Enable disk use on your iPod touch

While lugging around quarterly reports is likely to be low on your list of reasons to pick up an iPod touch, you may still long for that "Enable disk use" checkbox that you can't access with the aforementioned device. If that's you, word on the street has it that iPod touch owners can simply download a certain bunch of "Media Folder utilities to copy files to and from" your unit. Reportedly, the utilities are "based around a modified version of iPhuc, work with the iPhone as well as the touch and copy files to and from the Media / Documents folder." Lastly, PPC Mac users can also get in on the fun, but it sounds like you'll be dealing with a bit more "extraneous text" along the way. Hit the read link for the full skinny.

[Thanks, Greg]

[Blake @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:01PM]

cool

[Asa Fludd @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:04PM]

iPhuc... Phuckin' hilarious!!!!

[toronado455 @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:40PM]

Yep. iPhuc. World's funniest acronym.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:04PM]

so does this mean one step closer to transfering mail/maps/calender apps from iphone to ipod??

[derek @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:05PM]

Argument about too much Apple news in 3...2...1...

[Zzephyr @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:09PM]

Goddam too much Apple news!!

[Homeboy @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:18PM]

Welcome to iNgadget.com

[derek @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:25PM]

@Homeboy

Boo... serriously, awful joke.

[Josh Clark @ Sep 24th 2007 3:13PM]

boo... urns
I thought it was kinda clever.

[Dan @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:12PM]

My weekend is made!!! I was almost sorry for being an early adopter!

[stephenbratz2 @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:13PM]

Remember how all the Apple boys were laughing about how you had to use a registry hack to use the Zune as a portable HDD?

[Eric @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:23PM]

Haha, so true. It's a shame Apple took this route.

[Andune @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:53PM]

But the touch doesnt use a HDD...

[Wonderkid @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:23PM]

One of the best uses of the iPhone and iPod Touch will be an ebook reader. There is nothing more intuitive than using your fingers to drag forward and backwards through pages and pinch to zoom in or out to enlarge text. That said, the screen is a bit small for that and I am sure Apple will release a book sized device based on Multitouch. A year or so ago, before the iPhone hype, there was talk that Apple had secretly licensed the rights to a huge number of books. Cue the iBook Touch, a completely new form factor that combines a sub-miniature laptop with a paperback book?

[bruckwine @ Oct 12th 2007 9:12AM]

I've been waiting for the hackers to break this and someone to make a comic book reader for the iPhone touch..only reason I'd get it over an iriver clix2 or creative sen...but at this rate I think i'll just get a notebook!

[toronado455 @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:43PM]

"iBook Touch". I love it. But wouldn't it be called "MacBook Touch" now? My dream Apple product would be a stylus-capable touchscreen PDA that runs third party software.

[Bizarrocanuck @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:38PM]

I assume the main reason that the iPhone and iPod touch don't support disk use is that they're formatted in HFS+. Think about it, Mac OS X requires an HFS+ (or UFS, but that's besides the point) formatted disk to run. HFS+ disks don't mount on Windows, which accounts for probably 90% of the users of those two products. Now, they could enable disk use for Macintosh users only, but that would not only alienate the Windows users by not allowing access to a feature because of their choice of OS, it wouldn't be particularly useful for mac users (only being able to transfer files between macs). Combine these technical limitations with the space limitations (8 or 16 gb isn't a lot of files, especially if you already own an iPod, which many users of these products do), and you've got very little reason to add this feature.

[Cagrino @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:48PM]

Yeah, I've never used any iPod for file storage. All iPods are too big a device for that function. Not when there are a plethora of devices available for that task.

[Irwin @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:12PM]

@cargrino
why not have an all in one...?

[Cagrino @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:39PM]

@Irwin

I suppose if that works for you. I usually use high speed jump drives like the Sandisk Titanium series.

The other factor for me is the secure network environment I work in does not allow devices to migrate to/from the secure environment.

[john @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:43PM]

hmm couldn't you do this with earlier ipods?
Apple is about innovation. isn't it?

[Bizarrocanuck @ Sep 23rd 2007 2:48PM]

Earlier iPods could also be formatted in FAT32 though, hence the differentiation. These two can only be formatted in HFS+, due to their choice of OS.

It would be possible to do disk use on the iPhone and Touch, it would just be odd to only allow about >10% of users to access the feature.

[ethana2 @ Sep 23rd 2007 11:32PM]

I take it we haven't gotten OpenMoko Linux running on an iPhone yet?

A shame. I'll wait for the gPhone, or check up on the official openmoko/NIC whatever..

[Mr. B @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:03PM]

Apple: producing the world's most user-friendly devices...

[Kevin @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:12PM]

who actually uses this function anyway?

[new0rder @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:16PM]

how I use this, where I put all these files? any info?

[eh @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:16PM]

It doesnt have disk use!?!?!?!?! Who the hell is running things over there? Maybe they should take a stroll down to a school or college and see how many students rely on their ipod to store files for school. Years ago I got a 10gb 3g iPod SPECIFICALLY for this function so I could use it for college, if it didnt have disk use I would have NEVER gotten an iPod. I still use the disk mode more than I use it for music, its extremely handy having a 10gb battery powered drive to take around with you. 2gb sized flash drives may be cheap but the 10gb+ solutions are NOT, there has been many times where Ive put over 8gbs of files on my iPod to bring to a friends house.

Im really getting fed up with apple and their "feature pruning." This really pisses me off because I use it all the time, I could have justified spending 400 bucks on a mediaplayer/HDD but not anymore.

[MEAT! @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:29PM]

I agree completely. I would use my 3rd gen iPod (before it simply stopped working) for file transfers all the time; it was as much a portable hard drive (that could fit in your pocket and only needed one cable) as it was an mp3 player.

It seems the more success Apple has, the more they make decisions that alienate their users.

[NG @ Sep 23rd 2007 5:41PM]

Same here, 20GB firewire ipod

[Mandy @ Oct 31st 2007 10:09AM]

Check out TouchCopy for the PC - I used it to enable disk use on my iPod Touch. It does some other stuff too, like backup music to iTunes.
http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/

[Tavis Veighey @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:24PM]

If you can't have Disk/Mass Storage access built in, than I do not want it!

I just want to be able to drag and drop music and such to my device, I do not want some "Media Manager" POS to do it for me!

[Tommy J?nsen @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:28PM]

YEah, it really baffles me that so many people buy these things, while they don't even have the most basic of features... So sad...

[SteveMB @ Sep 23rd 2007 3:49PM]

Or you could get a real MP3 player like a Creative or Archos...

[freakmarket @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:43PM]

I just ordered a new Creative Zen ... i tried the new iphatty (nano) for a weekend and hated it ... The Apple Store in Kansas City was shocked that i wanted to return it... it was like it hurt their feelings ... it was hard to hold onto and i decided i can't live without my Napster To Go subscription service.

My new Zen has 4gb of space and i can add 8gb more with a high capacity SD card. I'll do a review on pdalive.com when i get it. Had to order from Creative because it hasn't made it to stores yet.

[Phillip Black @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:07PM]

Engadget have you been living under a rock? Where are some Halo 3 news?

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:19PM]

To get around hfs, (and the fact win32 doesn't support it) instead of just giving up, they could have installed the os on one area partitioned as hfs, then had the rest of the flash mem partitioned as fat32, fat, hfs, whatever.

wow. difficult.
that took all of 10 seconds of thought.

[Bloobie @ Sep 23rd 2007 4:44PM]

Again, if you wanted cross-platform disk use, you would need to format in something other than HFS+. FAT32 is the most compatible option, but FAT32 does not support files greater than 4GB in size. NTFS would work, but then OS X could not write to the partition, only read. There. That was a more effective use of 10 seconds.

[dj-kenpo @ Sep 23rd 2007 5:47PM]

so were you arguing with me or just completely misreading my comment?

partition 0 = OSX
partition 1 = user area formated for [insert formatting. ntfs, fat32, hfs].

[Budugu @ Sep 23rd 2007 5:11PM]

instead of all the dual file systems etc... why not embed a HFS driver w/ itunes installation? There was some software that allowed for HFS partitions to be readable on windows.

[john @ Sep 23rd 2007 9:25PM]

I have a crazy idea. Apple should stop removing features.
I know, its an absolutely insane idea.

[Constable Odo @ Sep 23rd 2007 9:38PM]

It barely has enough memory as it is for videos and music. Loading it up with other junk hardly makes much sense.

To many of the people on this forum, it doesn't matter whether most people will use disk copy feature or not. To them it's just another missing feature that the iPod Touch can't do. I've used it once or twice on my iPod w/Video, but I could have lived without it. I'd be willing to bet that less than 10% of iPod users use this feature. It could be handy on a 160 GB iPod Classic that has memory to spare to do some decent backups, but that's only my opinion. Otherwise I'd just as soon carry around a 4 or 8 GB thumb drive.

Don't get me wrong, I think this knockoff would be fine to use having the extra features, but right now it's a nonexistent product.

[spammerblackhole-engadget @ Sep 24th 2007 9:01AM]

I considered getting the iPod touch because it is slim and has a slick interface. But if you compare its features (and limitations) to other PDAs it pales in comparison.

Check out the HP iPaq 211 which has a 4" VGA display. It has bluetooth and removable storage (SD and CF) and is wide open to installing whatever applications you want. And it costs about the same as the 16GB iPod touch.

[Thanos72 @ Oct 12th 2007 7:54AM]

Umm How do you use these utilities? Any instructions posted anywhere. I really need to enable disk use on my Touch because my Mac was reformatted and I would like to restore my Music library from the Touch. Any help would be appreciated.

[bruckwine @ Oct 12th 2007 9:18AM]

So there's a half-hack is what this is saying? How wonderful..NOW I'll go spend my $299!

[Anna @ Oct 31st 2007 9:48AM]

There's finally a program which enables disk use on the iPod Touch for the PC too - TouchCopy. Works also for the iPhone.
http://www.wideanglesoftware.com/touchcopy/