Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved access to toolbar-based functions under Windows Vista.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed some compatibility problems with new firmwares and Windows 98.
• Improved Windows Vista compatibility.
• Fixed installer problem.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved support for new iPod firmware 1.2 and iTunes 7 compatibility.
• Fixed bug causing other iPods to be incorrectly detected as iPod nano or iPod shuffle.
• Fixed compatibility issues on Windows 98SE and ME.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed repeating activation issue.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed minor compatibility issues with iPod nano firmware 1.2.
• Fix for potential duplicate tracks issue.
• Fixed bug in CopyGear where insertion into iTunes during transfer could sometimes hang.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Various stability improvements.
• Fixed bug in properly handling M4V and MOV video formats.
• Fixed crash some users encountered when connecting to iPod.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Minor internal update.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed minor bug where some audio-only content would appear in the Anapod Videos folder.

New Features:

• Improved Video Support for 5G iPod with Video
  Version 8.9.5 builds on the video support introduced in the last release. Anapod 8.9.5 includes a new top-level Videos folder, separating all video content from audio content. You can now transfer video content to the iPod by dragging and dropping supported video format files to the Videos folder. Also new in this release is the ability to transfer MP4 video files in addition to the existing support for M4V and MOV formats.
  
  

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Added new option to hide the iPod Shuffle systray icon for Universal Edition users.
• Significant speed and robustness improvements in tag reading for M4A, M4P, M4B, MP4, and MOV files.
• Fixed bug where transferring MP4 files back to the computer would cause their extension to change to M4A.
• New top-level Photos icon provides easier access to PhotoSync feature.
• Removed extraneous dashes from the display of tracks without Artist, Album, or Track Number information, improving readability in track listings.

New Features:

• Enhanced 5th Generation iPod Support (with video)
  This release adds enhanced support for the new 5th Generation Apple iPod with video. Support includes Album Art and PhotoSync for the new larger color display, as well as video transfer capability. Anapod Explorer can transfer iTunes Music Store-downloaded music videos, movies, movie trailers, short films, and television shows in protected and unprotected M4V (H.264) formats as well as other video content in QuickTime MOV format.
  
  
• iTunes 6 Compatibility
  This release is compatible with iTunes 6 (as was the previous release).

New Features:

• iPod nano Support
  This release adds official support for the Apple iPod nano. Support includes Album Art and PhotoSync as well as all other existing Anapod features.
  
  
• iTunes 5 Compatibility
  This release is compatible with iTunes 5.

New Features:

• Anapod PhotoSync
  This release adds the ability for Anapod Explorer to transfer photos to the iPod Photo and iPod with color screen. To access this feature, click on the Sync button in the Anapod Explorer toolbar. PhotoSync works similarly to the photo synchronization feature in iTunes, allowing you to select a photo folder and individual albums to transfer to the iPod. Anapod PhotoSync supports the transfer of JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP images, full-resolution original image transfer, album grouping, and the full complement of iPod-supported image types including thumbnails, full-screen, slideshow, and NTSC TV display format.
  
  
• Support for Folder-Based Album Art
  In previous releases, Anapod would only automatically assign album art for files with embedded art. This release adds the ability for the user to specify a set artwork filename (e.g. cover.jpg, artwork.png). Anapod will then look for an artwork file by that name contained in the same folder as the audio file when transferring.
  
  
• Added "Play on Computer" feature for Anapod Shuffler.
• Added support for extracting album art from MP3 files with embedded BMP images.
• The Comment field is now available for use in MorphLists.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Restored Xtreamer capability for Anapod Shuffler.
  
  
• Fixed bug where connecting in Anapod could cause iTunes to unnecessarily resync some of the files on the iPod.
• Fixed bug where iPod could become unreadable by iTunes after editing podcast files using Anapod.
• Fixed bug where Anapod would remove podcast tracks from regular music browse categories.
• Fixed hang when connecting to iPod with an empty Play Counts file.
  
  
• Various stability improvements in reading tag information.
• Further refinements to tag reading routines for M4A, M4P, and MP4 files.
• Fixed crash when reading tag information from certain AAC files.
• Fixed problem where genre was not being read properly from some iTunes Music Store files.
  
  
• Fixed problem in auto-playlist creation during transfers where playlists could be deleted instead of updated properly.
• Fixed bug in playlist reordering where track at the move-to location could be deleted.

New Features:

• Playlist items can now be reordered in batches in addition to one by one. To do so, simply use SHIFT or CONTROL to select multiple tracks, then drag and drop.
• Anapod now reads and transfers to the iPod any playcount and ratings information stored in the ID3 tags of MP3 files.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• iTunes 4.9 Compatibility
  This release makes further improvements to iTunes 4.9 compatibility. First, Anapod now properly preserves Podcasts that were transferred to the iPod by iTunes (they are not yet editable or updateable in Anapod; further podcast support still to come). Second, this release fixes a problem where album art transferred to the iPod by Anapod could sometimes get wiped out by iTunes. Finally, processing of playcounts and ratings have been fixed to be compatible with iTunes 4.9 and the latest iPod firmwares.
  
  
• Fixed date-based sorting for Last Modified and Added columns in Audio Tracks view.
• Improved detection of freshly formatted or restored iPod shuffles.
• Fixed problem with deleting playlists with duplicated names.
• Fixed various problems with handling ID3v2.4 tags.
• Homemade .m4b files no longer cause Anapod to warn about iTunes Music Store DRM christening.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a minor problem where going back and forth between Anapod and iTunes 4.9 could cause playlists on iPod to be duplicated.

New Features:

• Album Art Support for New 5G "iPods with Color Display"
  The Album Art support introduced in 8.8.0 is compatible with both iPod Photo and the newly introduced 5th Generation iPods "with color displays". Anapod is also compatible with the latest iPod software update 2005-06-26.
  
  
• Drag and Drop Album Art Editing for MP3s
  Release 8.8.0 supported for music files with album art already embedded. In this release, you can add art to MP3s without embedded art, and update or change art for MP3s with existing embedded art. Simply right-click on one or more tracks, select "Edit Tag (Properties)", and drag any GIF, PNG, or JPEG file to the album art box.
  
  
• Automatic Album Art Retrieval
  In addition to manual drag and drop updating of album art, release 8.8.1 can also automatically download artwork from Amazon.com. Just click on the "Get Art from Amazon.com" button under the album art box.
  
  
• Missing Album Art Search
  The "Scan Existing Tracks" function under Album Art in the Anapod Options dialog has now been enhanced to help you find tracks on your iPod that do not have album art. Once the scan is complete, a list of all tracks that do not have embedded art is now automatically placed into your Search folder in Anapod. This makes it quick and easy for you to identify tracks that need art, so you can add it manually or download it automatically.
  
  
• Rebuild Album Art Database
  If your album art ever becomes corrupted, with tracks displaying the wrong art, this feature allows you to rebuild your album art database on the iPod from scratch, ensuring that each track will display the proper art when played back.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed problem some users experienced where "iPod Devices" no longer showed under Anapod Manager Options.
• Fixed a bug preventing Anapod from loading on some Windows 98 and ME systems.
  
  
• Increased tag reading speed for M4A, M4P, and M4B files by 250%.
• Fixed crash when reading tags from 0-byte M4A, M4P, and M4B files.
• 0-byte files are now ignored during sync and transfers.
• Fixed reading of ID3 tags when V2 is incomplete, but V1 is complete.
  
  
• Increased file transfer speed to iPod when album art is enabled.
• Fixed problem where scanning for album art would sometimes add duplicate art, taking up unnecessary space.
• Significant improvement in performance when disconnecting from iPod and saving album art changes. Up to 100x improvement on iPods with large numbers of tracks with album art.
• Eliminated excessive use of temp folder space on PC.
• Fixed portability problem where album art loaded with Anapod would disappear if iPod is connected to Anapod on another PC.
• Fixed a minor problem where embedded JPEG art in some MP3 files was not being recognized.
• Added additional status to Album Art options dialog to indicate which track is currently being scanned during album art import.
• Fixed some potential hangs when tracks with certain characters in their tag info are scanned for album art.

New Features:

• Album Art Support for iPod Photo
  Anapod Explorer now supports album art display on the iPod Photo. In this release, Anapod now transfers tracks in such a way that files with embedded album art will have that image display during playback on the iPod. Currently supported are embedded art in MP3, AAC/M4A, and iTunes Music Store files. Also included is a utility for enabling embedded album art in tracks transferred to the iPod using previous versions of Anapod that did not have album art support. Upcoming releases will add support for adding album art from online sources to files that do not already have embedded art. To use this feature, go to the Album Art section of the Anapod Options dialog. Album art support is currently only available on Windows XP.

New Features:

• Improved iPod shuffle Support
  In this release, the iPod shuffle gets its own separate icon, enabling easier management of iPods and iPod shuffles. Also new is the ability to manually reorder the tracks on your iPod shuffle.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a problem where regular iPods could sometimes be mis-detected as iPod shuffles.
• Fixed misreporting of free space in Anapod Tunes2Go.
• Removed erroneous message about deleting files when transferring in Tunes2Go.
• In previous releases, files with no tag information would not transfer due to "skipped because file exists" error. In this release, tag-less files can now be properly loaded onto the shuffle.
• Fixed bug where transfer errors due to inability to read source file was being misreported as memory full error.

New Features:

• Manual iPod Identification
  This new feature allows Anapod to recognize iPods that have not been fully initialized yet, either because they are new or have just been reformatted. Anapod will identify devices that are likely to be iPods, and allow the user to identify the iPod so that it can be initialized for music transfer. This feature should be helpful to new users in particular.
  
  
• Improved Tag Reading
  This release improves ID3 tag reading for files that have a ID3V1 tag but no ID3V2 tag.
  
  
• Improved iPod Connect/Disconnect Speed
  iPod detection and connection should be even faster in this release, and a small disconnect bottleneck in the previous release should now be resolved.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug in the previous release where some users with brand-new or recently formatted iPods might get an 0x11 error when disconnecting and saving changes to the iPod. This was due to some changes we made to add iPod Shuffle support, but it should now be fixed.

New Features:

• iPod shuffle Support
  Anapod Explorer now supports the iPod shuffle. Anapod's familiar interface allows you to transfer music to and from the iPod shuffle using drag and drop and other methods and access data files. This release also includes our Tunes2Go feature which allows you to quickly load up your shuffle for the road by randomly selecting tracks from PC folders or from playlists. Tunes2Go also lets you create new sets of "to-go" songs and save them as playlists for later loading. Upcoming releases will add the ability to sort and reorder tracks already on-board the shuffle, as well as a new, more sophisticated version of Tunes2Go that will allow autofilling from multiple sources.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Minor compatibility fixes.
• Fixed bug in Options dialog when device is not connected.

New Features:

• iPod Access Locking
  Anapod Explorer can now detect and set access locks on the iPod. This means Anapod will not connect to your iPod while another application is accessing it (this is user-overridable, though). Also, while Anapod is connected, other applications will not be able to access the iPod. Locking prevents two applications from accessing the iPod at once and overwriting each other's changes, possibly causing database corruption. This scheme works with iTunes, but may not work with other applications that lack support for the iPod locking mechanism. A major additional benefit to locking is that you will now be able to safely use iTunes as a playback application for AAC and iTunes Music Store files played back from Anapod.
  
  
• Automatic Mounting
  Anapod can now automatically mount an iPod that is physically connected to the computer but not mounted as a drive yet.
  
  
• Eject to Menu
  For 4G iPods, Anapod's 'Eject iPod' function now sets the iPod to the usable menu state instead of the "Ok to Disconnect" state. This new feature combined with Automatic Mounting allows you to eject and remount 4G iPods without having to remove them from their dock or unplug them.
  
  
• Eject Waiting
  For all iPods, when you click "Eject iPod" Anapod will now wait on most systems for the last write operation to occur before trying to do the ejection. This will reduce the frequency of getting "The Manager could not automatically unmount your player after 5 seconds." messages.
  
  
• Utilities Folder
  We've added a new folder called "Utilities" to the top-level of the Anapod Explorer interface. This folder will contain various modular utilities for maintaining your player's contents. To begin with, we've created a "Remove Empty Playlists" utility. Over time we will add many more utilities to perform various useful tasks.
  
  

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Enhancements to "Recover Missing Tracks" Maintenance Utility
  A number of improvements have been made to this utility found under the Anapod Manager Options dialog. First, track and disc number handling have been fixed so that tracks added to the iPod's database during recovery will sort in proper album order. This also fixes track ordering under the iPod's "All" folders. When adding tracks, the Composer, Grouping, Added Time, BPM and Compilation fields are now also properly set. We've also improved handling of iTunes Music Store tracks.
  
  
• Enhancements to "Fix Mislabeled Tracks" Maintenance Utility
  All the improvements and fixes made to "Recover Missing Tracks" have also been applied to "Fix Mislabeled Tracks".

New Features:

New Features:

• Initial iPod Photo Support
  This release provides basic compatibility with the new features of the iPod Photo. Accessing the iPod Photo with the previous release of Anapod could cause music tracks to lose their association with album art transferred by iTunes. This release will properly preserve album art associations transferred by iTunes. This release also fixes an extraneous error message regarding music store file transfers. In upcoming releases we plan to add fully integrated Anapod support for album art (include non-music store files such as MP3s), and complete photo management and synchronization.
  
  

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved VBR MP3 Analysis
  We have improved our bitrate analysis code to properly calculate the play length of VBR MP3 files encoded by certain specific encoders. If you have VBR files that do not play for their full duration on your player, please re-transfer them using this release.
  
  
• Fixed problem where Anapod could suddenly report a disconnected iPod during a long transfer, even if the iPod is still connected.
• Fixed bug where files would not transfer to PC properly if one or more of the file's tag fields ended in a period.
• Robustness improvements in transfer to PC functions.
• Xtreamer can now be configured to use port numbers up to 99999 instead of just 9999.
• Fixed Explorer problem where status bar file information would lag behind by one file when navigating up and down the file list using the keyboard.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved UTF-8 Tag Handling
  This version has several important enhancements in its handling of UTF-8 encoded characters in tags. This encoding is commonly used to store accented characters. For MP3 files, we've fixed a tag reading bug causing UTF-8 characters in ID3V2 tags to be corrupted when an ID3V1 tag is also present in the MP3 file. For AAC files (M4A/M4P/M4B), we have fixed the tag reading code so that it properly imports UTF-8 encoded characters. We have also fixed a bug where Unicode tag information added by iTunes would be converted to x's when opened in Anapod.
  
  
• Fixed bug in 8.6.0 where Playlist Index did not display the correct playlist membership information.
• Fixed instability in playlist merging function.

New Features:

• Improved "Copy to Computer" Dialog
  The "Copy to Computer" dialog now features a "New Folder" button to create a new folder to transfer to on the fly, it remembers the last destination folder you selected so you don't need to keep selecting it again, and the dialog is now resizable, making navigation easier.
  
  
• Enhanced Playlist Duplicates Handling
  In previous releases, deleting a track from a playlist would delete all instances of the same track from the playlist, instead of just the one instance that was selected. In this release, only the selected tracks are deleted. We've also added a new function to automatically detect and remove duplicate entries from a playlist. You can access it by right-clicking on a playlist.
  
  
• Tracks can now be deleted off the player from the "Playlist Index".
• When user attempts to use drag and drop to transfer a large amount of files back to the PC, Anapod now intercepts the operation and uses the "Copy to Computer" mechanism instead, which is more efficient.

Bug Fixes:

• Fix for Intermittent Crashes under Windows XP Service Pack 2
  Some users reported seemingly random or intermittent crashes of the Manager module after installing Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. These crashes should no longer occur with this release.
  
  
• Transfer dialog now shows the correct device icon when transferring data files and transfer back to the PC.
• Fixed installer bug where Manager would launch with its working directory set to a temporary folder instead of the final install folder. This bug prevented the redchair_installer temporary folder from being deleted if the user wanted to.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a crash when trying to read the tags of some corrupt MP3 files.

New Features:

• Support for New 4th Generation iPods
  Anapod Explorer now fully supports the newly introduced 4th Generation iPods with the click wheel design. All capacities, including the currently available 20GB and 40GB versions, are supported.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Further stability improvements to the TrueStream and Xtreamer streaming mechanisms.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Windows XP Service Pack 2 Compatibility
  Anapod has been tested with the latest beta release of the upcoming Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Microsoft Windows XP. If you encounter any problems after installing SP2, please contact technical support and let us know!
  
  
• Work-Around for Bug in iPod's On-The-Go Playlist Feature
  Some users have reported that with 3G iPods running 2.x firmware, connecting to the PC and accessing the iPod using any software (including Anapod or iTunes), wipes out the contents of On-The-Go Playlist the next time the iPod is undocked. This problem does not appear to affect iPod mini's running firmware 1.0. We have implemented a work-around in this release so that Anapod should no longer affect your On-The-Go Playlist. However, our fix in Anapod does not fix the problem with iTunes or any other software. In our testing, iTunes 4.6 still wipes out the On-The-Go Playlist.
  
  
• Improved Xtreamer Performance
  In previous releases, streaming playback could hang at the end of a track on some systems, requiring the Manager or the computer to be restarted. This release features an improved streaming mechanism that should resolve this problem. Also fixed a bug where Xtreamer could use an unnecessary amount of temp space in certain circumstances.
  
  
• Enhanced Play Count Support
  You can now reset the Play Count on selected tracks back to zero. Use the 'Reset Count' button in the track Properties dialog.
  
  
• Fixed problem with Explorer running at High priority instead of Normal when launched from the systray icon.
  
  
• Increased streaming limit to five tracks in trial edition.
• Removed unnecessary warning message about Winamp integration when changing TrueStream options.
• Minor installer improvements.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• New, Fully Integrated File Type Exclusion
  The file format exclusion options for transfers have been improved to allow the exclusion of all file formats supported by the player, not just the limited options available in previous releases. These are the options available in the Transfers section of the Options dialog. The new options are also properly integrated with AudioMorph and SpeedSync as well as normal transfers from the PC.
  
  
• Improved Tag Writeback Robustness
  In previous releases, tag writeback for transfers back to the PC could hang on some files with invalid or corrupt tags. The tag writeback facility has been improved to more gracefully handle such files and avoid hangs during transfers. If you still run into files with tags that cause problems, let us know, we may want to take a look at the file.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Major Connect/Disconnect Speedup
  In the last release, we introduced some file validation checks during connect and disconnect from the iPod to ensure database integrity. Some users found that these checks slowed their connect and disconnect times down by a significant amount, especially on heavily loaded iPods. In this release, we have improved the efficiency of the checks so that conenct and disconnect speed should improve back to 8.5.4 levels, and in most cases, even faster.
  
  
• iTunes Sound Check Compatibility
  Anapod now properly preserves the "Sound Check" volume leveling information set by iTunes.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fix for Missing Tracks on Windows 98 and Windows ME
  The previous release, 8.5.4, introduced a bug on Win98 and WinME platforms which would cause Anapod to not recognize tracks on your player after connection, transfer, or recovery. This bug has been fixed. To recover files that you know are on your iPod but do not appear in Anapod or iPod menus, use the 'Recover Missing Tracks' utility under 'Anapod Manager Options' in the systray icon's menu.
  
  
• Fix for Duplicate Transfer Deletion Bug
  In previous releases, attempting to transfer a track that already exists on the player could cause the existing copy on the player to be deleted. You could also see this deletion occur when transferring a playlist file in order to construct a playlist using tracks already on the player. This bug has been fixed.

New Features:

• Compatibility with iPod Software 2.2, iTunes 4.5, and Apple Lossless Encoder Format
  Just some minor adjustments to ensure full compatibility with the latest wave of updates from Apple. The previous release was already largely compatible with these changes.
  
  
• Major Enhancements to SpeedSync
  The SpeedSync feature has received a major overhaul. First, the tag cache is now based on a new mechanism that should improve scalability and stability, especially for users with large sync sets. Scanning for new or modified files in the sync set has been sped up by 10x. The SpeedSync dialog also features new, improved feedback indicators for the user to monitor progress of the sync comparison. More appropriate device icons are also displayed to match your specific player. Long pathnames displayed in the results tabs have also been compressed to improve readability. Finally, SpeedSync now performs the same automatic tag filling as the transfer mechanism does, so that files with missing tag fields are no longer sync'ed over and over again.
  
  
• Tag Writeback on Transfer to PC
  As you may or may not know, tag edits you make on board your player are made to a separate tag database and are not written to the files themselves on board the player. This new feature takes the changes you've made to the database and writes them back to the actual music files themselves when you transfer them back to the PC. This should also improve the behavior of SpeedSync, so that it no longer repeatedly syncs tracks whose tags you've edited on board the player. This writeback feature currently supports MP3 files. Tag writeback for other formats will come in future releases. This option is enabled by default. You can disable it using a checkbox in the "Tag Handling" section of the Options dialog.
  
  
• Albums by this Artist from Amazon.com
  This new feature enhances your music-listening experience by helping you find albums you might not know about by artists you enjoy. Right-click on any track on your player and select "Albums by this Artist". This will bring up a dialog that lists all released albums by the artist you clicked on. Albums you already have in your collection are denoted with a special icon, allowing you to browse and explore other albums by that artist that you don't have yet. Double-click on any album for more details, track list, commentary, and song samples, courtesy of Amazon.com.
  
  
• Improved Connect and Disconnect/Save Speed
  We have sped up the process of file validation during connection and disconnection/saving.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed bug where WMA file could be transferred as music to the iPod when AudioMorph is not on.
• Fixed bug in Search feature where after deleting files in the search results, the display would show bogus track listings.
• When transferring files to iPod the read-only flag (if set on original file) is no longer inherited by the copy on the iPod. This prevents problems with editing tags of files on the iPod when transferring from read-only sources like CD's.
• A more appropriate device icon is now displayed in the transfer dialog.
• Anapod now uses the system-wide Windows setting for default web browser for all web browsing tasks. You no longer need to specify a browser in the Anapod Options dialog. This setting is used for browsing Xtreamer, accessing online help, and other tasks.
• In previous releases, transferring tracks with one or more blank tag fields could create folder names containing only spaces. This would happen if your filename generation template specified folder structure using a tag field whose value for a track was blank or only spaces. In this case, the folder would be properly created and the transfer would proceed, but folders with only spaces in their names cannot be deleted in Windows Explorer. You can only delete them from the DOS prompt. Anapod has been modified so that "Unknown" is substituted when a blank field is detected, so no non-deletable folders will be created.
• Added Manager detection for when Anapod is not installed properly in a Windows user account. User is notified.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved Compatibility with iTunes and SmartPlaylists
  In previous releases, using Anapod to delete tracks from your iPod that were members of SmartPlaylists could have made your iPod inaccessible from iTunes. In this situation, the iPod icon would briefly appear and then disappear in iTunes' 'Source' box. This problem should now be solved so that deleting iPod tracks that are members of SmartPlaylists will not affect compatibility with iTunes.
  
  
• Streaming Improvements for Windows Media Player
  In previous releases, some users had difficulties streaming from Anapod to WMP9. Users would see WMP9 attempting to connect to the stream by ultimately time-out. We have made some improvements to the streaming mechanism which should resolve this problem for the users who experienced it.
  
  
• Fixed Simple Search Mode in Xtreamer
  The behavior of Simple Search mode in Xtreamer was inadvertently changed during the last round of SQL Engine improvements. The original behavior was to match substrings. The last round of SQL Engine improvements changed its behavior to strict string matching. The behavior has been restored to substring matching. The other modes and types of search were not affected.
  
  
• Fixed Data File Exclusion Bug
  We've fixed a bug where when the 'Skip Data Files' option is selected, audio formats such as M4A, M4P, M4B, MP4, Audible, Ogg and FLAC would also be mistakenly skipped.
  
  
• Fix for Play Counts and Ratings in MorphLists
  Fixed a bug in the previous release where MorphList fields set to Play Counts or Ratings would be reset to Artists after opening and closing the list.
  
  
• Outlook Synchronization Fix
  In previously releases, some users might have seen the Contacts synchronization with Outlook skip the first contact. This has been fixed so that all contacts are synchronized.
  
  
• Improved Handling of iTunes Music Store Files
  This release improves compatibility when using Anapod to transfer iTunes Music Store tracks and audiobooks. It also warns the user when the iPod needs to be "initialized" by iTunes for use with protected Music Store tracks.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Dramatic Navigation Speed Improvements
  We have removed several bottlenecks to improve responsiveness when navigating to large folders like "Audio Tracks" or large playlists. In most cases, you should see up to a 40x speedup. This will be especially noticeable on iPods with more than a thousand tracks loaded.
  
  
• Major Transfer Speed Improvements
  In previous releases, Anapod transfer speed to a moderately to fully loaded iPod could be sub-optimal after accessing the iPod using iTunes. This has been fixed and users should now see the same fast transfer speed regardless of how full the iPod is, and whether or not iTunes has been used. Users may see up to a 400% speed increase.
  
  
• Play Counts Fix
  This release fixes a bug in play counts handling. In previous releases, Anapod would only report the number of plays that occured during the last session of detached iPod usage. In this release, Anapod will now properly accumulate the number of plays over time across iPod usage sessions.
  
  
• The progress reported by the "Recover Missing Tracks" maintenance utility has been significantly improved, allowing you to track progress file by file during the recovery.
• Some users may have seen a problem during long transfers where Anapod reports it cannot save changes to the database. This problem should now be resolved and long transfers should proceed uninterrupted.
• The feedback and responsiveness of the "Connecting..." and "Disconnecting..."/"Saving..." progress dialogs down by the systray have been greatly improved.

New Features:

• MorphLists Now Support Ratings and Play Counts
  Our MorphList feature now supports creating dynamic playlists using ratings and play counts in addition to the existing fields available in previous releases.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fix for Transfer and AudioMorph Crash in 'lameacm.acm'
  Some users have reported crashes at the very beginning of transfers to the player, and when clicking 'AudioMorph' in the Options dialog. Clicking on "more info" in the Windows crash dialog indicates that the crash is occuring in a file named 'lameacm.acm'. This file is not part of Anapod and was installed by some other software on your system. It appears that many users have an old alpha release of this file that is unstable and buggy. While Anapod does not actually use this file, it crashes when Anapod tries to scan for encoders installed on your system. This release should skip over this file to avoid the crashes. Please let us know if you still get these 'lameacm.acm' crashes after upgrading to this release.
  
  
• Fixed Size Display Error on Some Systems
  Users with certain Windows 'Regional and Languange Options' settings may have seen a bug in previous releases where file and capacity sizes were displayed improperly. Specifically, the last digit of numbers greater than 999 would have their last digit cut off. For example, a file with size 7,255 KB would be displayed as 7,25 KB. This release fixes this bug. Please note that this was a display bug only and sizes were still correctly calculated internally in previous releases.
  
  
• Fix for Continuous Streaming Playback
  Release 8.5.0 introduced a bug where when streaming to apps such as Winamp or Windows Media Player, playback would stop after each song, requiring the user to manually click the 'Next Track' button in the player. This bug should now be fixed so that the next track plays automatically after the previous track is complete.
  
  
• Fixed AudioMorph logging so that it does not report MP3-style bitrates when transcoding to WAV format.
• Improved WMA library resource handling on long transfers.
• Fixed SQL Engine so that 'plid' column now properly contains the playlist id, instead of duplicating the contents of the 'aid' column as it did in previous releases.

New Features:

• Fix for Skipping Tracks
  This release fixes a bug in 8.4.2 where some tracks transferred would play for only a second on the iPod, or play at an unusual volume. If you encounted this problem, simply load this 8.4.3 release and connect to your iPod with Anapod and then disconnect, and the affected tracks will be "repaired" so that they play normally again.
  
  
• Improved Microsoft Outlook 2003 Synchronization Compatibility
  In previous releases, Anapod's contact synchronization could halt prematurely for users with distribution lists set up in their Outlook contact folders. This release, 8.4.3, fixes this problem so contact folders with distribution lists in them are properly synchronized.
  
  
• Fix for Toolbar Conflicts
  Other programs which improperly manipulate the toolbar can cause the wrong toolbar images to be displayed in Explorer windows, including Anapod windows. We've added the ability for Anapod to automatically repair the toolbar if it has been corrupted by other applications.

New Features:

• iPod mini Support
  Anapod Explorer now fully supports the new iPod mini devices. Anapod is compatible with all 4 colors. :-)
  
  
• Navigation and Usability Improvements
  The Playlists, Contacts, and Notes folders now include new shortcuts for commonly performed tasks. Anapod also now remembers the column widths you set in each folder, and you can reset column widths to their default by right-clicking on the column headers. Changes in the Spreadsheet view and full row selection options now take effect immediately and do not require you to navigate out of and back into a folder. Finally, the name of the currently selected track is now displayed in the status bar, which is useful when you are scrolled over to the right to see extended attribute columns.
  
  
• Composer Tag Field Support
  Anapod now properly preserves Composer field information set for tracks on the iPod. Anapod can also now read the Composer field from MP3, M4A, and M4P files when transferring them to the iPod so that they are properly sorted by Composer on the iPod itself. A new Composer column has been added to the main track display in Anapod. A folder view by Composer and the ability to edit the Composer field will be added in the next release.
  
  
• Extended Attributes Support
  Anapod now properly preserves extended track attributes including Compilation, Total Tracks in album, Volume Adjustment, Play Start and Stop times, Play count, Last Play Time, Disc Number, Total Discs in set, Added Time, Modified Time, (star) Rating, and BPM tempo. The main track view in Anapod now includes columns for BPM, Rating, Play Count, Last Played Time, Added Time, and Modified Time. The ability to edit all of these fields will be added in the next release.
  
  
• Enhanced M4A Tag Compatibility and MP4 Support
  This release supports M4A/AAC file tags generated by encoders other than iTunes, such as Nero and many others. Anapod also gives you the ability to directly transfer MP4 files without having to rename them to M4A first. We've also fixed a bug in reading tags from M4A files larger than 10MB.
  
  
• AnapodSQL and MorphList Improvements
  We have enhanced the AnapodSQL engine which provides search, reporting, and MorphList capabilities. Equals (=) and Not Equals (!=) now mean "exactly equals" and "does not exactly equal". They no longer do substring matching as in previous versions. Instead, you can now use the Contains (?) and Does Not Contain (#) operators for substring matching. String comparisons are still case-insensitive. This means that the "equals", "does not equal", "contains", and "does not contain" options in the MorphList editor now work properly. These enhancements require a new version of the SmallParser.dll file, which will be automatically installed. Please verify that the file installed in your Shared folder has version 1.0.2.
  
  
• Improved PDA Functions
  We've improved compatibility with Outlook 2003, added new icons for the Contacts and Notes folders, and added the ability to edit a contact or note by simply double-clicking on it in the right pane.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Streaming Playback Fixes
  In previous releases, certain applications without version information (like Foobar2000) would not appear in the TrueStream application selection box. We've added a work-around and such applications should now be selectable for streaming playback. We've also worked around a bug in RealPlayer 10 that caused playback to cut out after 2 seconds. Finally, streamed titles should no longer contain unsightly URL-encodings such as %20.
  
  
• Fixed bug preventing the Eject iPod command from working on 1st and 2nd generation iPods.
• Fixed some compatibility issues with Win98SE and WinME.
• iTunes should no longer try to resync every file on the iPod after using Anapod.
• Fixed bug where right-clicking on the Anapod Explorer window causes an error when Anapod Manager is not running.
• Fixed display typo where Playlist tab of the ATM dialog refers to Notmad.

New Features:

• Major Transfer Speed Improvements
  We have made some very signficant speed improvements to Anapod's transfer functions. When connected via Firewire or USB2.0, you should see throughput increases of 30%-60% for transfers to the iPod, and increases of 100%-400% for transfers from the iPod back to the PC. Anapod Explorer should now come very close to the maximum speed capability of your Firewire/USB and iPod hardware.
  
  
• Seekable Streaming
  In this release, Explorer and Xtreamer streaming playback is seekable. This means that when streaming to playback software that supports stream seeking, you can fast forward, rewind, and jump around in a track. Stream seeking is supported in Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes and other playback applications.
  
  
• Full Row Selection Option
  There is a new option to control whether the full row is highlighted when selecting an item in the right pane of Explorer. Although many people find the full row highlighting aesthetically pleasing, it also makes it more difficult to bring up the context menu for a folder by clicking in a blank area of the right pane. So now there is an option so you can choose which behavior you'd like.
  
  
• Outlook Contact Synchronization Logging
  When synchronizing your iPod to and Outlook Contacts folder, Anapod now generates a log of the synchronization activity. Access this log in the context menu of the top-level Contacts folder in Anapod. You can use this log to help diagnose any problems you might have with Outlook synchronization. Contacts and Notes folders are also automatically created now if they do not exist on the iPod.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Fixed ejection bug where Anapod Manager would try to eject drive Z: instead of the iPod drive if the user had not connected to the iPod at least once.
  
  
• Fixed time elapsed and time remaining counters in the main transfer dialog.
• Fixed calculation of used space on the iPod when transferring new files.
• Fixed bug during transfers where tag titles were being set to the filename even when tag was complete.
• Fixed Last Transfer folder so it contains the correct tracks when using Alternate Transfer mode.
  
  
• Removed unnecessary URL-encoding characters in filenames when streaming and downloading.
• Explorer now gives an error message when you try to stream locked tracks, instead of failing silently.
  
  
• Removed non-functional "Jukebox" items from context menu for audio tracks.

New Features:

• Quick Navigation Buttons
  We've added buttons to the Explorer toolbar that act as shortcuts to the most commonly used folders. This should make it easier to navigate quickly when your left pane tree is heavily expanded.
  
  
• User-Selectable Double-Click Actions
  In the General options of the configuration dialog, you can now select the action to be performed when double-clicking on audio tracks in the right pane. Configure a double-click to edit a tag or queue or play a track.
  
  
• Custom TrueStream Application Registration
  In previous releases, the applications you could select for TrueStream and Xtreamer playback only those that had properly registered themselves with Windows. In this release, you can now choose any application and register it with Windows automatically so it can be selected for TrueStream and Xtreamer.
  
  
• Contact Synchronization with Outlook
  Anapod's contact synchronization has now been verified for use with Outlook 2002 and 2003. We've also fixed a bug where the Home Address fields were being populated with data from the Business Address. There is also a new option to select the specific Outlook folder with which to synchronize instead of using the default folder.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Display and Appearance
  • 32-bit icons are now properly displayed in the right pane under Windows XP. In previous releases, icons were scaled to 256 colors and shadows were rendered as flat black.
  • Fixed list sorting in the right pane so that [ All: Artist ] meta folders now sort at the top even when that artist's album names start with a number or non-alphanumeric character.
  • Improved the appearance of all configuration dialogs.
  • Removed solid black line around the left pane tree in the Manager Options dialog.
  • Fixed systray icon display so they appear in the right order on Windows XP systems.
  
  
• TrueStream and Xtreamer Playback
  • Fixed potential crash when clicking on the TrueStream options item in the configuration dialog.
  • Fixed bug that causes streaming playback to fail if the user modifies the "Transfer to PC" filename generation template to create folder structure.
  • Fixed problem where the TrueStream application selection drop-down box would display garbage characters for the "Default" entry on certain systems.
  • Fixed Xtreamer bug where files with tags containing illegal filename characters would download in IE with random 7-character filenames, instead of proper filenames generated from the tag.
  • Fixed Xtreamer navigation of artist, album, and genre folders where the name contains a double quotation mark.
  • Fixed MIME types served by Xtreamer for WMA, WAV, and Ogg Vorbis files.
  
  
• Playlist Editing
  • Hitting the 'Delete' key on a playlist item now only removes it from the playlist, instead of remove it and deleting the track, which was the behavior in previous releases.
  • You no longer need to hold down the 'Shift' key to reorder tracks in a playlist.
  • Improved the visual feedback during playlist reordering so it is easier to see where the dragged track will be inserted.
  
  
• Transfers and Tag Handling
  • Fixed bug where transfers could hang following a fresh reformat of the iPod.
  • Dramatically sped up "File List Build" process when transferring a large number of files.
  • Sped up Advanced Transfer Management tag reading phase by 10%.
  • When a file has no tag or no title, the tag fill dialog auto-fills the title field with the filename. This should be helpful for WAV files.
  
  
• SpeedSync
  • Fixed bug where small squares appeared at the end of each filename listed in the "Transfer Back to PC" list.
  • SpeedSync now checks to make sure a PC target folder is selected before proceeding.
  • Improved tag caching speed by 10%.
  
  
• AudioMorph
  • Fixed bug where the VBR quality setting for LAME transcoding would max out at 9 out of 100.

New Features:

• iPod Ejection
  The right-click menu for Anapod Manager in the systray now features a new command, "Eject iPod". After disconnecting from Anapod, this new command unmounts your iPod so that it displays the "checkmark" graphic, which indicates that you can safely unplug or undock it. This should be much more convenient than Windows' multi-step "Safely Remove Hardware" process.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Audible.com Compatibility Fix
  In previous releases, accessing your iPod using Anapod would render Audible.com files unplayable on the iPod. We have fixed this problem so that Audible files loaded to your iPod using AudibleManager or iTunes remain playable when using Anapod Explorer. Please note that you do still need to use AudibleManager or iTunes to load your files to the iPod first.
  
  
• AudioMorph Fixes
  A number of fixes have been made in the AudioMorph framework. First, Ogg files transcoded to MP3 will now properly transfer as a playable track. Second, the file size and bitrate displayed in the track listing should now properly reflect the characteristics of the transcoded file rather than the original source file.
  
  
• TrueStream and Xtreamer Fixes
  Removed blank lines from M3U files generated by TrueStream and Xtreamer in order to preserve compatibility with RealPlayer 10 and other M3U playback implementations. Also fixed TrueStream and Xtreamer so they can properly stream tracks with # symbols in their tags.
  
  
• When auto-generating playlists to match your folder structure on the PC, dashes "-" are now used instead of backslashes "\" to delimit each part of the playlist name. This way, such playlists can be transferred back to the PC without error.
• Added new option to Anapod Manager Options to disable the progress window that appears when connecting and disconnecting. Try enabling this option if Anapod Manager hangs after 2 or 3 progress bars while connecting.

New Features:

• Improved TrueStream
  This release features much improved TrueStream support, which is the feature that allows you to play tracks on your MP3 player back on the PC. You can now select any playback application installed on your PC that can handle the standard M3U playlist format. This release fixes an XP bug where not all applications were listed, and also an 98/ME bug potentially causing a crash when listing applications or right-clicking on an audio track to play it.
  
  
• Winamp 5 Support
  We've verified TrueStream and Xtreamer playback with the new Winamp 5.
  
  
• RealPlayer 10 Support
  We've made a change in way our streaming M3U playlist files are generated in order to work around a bug in the new RealPlayer 10. TrueStream and Xtreamer in this release should work properly despite this RealPlayer bug. Thanks to user RDH for pointing this out.
  
  
• Reduced Installer Size
  Thanks to a new installer system, we've shrunken our installers by 35% to an average size of 800KB, despite adding more features. How do we pack all these features into just 800KB when other software is tens of megabytes? :-)

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• AudioMorph Fixes
  Fixed a bug in the last release where AudioMorph could not be enabled in the Config dialog even if the components were properly installed. Also fixed a bug where AudioMorph'ed files transferred to the player would display the original bitrate on-board, even though the file had been successfully shrunken. The correct bitrate and size are now displayed on board the player.
  
  
• Fixed some bugs that could potentially cause the "Connecting..." and "Disconnecting..." progress windows down by the systray to freeze.
• Fixed a bug in the last release that could cause the connection process to the iPod to take longer than necessary.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Improved and simplified method for choosing playback software for TrueStream and Xtreamer playback. You can now select any playback software installed on your computer, provided it supports M3U playlists and HTTP streaming.
• Fixed bug where Anapod may, from time to time, erroneously report that another program has accessed the iPod.
• Relocated AudioMorph components to improve cross-product compatibility. You may need to go back to the AudioMorph components page and reinstall the plugins to ensure proper operation.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Anapod Explorer now detects if another iPod program makes changes to the iPod while Anapod is still connected. When this happens, in order to avoid corruption, Anapod discards any of its own unsaved pending changes (which should normally be minimal or none) and automatically disconnects.
• Fixed bug where removing track from playlist does not remove track, and generates a new playlist with a garbage name. Playlist track removal should now work properly.
• Fixed bug limiting MorphLists to 100MB of music. Limit options should work properly now.
• Fixed bug where "Edit MorphList" option doesn't always appear in context menu.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Alternate Transfer Mode
  Anapod now includes an alternate transfer mode that may help users who notice that the default mode has lower performance or stability. Users who are not experiencing any transfer issues should stay in default mode. To enable this new alternate mode, go into the Anapod Manager Options dialog, and you'll find the option on on the iPod page.
  
  
• Various help links within the program have been fixed to point at the right website support pages.
• Anapod now correctly handles the situation where a freshly formatted iPod does not have its directory structure setup yet. Previous releases were not able to save changes to such an iPod, reporting a 0x17 error.

New Features:

• MorphList Dynamic Playlists
  MorphLists are dynamic playlists generated and regenerated automatically by Anapod. You just specify a few simply criteria, including how long you want the MorphList to play, and Anapod takes care of the rest, serving you up fresh tracks for your listening pleasure.
  
  
• PDA Features Support
  Anapod Explorer now supports the PDA functions available on the iPod. This release includes full support for the Contacts and Notes features. Contacts can even be synchronized with Microsoft Outlook. Upcoming releases will add support for Calendars, and syncing Notes with online news sources and Microsot Outlook notes.

Xtreamer and HyperStream Enhancements

• Xtreamer can now stream and download WAV, AAC, and iTunes Music Store music and audiobook files.
• HyperStream can now also stream these file formats.
• Fixed the HyperStream function within Anapod Explorer so that it appends new entries to the queue of your playback software instead of replacing the entire existing queue, if you have the Windows filetype handling set to use enqueue instead of play.

Transfer Fixes

• Fixed track bitrate and length calculation for MP3 files with ID3v2 tags and/or embedded album art. The previous release would miscalculate for some MP3 files.
• Fixed the display of playlist names and item counts in the Advanced Transfer Management "Prepare for Transfer" dialog. In previous versions, playlists names would show as paths, and all counts would be 1.
• Fixed bug where transfer dialog asks to automatically create playlists even when there are none to be created.
• Transfer dialog now shows file type extensions on filenames displayed in the progress.

Display and Navigation Fixes

• Fixed some potential crashes when accessing the Device Information folder.

iTunes/iTunes Music Store Compatibility

• Full Support for AAC and iTunes Music Store Downloads
  Anapod Explorer can now transfer to and from your iPod the following filetypes: iTunes-encoded AAC files (M4A), iTunes Music Store music tracks (M4P), and iTunes Music Store audiobooks (M4B). Anapod fully supports reading the tag information embedded in these filetypes. To transfer any of these filetypes from your PC, simply drag and drop to the Anapod window or use copy and paste or the Send To menu. AAC and iTunes Music Store files on your iPod are displayed using unique icons in Anapod to help you visually distinguish them from MP3 files in track listings.
  
  (In case you are wondering, these features do not circumvent the iTunes Music Store copy protection scheme in any way. Your computer must still be activated through an iTunes Music Store account in order to play back tracks purchased from the Store.)
  
  
• iTunes Smart Playlist Compatibility
  Previous releases of Anapod Explorer would strip the names from Smart Playlists created in iTunes and not save them properly back to the iPod. Anapod now properly preserves Smart Playlists stored on your iPod.
  
  
• Track year handling has been fixed so the information is properly stored on the iPod and is compatible with iTunes' year handling.

Multi-Application Compatibility and Maintenance Utilities

• We recognize that iPod owners may have used a number of different applications to manage their iPods in the past, and may continue to use multiple applications now for different purposes. Not all applications properly manage the iPod database. We have designed Anapod Explorer be able to co-exist with other iPod applications and also to detect and repair errors and inconsistencies created by other software. Here are some of the relevant changes we have made:
  
  
• Automatic Filetype Detection and Repair
  Files loaded on the iPod using other software like MusicMatch may not have their filetype information encoded properly, and therefore could have been displayed in previous Anapod versions as .aa files. This release of Anapod automatically detects files which have incomplete type information and repairs the iPod database.
  
  
• Missing Tracks Recovery
  If you inadvertently have multiple iPod applications open at once, one application may overwrite changes made by the other, sometimes causing some or all of your tracks to "disappear" from your iPod. While the files are still physically stored on the iPod, they are not visible in software or do not appear on the iPod's browse menus. Anapod's new "Recover Missing Tracks" function can discover these "missing" files and restore them to your iPod's database so they are accessible again. This function can be found under Anapod Manager Options in the systray icon context menu.
  
  
• Mislabeled Tracks Repair
  Again, if you inadvertently had multiple iPod applications open at once, some of your iPod tracks could become mislabeled, meaning that when you play back such a track, the audio that plays is from a different song than what is indicated by the track details. Anapod's new "Fix Mislabeled Tracks" function can detect these "mislabeled" files and restore the correct tag information that matches the actual audio in the file. This function can be found under Anapod Manager Options in the systray icon context menu.
  
  
• Enhanced Auto-Save
  The efficiency of Anapod's auto-save function has been drastically improved. This reduces the possibility that your iPod's contents would be affected in the first place if you inadvertently have multiple iPod applications open at once.
  
  
• We have also fixed a bug in the way Anapod co-exists with iTunes. In previous versions, if you loaded your iPod using Anapod, then opened iTunes, then loaded more songs using Anapod, some tracks might end up with the wrong tag information. When this happens, you select a track to play on your iPod but audio from a different song is played. This bug would occur even if you did not have iTunes and Anapod open at the same time. This new release should fix the problem so it does not happen in the future, and you can use the "Fix Mislabeled Tracks" function to repair files to which it has already occurred.

Other Improvements

• Tag reading speed for MP3 files has been improved.
• Extraneous whitespace is now automatically trimmed from tag fields.
• Files now appear in sorted order in the Advanced Transfer Management tag review window.
• Fixed the Help link button on the Tag Handling options page to point to the right help page.

• Fixed bug where under certain circumstances, files that appear to be properly transferred to the iPod using Anapod do not appear in the Anapod track listing and do not appear on the iPod once disconnected. See below for changes made in release 8.3.0.

• General Enhancements
  
  • When transferring files to the iPod, Anapod Explorer now distributes the files evenly over the iPod's disk drive in order to minimize playback delay on the iPod.
  • There is a new option under Anapod Manager Options to have Anapod save changes immediately after they are performed instead of having changes saved only when you disconnect the iPod.
  
  
  
• Fixes for Playlist Handling
  The following fixes relate to Anapod Explorer's handling of playlists.
  • Fixed bug where when selecting tracks to add to a new playlist, the new playlist is created by the tracks are added to the last playlist on the iPod instead of the newly created playlist.
  • Fixed bug where tracks could not be removed from existing playlists.
  • Fixed transfer dialog so it no longer asks to automatically create playlists when there are actually none to be made.
  
  
  
• Fixes for Virgin iPod Handling
  The following fixes relate to the handling of iPods that have just been freshly re-initialized using the Restore function in Apple's Update Utility.
  • Fixed bug where the first playlist created after restoring an iPod is hidden and inaccessible.
  • Fixed bug where Anapod displays an error message that no iPods are connected when in fact there is an iPod connected, but it has just been re-initialized.
  • Fixed bug where Anapod cannot save changes to the iPod after it has just been re-initialized.
  
  
  
• Other Fixes
  
  • Fixed 'Runtime Error' that can appear when disconnecting the iPod without having first closed all Anapod Explorer windows.
  • Fixed bug where changes to Artist, Album, or Genre names are not displayed in Anapod, even though they are properly saved to the iPod and appear once you reconnect. The changes are now reflected immediately.

• Fix for potential hang in Anapod transfers immediately following completion of the last file, but before Anapod begins its automatic playlist creation feature. This hang would cause 100% CPU utilization and require killing the process in Windows Task Manager. The situation in which this hang arises should now be eliminated in release 8.2.9a.

• Portable Playlist Backups
  Anapod can now create backups of the playlists on your iPod. The .rpb backup files are extremely compact (less than 25KB for a 1,000 item playlist). You can use these backup files to restore and reconstruct your playlists if they are accidentally changed or deleted. The backups are also portable so you could, for example, send them to friends so they can reconstruct the playlists on their iPods (assuming they have the same songs already). The backup format is device independent, meaning a backup generated from an iPod can be restored to any other device supported by Red Chair Software, such as Nomad Jukeboxes.
  
  
• iPod Firmware 2.1 Support
  This release of Anapod is compatible with the 2.1 iPod firmware released by Apple yesterday.
  
  
• SpeedSync Improvements
  Previous Anapod releases could only synchronize with PC music collections with up to about 6500 tracks. This limitation has been fixed.
  
  
• Playlist Handling Fixes
  Previous Anapod releases saved playlists back to the iPod in the order they were created, not alphabetical order. This release now stores them so they appear in alphabetical order on the iPod. We've also fixed a bug where deleting a large number of playlists at once would not reliably delete all of them. And finally we've fixed a bug in the way playlists are automatically generated after file transfers.
  
  
• Improved Audible Support
  This release recognizes Audible files stored on your iPod and displays them correctly. Anapod can also transfer Audible files back to your PC. Please note that this release does not yet support the transfer of Audible files *to* the iPod.
  
  
• Anapod can now detect iPods that are assigned drive letter C: by Windows. Previous versions would only recognize iPods assigned letters D: through Z:.
• Fixed Anapod Xtreamer streaming playback of compilation albums.
• Fixed bug in Trial Edition installer where it would not create the StartMenu group and shortcuts.

• Full version installer has new option to create StartMenu group or not.
• Removed Q links on the Xtreamer search page. Queuing is not supported by the iPod.
• Fixed crash that can occur when closing Anapod Manager.

• MBCS Support (International Characters)
  Anapod now properly saves MBCS data to the iPod. This is necessary to properly display characters in non-English languages. This means you should be able to properly transfer files with MBCS files and tags, display MBCS content on the iPod, and properly save and load MBCS data to and from the iPod.
  
  
• Improved M4A/AAC Support
  This release recognizes M4A/AAC files stored on your iPod and displays them correctly. Anapod can also transfer M4A/AAC files back to your PC. Please note that this release does not yet support the transfer of M4A/AAC files *to* the iPod.
  
  
• Fixed a bug where Anapod could not delete files on your iPod that have been write-protected. This bug could cause transfers after deletions to hang in previous releases.
• Fixed list view display corruption that can occur when resizing columns.
• Removed some remaining references to Notmad in connection messages.

• This release fixes a bug in the way Anapod writes the music database back to the iPod. The iPod is finicky about the database format, and in previous releases if you deleted and transferred files in Anapod in a certain order, the iPod could stop recognizing some or all of your music tracks and playlists. The problem should now be fixed in 8.2.6. Several users who ran into this issue have confirmed that it seems to be resolved by this release. Apologies for any inconvenience or frustration this may have caused. We advise all Anapod users to update to 8.2.6.

• First public release of Anapod Explorer. Enjoy!

• New behavior for systray icon. In previous releases, icon would not be visible unless iPod was plugged in and detected, which was confusing some people. The systray icon is now always visible to make it easier to connect and set options.
• Further fixes to eliminate the appearance of the the error message "Some device information on your iPod has been altered...".
  
  
• New option to always save changes when disconnecting (so you don't have to click on 'Yes'). See Anapod Manager Options in the systray.
• New option to leave iPod mounted in Windows after disconnecting (instead of auto-unmounting). See Anapod Manager Options in the systray.
  
  
• Anapod now properly reads, displays, and saves filetypes for both MP3 and WAV.
• Fixed transfer so that WAV files transferred to iPod will properly playback on the device.
• Removed option for transcoding WAV files to WMA (since the iPod doesn't support WMA) anyway.
  
  
• Fixed HyperStreaming, which was using the wrong port number to stream in previous releases.
• Removed 'Play on Jukebox' and 'Queue on Jukebox' items from the context menus since they aren't applicable.
  
  
• New 'Spreadsheet View' mode. See 'General' tab in Anapod's options dialog.
• Added watermark to top level and Device Information folders.
• Removed 'Data Files' folder from left pane, which didn't work. You can access the data folder by double-clicking on the icon in the right pane.

• Added saftey code so that if Anapod runs into a problem saving the database back to the iPod, it should abort and leave the original good database on the iPod.
• Added diagnostics to report to the user why the database save failed. If you get this error message during the Disconnect/Save process, please report the error code and message back to us so we can pinpoint the problem.

• Changes that should fix the problem for people who cannot connect and keep getting the error message "Some device information on your iPod has been altered..."
• Enabled transfer support for WAV files.
• Fixed and enabled AudioMorph support for MP3, WAV, and OGG. You'll need to redownload and reinstall your AudioMorph components.

• Initial release of Anapod Explorer.