One of our forum visitors, Timmer, posed an interesting question — the answer to which may prove useful to a lot of people whose older Macs lack both a FireWire and USB 2.0 port. He writes:
I have a Blueberry clamshell iBook (Rev.B) and would love to use an iPod with it so….. What (if any) experience has anyone had using a ‘Windows’ iPod formatted to Mac and using it with a 1.1 USB port? Apple doesn’t recommend it, but seems like it would work, just slow.
From my tests, Timmer has struck the nail firmly on the head. On my 900 MHz Power Mac G4, which lacks USB 2.0, a Windows-formatted 4G iPod mounts perfectly well (though slowly). iTunes recognizes it and I’ve been able to copy tunes to it when the iPod is configured for manual mode. A Mac formatted 4G iPod is not recognized when attached to this same USB 1.1 connection.
Again, as Timmer suggests, this is hardly an optimal way to use the iPod — it’s slow to do anything — but it is an option if you can find a way to format it for Windows and you have a Mac that can’t connect any other way.