Panther Feature? 'Home on iPod'

[greenstork]

Maybe it was the folks at MacHack, hacking into the Akamai servers just to spite Apple. Oh..... errrr, wrong product announcement.

 

[evilbert420]

My bet is that we'll see it appear in .Mac

Apple's been actively listening to people's perceptions that .mac isn't worth it, and been 'piling on' the features this past year for .mac members. I'm thinking this is another great .mac "seller" for Apple.

 

[applekid]

If this becomes a feature for .Mac only, then I'm sold.

I've always wanted this kind of feature. It would definitely beat doing manual drag-n-drop backups that I perform to my iPod. And whenever I plan on buying a laptop, I can easily go mobile with my iPod! Hopefully this will stay in Panther!

Expand the iPod's uses! It's not just an MP3 player and it shouldn't be!

 

[Freg3000]

Uber-cool. I wonder how this slipped by though. Was it ever in any of the Panther builds?

 

[macMaestro]

Originally posted by catalystx
Apple really needs to get their web site managers better at keeping secrets. I guess we don't want that though, so on second thought they should hire a bunch of high school kids to run it!

Heck, High Schoolers would do better than whatever they got. If they're going to change their staff, I'd suggest 2nd graders.

 

[SiliconAddict]

Damn. That sounds like a sweet feature. Too bad.

 

[centauratlas]

How about "home directory via Rendezvous"

This is a nice feature though (whenever it shows up).

It would be even nicer to have something like:

"home directory via Rendezvous" so that I could use any Mac in the house to access my home dir.

(I know you can with OS X server, but it is not a one-click setup and it should be).

 

[GloverCom]

An alias handles this for me...

Can't this be done with a simple Alias already?

I use Entourage and when I have my Microsoft Data folder aliased in my Home folder to the ACTUAL folder which is on my iPod so my email is will me whereever I go, on whatever Mac I'm on.

I haven't tried, but is it possible to alias the entire Home directory to an iPod?!?

-- Jeff Glover
-- http://www.ichatters.com

 

[coumerelli]

This is something that I had actually talked about to my wife and brother a few months ago as a good idea. I really hope this comes to fruition.

 

[johnpg]

I'm the one who submitted the story and I've been doing some investigating in 7B85.

Here's what I would have found.

It's the same technology used for the iDisk syncing.

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/FileSync
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Resources
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/FileSync
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/Generic.rtf
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/Library.rtf
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/English.lproj/Software.rtf
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/iDiskGenericIcon.icns
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/iDiskOfflineIcon.icns
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/iDiskOnlineIcon.icns
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/iDiskSyncingIcon.icns
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Info.plist
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/A/Resources/version.plist
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/FileSync.framework/Versions/Current


The MirrorAgent app has some references to the home directory:

$ strings MirrorAgent |grep -i home
Agent/home.c
home
inithome
outHome
inithomewithhome
inHome
checkHomeSupportsSymlinks
acquirehome
home->refcount >= 0
releasehome
Home "
verifyMirrorHomes
AcquireHomesForMirrorPair
ReleaseHomesForMirrorPair
home_alias
home_hasFingerprintFile
pkhome
packhome
pkhome != nil
unpackhome
home->alias
allocmirrorwithhome
isHomeDirectory
SFMirrorHomeDirectory
HOME

So the code is in Panther, but obviously not finished yet. They clearly didn't get it done and are probably planning on releasing it at a later time. Too bad, that would have been a big selling point for a lot of people. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be a 10.4 feature instead.

It would be great if you could (as someone suggested) have a rendezvous home folder, or at the very least a way to sync home folders between machines on a network without the firewire drive, and without a server. I'm sure this could be done by hacking around, but I'd like to see it built in and seamless.

Cheers,
John

 

[rockman2023]

???

Didnt we hear about a feature like this earlier this year??! I swear, a rumor like this came around before. I vaguely remember some tablet rumors floating around the same time.
Can anyone back me up on this one???

 

[jettredmont]

Pal

First of all, welcome to Pal.

https://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/06/20030603132519.shtml

Second, it could be that this is being pulled because FileVault on the iPod might be slated to be fairly efficient, using the iPod's ARM procs to do the encryption instead of the main CPU (using the main CPU would be rather inefficient, expecially with the iPod procs sitting there idle ...)

If this is correct, then the reason this was pulled might be the delay of iPod's software update.

Also, if accurate, first-gen iPods might be excluded, at least from FileVault encryption. Anyone know what the various gens' processors were?

Oh, and, yes, I'd also hope that it is smart enough to skip vaulting your music files.

And, yes, you can use your iPod like a home directory as things stand right now (you can easily just make an alias and manually store your files on the iPod instead of the HD, and I believe you can mount your iPod as your home directory too). However, the description seems to indicate that you will be able to just plug your iPod in and be prompted to use the Mac without having to set up a user account for yourself. Presumably, you'd have to have *some* kind of user account for the Mac (being able to get local access to any machine just by carrying an iPod would be a *massive* security risk!), but switching the user home directory would be seamless and fall in line with the fast-user-switching paradigm.

 

[tacomancini]

Re: ???

Originally posted by rockman2023
Didnt we hear about a feature like this earlier this year??! I swear, a rumor like this came around before. I vaguely remember some tablet rumors floating around the same time.
Can anyone back me up on this one???

It was that shot of the box of a product called the pal. Something that allowed you to bring your computer with you, perhaps wirelessly. Maybe they are incorporating this idea into the ipod. I think it was the same idea... bringing your home folder with you..... it seemed to also have some link to .mac.

 

[blueflame]

NEW IPOD THINGY?

mabye this is one of the rumored ipod perifria;s that will cost 129 dollars that was rumord here a few days ago. like an external somethingoranother. or mabye it wont be that high, but it still may be waiting for that? possible?
Andreas

 

[rswift6505]

This can be done in any version of OS X

This is a fairly simple, but can be dangerous, hack. Enable root, through net info manager, then, again through net info manager, change the directory of your home to wherever you want. Just remeber to use /Volumes/iPod/user/

 

[illumin8]

Originally posted by beerguy
Real time encryption every time you do IO in your home directory? Better get that G6 ordered.

How about real-time encryption every time you sync... Not that big of a deal; I bet even a G4 with Altivec optimization would scream. Altivec is wonderful for encrypting large data streams...

 

[jimthorn]

Originally posted by shadowfax
of course, you could just put your home folder on your iPod. i wonder if it is smart enough not to include my music library in the home folder on my iPod. i have 15 GB of music on it, so having 2 instances of it would just ruin things in terms of being able to fit it on the iPod.

it would sure be nice for them to automate this, though. i would definitely use it.

I completely agree. This would be a great feature. But like shadowfax, I was wondering about the Music Folder. I mean, if you autosync your iPod in iTunes, you already have it on the iPod. I'm sure very few of us could fit our music collection on our iPods twice.

But the fact that Apple is thinking along these lines makes me wonder if they're going to make the iPod even more of an integrated part of the Mac experience. Imagine, say, an iBook with no internal HD, but with a nice iPod-sized slot in the side. Pop in the iPod, and *snap*, it docks into the iBook. Work on your computer for a while, and then shut down and pull out the iPod and take it to school, work, etc. The iPod essentially becomes the "soul" of the Mac.

 

[SoonToGetAMac]

Browsing the panther info, and they didn't remove all traces of the Home of iPod feature., Just look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/systempreferences/, or the picture, where it asks you where the home directory should be.

 

[macphoria]

That is too bad, sounds like a cool feature. They could have kept it as optional feature that is not a default function.

 

[Rincewind42]

Re: This can be done in any version of OS X

Originally posted by rswift6505
This is a fairly simple, but can be dangerous, hack. Enable root, through net info manager, then, again through net info manager, change the directory of your home to wherever you want. Just remeber to use /Volumes/iPod/user/

You don't need to enable root to do this. Just click the lock and enter an admin login/password and your set.

Almost nothing on Mac OS X requires you to enable the root login.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by beerguy
I'm sure it was pulled because it's a huge security risk.

The iDisk offline syncing gives basically the same functionality without giving your CFO the ability to leave the company financials on a train somewhere.

Well, I should hope that the CFO of a company would know better than to have the company financials sitting, unprotected, in his home directory. Better to keep them in a secure directory on the server, IYAM.

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by jimthorn
I completely agree. This would be a great feature. But like shadowfax, I was wondering about the Music Folder. I mean, if you autosync your iPod in iTunes, you already have it on the iPod. I'm sure very few of us could fit our music collection on our iPods twice.

Well, I know that I couldn't. For that matter, much of the time I couldn't fit my home directory, sans music, on my iPod. Ah, the joy of big files...

However, if they enabled this, maybe what's holding it up is the ability to access your music from the music storage area on your iPod, so you can launch iTunes when you're logged into a remote machine, and still listen to all of your music. Hmm...

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by SoonToGetAMac
Browsing the panther info, and they didn't remove all traces of the Home of iPod feature., Just look at http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/systempreferences/, or the picture, where it asks you where the home directory should be.

Well, this may not be what you think it is. I know that when I first got OS X I had several drives in my computer, and I didn't want my Home directory on the same drive as the System. Heretofore, you had to use a hack to move your Users folder to another drive (creating a virtual link to it on your System drive). Hopefully this image is really showing that you can now choose, with characteristic Mac simplicity, the location you want for your Home directory (even different people's Home directories on different drives??).

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by macphoria
That is too bad, sounds like a cool feature. They could have kept it as optional feature that is not a default function.

Yes, but what if it's not done yet?

 

[macphoria]

Yes, but what if it's not done yet?

We'll know in about 16 days, won't we?