The iTunes plug-in is designed to enable iPod owners to copy songs from the music player to an iTunes library, a feature that Apple has not supported.

http://www.flexbeta.net/main/comments.php?catid=5&shownews=10154

I love how everyone says Apple is good and apple cares about the people. They are a company people. They care about money. Don't get me wrong, they are one of the better companys but anyway.

This is just apple's way of keeping you from going over your friend's house, copying his music, and bringing it home. Its like DRM for the IPOD. This way, if you want music, you need to buy it from their website. No surprise.

I like apple more then microsoft, but both of them will do what they need to do to protect the all mighty dollar.

Such cynicism.

the microsoft crew program with compatibility a higher priority than stability.

apple programs with stability at a greater priority than compatibility.

This raises sincere question as to weather the new incompatibility was intended, as if it would last anyway.

There is no doupt the incompatability was intentional - as a programer and DRM expert, I looked at the object code. It explicitly refers to the plugin, and if this part is removed or disabled the plugin will once again work perfectly.

Um... this is just the layman's way of forcing music off the 'pod. Windows users who see hidden files (most kids will have that enabled) get the mp3 directory by default, so copying is drag-and-drop. Our Mac Friends though, need to buy a program to enable hidden folders - I believe it's called TinkerTool - which is why I'm laughing at them.

goldenpi: the object code? but everything's in assembly at THAT stage

-KirbyMeister

Screw Steve Jobs and his little tinker-toy iPodDownload program plug-in breaker. Use PodWorks instead.

http://www.scifihifi.com/podworks/

From the site:
"Many stand alone iPod song transfer utilities work by reading ID3 data out of every song on the iPod--a slow process. PodWorks, by contrast, is capable of reading directly from the iPod's internal database, resulting in nearly instantaneous display of all metadata".

Best darn $8.00 I ever spent.

For a free fix, just don't upgrade to iTunes 4.7. Nothing wrong with iTunes 4.6 or earlier.