I can't transfer Apple Music to iPod Nano

As I noted before, non-iOS iPods have no means to verify the status of media downloaded from Apple Music, so unless there are major firmware revisions (which I would assess as highly unlikely) offline use of Apple Music content will be restricted. The restrictions are not Apple's, these are imposed by the media companies.

They could implement a system where you would have to connect your iPod to iTunes once a week or once a month for it to verify that you still had a valid subscription. That way if you did cancel Apple Music, you wouldn't be able to just keep your offline music indefinitely.

Great idea, but how do you enforce it? Without developing a firmware update for every model of iPod there has ever been and requiring every user to update to it what would force them to connect to iTunes every week or month? How would you even enforce the firmware upgrade? Without those changes - which simply aren't going to happen - there would be nothing to stop someone downloading several hundred albums "for offline use" and transferring them to an iPod classic where they'd be available permanently. Even putting the checks into iTunes code wouldn't work - people would exploit this by just using a USB charger to keep the iPod's battery topped up and never connecting to iTunes.

It would just be a matter of not allowing the offline Apple Music tracks to be copied to an iPod unless the iPod was already upgraded to a new firmware that had Apple Music support in it and it required the periodic connection.

I agree this is unlikely to happen though. The old non-iOS iPods are barely supported anymore and I don't think Apple sees it as a high priority to do any updates to them.

I doubt the firmware in the Nano and others can be updated to work with Apple Music DRM. You still would not be able to enforce connecting it.

They already support the old iTunes DRM, there's no reason they couldn't be updated to handle the new DRM (assuming it's even different).

Enforcing connection would be through software on the iPod. It would stop playing DRM songs after x days without a connection to iTunes.

matt_brady wrote:

They already support the old iTunes DRM...

Actually they don't: they just ignore it. Since (in theory) you can't copy songs back from an iPod to iTunes they just pick up what is fed to them by the last sync with iTunes. Even if you could extract the songs using a third-party program they wouldn't play except in an authorized iTunes. There's no way of making non-internet connected iPods handle the rental expiry situation; as said above you would have to enforce a firmware upgrade on every single iPod ever made, which would be quite impossible.

What error message?

There's no way of making non-internet connected iPods handle the rental expiry situation; as said above you would have to enforce a firmware upgrade on every single iPod ever made, which would be quite impossible.

Why would that be impossible? Apple could release a new firmware for iPods that supports a sync of Apple Music. iTunes would be updated as well so that it would know to check for the correct iPod firmware version before allowing the music to be copied over. And then the new iPod firmware would have a counter that would start as soon as it disconnects from iTunes. When/if the counter runs down, the firmware would no longer allow those songs to play. When you connect back to iTunes and you still have a valid Apple Music subscription and if so, it resets the iPod timer again.

If you didn't install the new firmware on your iPod, then iTunes would refuse to copy over music, as it does now.

The systems being used now for DRM are far different that Apple's Fairplay which was instituted 14 years ago. The OS on the iPod Nano and the Shuffle is not robust enough for the firmware updates you are referring to. There is also other software available that can put music on the Shuffle and Nano so a person could load all the songs they wanted then just don't connect to iTunes again.

It is possible that Apple could release new versions of the Shuffle and Nano with the DRM decoder on a chip but again how do you force someone to connect it to a computer with iTunes?

"Apple could release a new firmware for iPods that supports a sync of Apple Music"

There is no "firmware for iPods" - every model and every generation is different: are you suggesting that Apple should develop, test and release new firmware for the iPod Classic (6 gens), Mini (2), Nano (7) and Shuffle (4)? iTunes itself would also need a substantial update to support an entire new set of functions within its sync operations. Apple have stated explicitly that Apple Music is only available for iOS devices - do you really expect them to reverse that decision and allocate significant development resources to support legacy products?

While I agree with you on other points all of the iPods share an OS called Pixo but we are talking very low level and very weak CPU.

Apple have stated explicitly that Apple Music is only available for iOS devices - do you really expect them to reverse that decision and allocate significant development resources to support legacy products?

From one of my earlier comments:

>I agree this is unlikely to happen though. The old non-iOS iPods are barely supported anymore and I don't think Apple sees it as a high priority to do any updates to them.

We're basically just blue-skying ideas. I don't think anyone expects these things to actually be done.

hhgttg27 wrote:

"Apple have stated explicitly that Apple Music is only available for iOS devices - do you really expect them to reverse that decision

iTunes is only available on iOS, Mac, and Windows. But music downloaded from iTunes can be synced to an iPod. You could theoretically say the same thing about Apple Music. The app and service are not available on iPods, but theoretically offline music downloaded from Apple Music could be synced to iPods. But again, like I pointed out in my last message, this is extremely unlikely to happen, but if it did you could still technically say that Apple Music is only available on iOS. It's splitting hairs, sure, and we've probably given this more thought than Apple themselves. The source code for the iPod firmware is probably stored on some dusty external drive that someone lost in a desk drawer years ago.

They still make the Shuffle and 7th Generation Nano so the Pixo OS is readily available albeit in different versions for different generations.