Apple iTunes 7 support (DAAP client with iTunes 7 compatibility)

I don't have time to read all about it, but from a quick scan, it seems pretty clear it's using the iTunes xml database to get the song details, not using the DAAP protocol to share the tunes at all.

ie the slimserver software scans the underlying music files (and iTunes xml database file) and uses that to stream the files. People are just using iTunes to organise them - not to stream.

This is quite different than what XBMC is doing - XBMC acts as an iTunes client - all the streaming is handled by iTunes. Apple has changed the authentication (again) to try and stop this behaviour.

jmarshall Wrote:I don't have time to read all about it, but from a quick scan, it seems pretty clear it's using the iTunes xml database to get the song details, not using the DAAP protocol to share the tunes at all.

ie the slimserver software scans the underlying music files (and iTunes xml database file) and uses that to stream the files. People are just using iTunes to organise them - not to stream.

This is quite different than what XBMC is doing - XBMC acts as an iTunes client - all the streaming is handled by iTunes. Apple has changed the authentication (again) to try and stop this behaviour.

I see, thanks for the clarification, and I'm sorry it wasn't of any use to you.

You know, as an Apple product(s) owner and a stockholder, I'm not too keen on Apple's strongarm tactics to protect its little fiefdom. They have no sense of community, and though they claim to beat the competition through innovation, they seem time and again to rely more on closed formats (taking a page from Microsoft) to keep their userbase locked in. And the message that sends is, "We don't believe our innovations are enough to compete on a level playing field with others." Open standards do not preclude one from innovating with software, and yet they only comply to such standards when market forces dictate they have no alternative. Paradoxically, they have always been on the forefront of establishling new hardware standards.

Here is some output from my network. I ran iTunes after starting the packet dump, loaded the remote iTunes library, and started playing a song.

http://prashant.is.here.googlepages.com/daap.pcap

I captured DAAP, but it also has some extra crap (SMB stuff from windows).

Anyway, hope this helps.

Any idea when we will see a fix to get XBMC working with iTunes 7? Seems something is wrong now with this new version of iTunes, can it be fixed?

Not easily, no. Apple changed the authentication protocol.

Cheers,
Jonathan

PS: Please search the forums before you post - I've answered this at least twice

Will there be daap support for itunes 7?

iTunes 7 doesn't HAVE DAAP support...

Hi, I am not sure what the current status of getting XBMC to work with iTunes 7 is, but perhaps talking to this developer would help get things working again:

http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/connect360

How is it that they can still connect to iTunes?

I don't know about anybody else but besides Movies, iTunes was the second most important feature of XBMC, and now that it doesn't support it since iTunes 7 I am extremely frustrated!!

If you have iTunes manage your music folder anyway, why not just set up a smb share and access your music that way? Its virtually the same

Works just fine for me, I don't even notice the difference anymore, just got used to it now.

And if you read the page you linked to, you'll see that the "Connect360" app is the one that handles the sharing of your iTunes library - not iTunes.

There are very few applications at all that actually act as iTunes clients, and none to my knowledge that now function with iTunes7 (including previous versions of iTunes!)