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Creating Core Audio aggregate devices programmatically

Posted by Dave on August 21st, 2008

Core Audio has a very neat feature, enabling you to create virtual audio input and output devices called aggregate devices, which join together and synchronise the clocks of multiple real devices. You can then use these aggregate devices for audio input and output in the same way as real devices.
One way to create a [...]

So does the Apple TV support 5.1 audio?

Posted by Dave on March 25th, 2007

No. And yes. In that order. This article gives the full detail behind what that really means.

22 iTunes songs on your iPod

Posted by Dave on February 8th, 2007

Steve Jobs’s Thoughts on Music article makes for a good read. But I don’t believe that anyone has 22 [tag]iTunes[/tag] Store songs on their [tag]iPod[/tag], any more than they have 2.4 children. And this is a pretty significant fact.

Counterfeit iPod Shuffles on eBay

Posted by Dave on February 5th, 2007

So today I received my new 512Mb iPod Shuffle (1st generation) from someone on eBay, bought for testing purposes. Only, it’s not an iPod Shuffle. It’s a very convincing rip-off, but it’s definitely not a genuine Apple iPod Shuffle. Understandably, I’m quite annoyed. So, watch out for any Shuffle device with [...]

Detecting iPods programmatically (part 2)

Posted by Dave on January 31st, 2007

A while back, I wrote a post about detecting iPods connected to your Mac, and finding out their model number in order to deduce information such as the iPod model and colour. Then, in September, Aaron Bockover of the Banshee Project informed me that Apple have changed their approach to storing this information, and [...]

5.1 surround sound playback on Mac (and maybe Apple TV)

Posted by Dave on January 15th, 2007

I’ve been investigating 5.1 [tag]Dolby[/tag] Digital playback on the Mac, and I’ve discovered some limitations with using 5.1 audio under QuickTime – especially when trying to output it to the Mac’s S/PDIF optical output. This makes me wonder about some not-yet-mentioned features of the upcoming [tag]AppleTV[/tag] and its support for surround sound, and Apple’s [...]

Detecting iPods programmatically

Posted by Dave on July 14th, 2006

I’ve been trying to find a way to detect what kinds of iPods are plugged into a Mac (or PC). Turns out that every iPod (apart from the iPod Shuffle) has a hidden SysInfo file, which contains information about the device. And, with the aid of some friends with iPods, I have managed [...]

MIDI control of the Hercules DJ Console for Mac

Posted by Dave on July 20th, 2005

I’ve been working on adding support for the Hercules DJ Console (Mac Edition) to my Mac DJ application, DJ-1800. This has proved trickier than I imagined, as I have not been able to find any documentation of the MIDI commands sent by this controller.