So, people, if you do make something that puts images on iPods in great, great quantities, then make sure you do it foolproof. Today, we can really virtually checksum files without computing cost to check their integrity. Hell, anyone who can make a shell script can verify if a copy operation succeeded by checking file size and attributes. Apparently, the iTunes team didn’t really deem this necessary (although you have full permission to flame me if you classdumped iTunes and found contrary evidence). The image above shows a, well, slightly recurring problem that can happen with the Photo sync of iTunes. It seems to be quite versed in producing corrupt images or even leaving some data of the old image in place, if the names were alike. I am going to dig deeper into this to see if I can make it reproducible.

I have tested this with GIF’s (which produce non-working images), PNG (native format of Timezones, makes these weird green bands seen above) and JPG’s, who create familiar ‘bolts’ artifacts and some very pretty colors and gradients that you haven’t bargained for. Perhaps, no, really, I might make an app that does this whole Photo syncing instead of iTunes. This is just too bad to be usable.
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