Creative MP3 Players and Mac Compatibility – Help needed.

Evening all,

I have recently bought a MacBook and have finally got round to trying to update music files to and from my 2 Creative players (XFi and VPlus). I was warned at the time of purchase that there might be compatibility issues, but wasn’t too bothered, as I still have a desktop that I can use as a back up for doing this.

So what programmes / /techniques are there (if any!) for getting the two to work together?

I just looked at xnjb, but my two players aren’t on the compatibles list.

Any ideas (I’d rather NOT buy an iPod, I really like my Creatives and they work fine).

Thanks.

Surely they appear on the desktop and you can just drag the MP3 files onto them?

NOPE.

Obviously it does that on my Windows based desktop, but not my MacBook.

Hence the question. 😀

I spent a lot of time looking at the Creative MP3 Forum[/url] when I was trying to fix Zen issues.

Did a bit of searching and found these two suggestions. The Bootcamp with Windows could be your best option, or possibly VMWare or Parallels with Windows. That’s better in a lot of ways because you can have OS X and whatever flavour of Windows open simultaneously and c’n’p between them.

Macintosh computers using Mac OS 9.2 or later will automatically detect flash memory players and recognize them as removable drives on your desktop and in the Finder window.

However, Creative MP3 players are not officially supported under the Macintosh platforms. The player will need to be formatted from time to time on a Windows PC, and any firmware updates will also have to be done on a Windows PC.

To ensure playability and data integrity, please consider the following steps in using these players in a Mac OS.

Eject the player prior to removing it from your PC. Though the device is hot pluggable, it is recommended that you use the eject feature for external drives to make sure that communications between your PC and the player has been stopped for safe removal.
Do not format the player using the Macintosh’s format feature, as the player has its own file format. The Macintosh formatter will imprint an incompatible file format onto the player thus rendering it unable to recognize the stored files.
The player supports standard MP3 and WMA file formats only, it does not recognize the Macintosh’s AAC (MPEG 4) file format.
Connect your player directly to your computer instead of through a peripheral USB port like those found on the keyboard of some Macintosh systems.
If you need to delete files from your player while it is connected to your computer, it is recommended that you empty your trash file after file deletion.

The Xtra uses the pre-MTP Creative-specific transfer protocol, so it’s different from the Zen Vision M and the Micro Photo. XNJB should work though.

Failing that, you can install Boot Camp on a FAT32 partition (i.e. <32gb) and use MediaSource to copy the files over, then boot into OS X and copy the files off the Windows partition.

think that basically translates as ‘we make portable music devices, buy one o’ them and get with the (itunes ) program , or **** off’.
😀

think that basically translates as ‘we make portable music devices, buy one o’ them and get with the (itunes ) program , or **** off’.

Why should Apple, or anyone else, be accommodating? As it happens, any music player, particularly flash memory ones, should mount as a mass storage devise on a Mac desktop, and allow you to drag’ ‘drop music files, in compatible format, without issue. Nokia phones can do it, Sony Ericsson can, and Creative should. If, for whatever reason, Creative design their player’s software so that connecting to a Mac has issues, that reflects badly on Creative, not Apple. Microsoft are far less accommodating, and try connecting anything to a Sony using their shonky proprietary software.

CountZero, XNJB doesn’t work and I have no idea what ‘boot camping my fat32 partition means.

I take it there are no simple answers? Anyone else?

(Cue “Yes, buy an iPod” answers!).

Is the (slightly irritating) solution not to copy them onto your Windows computer then transfer (Dropbox?) them to the Mac and into iTunes?