just including the ability to work with the DRM.

So, in a nutshell, you don't KNOW what DRM Apple Music uses and you don't KNOW that the Nano 7 doesn't have the horsepower to unwrap it, you're just ASSUMING that because the device is 4 years old that it can't possibly work. I disagree with your assumption. I've been a computer programmer for 30 years and it's surprising what you can get old kit to do when you put your mind to it. Heck, it wasn't even OLD kit when I was working on it in the 1980s!

You keep saying that Apple can't force users to upgrade their firmware, but that's exactly was I was "on about" in my previous post. iTunes right now recognises iPods and refuses to transfer Apple Music files to them, so you force the user to upgrade by making iTunes only permit syncing to iPods with the new version on them. I hope I've explained that simply enough, despite my lack of technical knowledge.

The problem seems to be more one of Apple's lack of will to make this happen rather than any lack of capability either in the Nano itself or in Apple's software engineers, so I'll carry on posting my dissatisfaction with Apple's decision on this matter as much as I like. and unless you have any solid facts to back up your assumptions about platform capabilities versus DRM processing requirements, please stop making assumption about my own technical knowledge. I have enough of that to know the difference between theory and measured performance, and at the moment all I can see from you is theory.

To make it a requirement you would have to do major firmware/software changes and block the ability to manually manage music. This would be a major change and actually adds complexity to the upgrade. If it could have been done I'm sure Apple would have done so with the recent release of new colors.

As I said I haven't done that type of research but I am familiar with the hardware and OS on the Nano. I would seriously doubt you could write code for either that would work well with any current DRM. It can't even run the simplest of iOS apps. If it could do so I would think Apple would have included it. But it doesn't work.

If my assumption is wrong then why would Apple have just released "new" models and they don't work with Apple Music? And if it is a lack of Apple's will to do so that is their right.

The chipset is actually over 5 years old and I have explored it including the Pixo OS. Even the previous versions of Pixo for the click wheel iPods ran only rudimentary applications and games, nothing like the simplest AJAX app that could run on the first iPhone. Hacking is so much more accelerated now than in the 80s so it is a constant move/countermove between them and security experts. Computer hardware is far more accelerated than it was in the 80's. Small electronics become obsolete within a couple of years. Go to the iPad Forum and read the discussions about the iPad 1. It isn't that old but it cannot be updated past iOS 5.1.1 and cannot run any newer apps. And it was much more powerful than the iPod Nano.

You can write to Apple and ask them to add some sort of Apple Music to it. But given the recent release of the new iPod Nanos I would not hold my breath.

I don't want my iPod to run iOS apps. That would be silly. I just want it to play music. An iPod that is capable of playing a video with a soundtrack must surely have enough CPU grunt to unwrap modern DRM on just a soundtrack.

So it can only boil down to Apple's lack of will (whether of not driven by a cost/benefit analysis). In which case I think it's pretty poor that their latest, only-just-released iPod Nano cannot play Apple Music tracks. Which, by extension, means it's pretty poor that my N7G can't play Apple Music either, since the only difference is the colour. Do you agree with that, or do you want to continue telling me you assume the hardware isn't up to the job, even through Apple haven't told you so (or anyone else, for that matter)?

http://9to5mac.com/2015/07/17/ipod-nano-shuffle-apple-music-piracy/

By not allowing users to sync their offline songs to the iPod nano and shuffle, Apple can guarantee that users aren’t able to keep a collection of songs on their device after cancelling their Apple Music subscription.

So apparently nothing to do with platform DRM-unwrapping capability...

It doesn't really address that, but if it makes you feel better then I'll go with that: You can't put Apple Music on the iPod Shuffle or Nano.