Building an iPod for 2022 | Hacker News Reader

Building an iPod for 2022

ellie.wtf

518 pointshownottowrite149 comments

I've done this a few times, some things to think about if you decide to take the plunge.

1. New backs aren't always made well, often with the mounting posts not lining up as well as they should.

2. New batteries are a crap shoot. Most don't last as long nor are rated as high as advertised. On the 5g and later, you can put in a much larger battery in them, but you need the thicker case.

3. If you mod an iPod mini, use a higher quality sd to compact flash adapter. The cheaper ones, end up having weird issues when transferring files.

4. If Rockbox seems temperamental it's not just you. It can take a bit to work out the issues it has with your iPod, from buggy themes to random crashes.

5. If your music doesn't play right through Rockbox (clipped music) or playing music on rockbox seems to crash device, the issue was the file transfer. To fix, reboot the iPod to the stock Apple Firmware, delete the old files, and then transfer them again. Apple firmware handles file transfers much better than Rockbox.

6. If your iPod hasn't been charged in a long time, it might not come up when first connected to power. Sometimes, leaving the iPod attached to power for a day or two will allow it to get enough charge to get into actual recharge mode. Older models re

> 3. If you mod an iPod mini, use a higher quality sd to compact flash adapter. The cheaper ones, end up having weird issues when transferring files.

Why wouldn't you just use ... compact flash?

Because CompactFlash is one of the most overpriced things in the universe I guess?

I bought a couple for retro (IDE/PATA) laptops and paid ridiculous prices for just 32/64 GiB >_<

I used a PATA->mSATA adapter in my 12" PowerBook, a 120GB mSATA was only $25 or so. But I did overpay for a 64 MB CF card for my 200LX palmtop.

oh, true, large ones have indeed not come down in price as much as I thought, that is an argument.

Cost and local availability.

I can get a name brand 128 Gig micro SD for around $15 locally.

For a name brand compact flash, 128 Gigs is closer to $70.

Local availability because I've been bitten a few times by counterfeit flash storage.

The big thing here is the concept of a device doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

I've been rocking an iPod Video for like 15 years and it is still my go-to music device. All the stereos in my office, house and shop have a 3.5mm cable hanging from them.

I've also been using rockbox so I can play FLAC files. The ipod is on it's 4th battery at this point and I've also upgraded to SD cards from the internal HD about 6 years ago. The screen is not working in a few places now, but the thing keeps working and I'd be very sad if it ever stopped because I'm not sure what would replace it.

Whenever I'm programming and I feel like I've been very productive, it's often the times I'm using this ipod with headphones - instead of a music playing piece of software. Maybe it's because I'm less inclined to open up the software and spend time choosing an album/podcast/etc.

> The big thing here is the concept of a device doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

I don't think so, but it was the first item in the Unix philosophy in 1978.

"Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new "features"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_philosophy

2022’s development philosophy should be “Try to do everything, and do it poorly. If what you’re trying to do already exists, make no effort to learn it and rewrite it into the latest monolith.” ;)

More like "try to use as many moving parts and layers and fragmentation as possible to accomplish a single task, turn the Linux desktop into a distributed system with messaging back and forth, and distributed state that can go wrong".

Yes, I wonder how a systemd-inspired iPod would work. It would surely have multiple webservers, even if it had no network connection.

> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

Zawinski's Law of Software Envelopment is hardly a 2022 notion ;)

Yes! I think the modern version is have a messaging system.

I reckon it's: Do one thing well. Microtransactions.

> The big thing here is the concept of a device doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

Totally! I love single purpose + honest technology. It's not secretly sending my data off somewhere to infer crap information about my life, it's just doing what it says on the tin

> The ipod is on it's 4th battery at this point and I've also upgraded to SD cards from the internal HD about 6 years ago. The screen is not working in a few places now, but the thing keeps working and I'd be very sad if it ever stopped because I'm not sure what would replace it.

The screen isn't that difficult to swap out either! It'll end up like the ship of theseus haha

> doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

Unitasker

Unitastic!

Appliance.

I’m super interested in getting a Free Write Traveller for creative writing but it’s hard to justify the price.

There’s an interesting interview with the Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami where the interviewer was asking why he doesn’t just come to Hollywood, because he wouldn’t have to deal with you know censorship and artistic training wheels or what have you. And Kiarostamisaid that he felt more creative with fewer options and preferred to stay in Iran. He went on to make one movie outside of Iran but I really can relate to what he said. Our phones and computers, really our culture, has been infected with distractions which are pulling us away from what we should be doing towards bad faith actors with junk for sale.

I use the alphasmart neo2. Extremely simple and cheap. Batteries last months and months.

I may end up with a derivative of the FWT one day but for now there’s no need at all.

I actually have an alpha smart neo. For a few months I really liked it which is why I’m considering a free write. Unfortunately, one day the batteries popped out of it and I lost a few weeks of writing, because the memory requires steady power or it wipes clean. I’ve put duct tape on the back of it now to stop that from happening again. But the experience kind of ruined the neo for me.

Does yours not have a battery cover?

Swap the backup battery too, and you won't have data loss! You're welcome! :- )

> Our phones and computers, really our culture, has been infected with distractions which are pulling us away from what we should be doing towards bad faith actors with junk for sale.

It’s like game developers chasing graphic over game mechanics or simplicity.

I’m currently at Disney World and feel like was an executive decision to make all new rides a technical marvel. There aren’t as many rides as there should be (2 hour wait times) and they are broken down half the day.

I don’t feel like Walt Disney or Steve Jobs chased technical achievement at the expense of simplicity and experience.

People are usually surprised when they see me carrying a portable audio player (for music and podcasts) during runs.

Smartphones are too clumsy (not to mention pricey) to be carried in your hand or pocket while running, and phone bands do not complement sweaty arms very well. Plus, I’d rather be unavailable by phone while working out anyway.

A cheap MP3 player with an SD card has served me well for a few years now. So there is definitely something to be said for devices that do one thing well.

Given that the processing power of something like airpods is more than that of original ipods, I wonder how feasible it would be to make a pair of wireless headphones that just play the music loaded onto them, similarly to the 2009 ipod shuffle (the one with no buttons except power). It would be nice to not have to carry anything on a run.

I find that my Apple Watch is a fantastic compromise. It has cellular data to stream music, a built in arm strap and it doubles as my run tracker

Already exist. Samsung made the Gear IconX with 4GB built in. I don't think they make them anymore though. Sony also makes the waterproof in ear Walkman, not airpods style but more traditional wireless headphones.

>Is there a name for that?

Dedicated hardware?

Potentially, "fixed function hardware" although not technically correct when used with programmable digital computers like an iPod.

Almost like a hardware extension of the Single Responsibility Principle

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-responsibility_principl...

> The big thing here is the concept of a device doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

Best of breed? Dedicated hardware? The model that always comes to mind for me is related to audio hardware, specifically with respect to guitar pedals. There are multi-fx pedals out there - one device that has a collection of distortions, overdrives, modulations, reverbs, delays, etc. etc., and for most people it's fine

But as you begin to specialize, you tend to build out a signal chain of dedicated pedals. I don't want the phaser algorithm on my Zoom multiFX pedal, I want a Moog 12-stage Phaser. The 3 echo algorithms on that multiFX get the job done in a pinch, but given the opportunity, I'll use a Deluxe Memory Man for the sound I prefer.

Having had that framework in my head, I've never had to consider the phraseology for that one device, beyond 'dedicated' - in this case, a dedicated pedal. Or dedicated, specialized hardware.

I've started searching for something similar, and it looks like such devices are now referred to as DAPs (digital audio players), and the market is very small, mostly served by devices targeting audiophiles. I'm considering getting a used iPod touch (2019) and then locking it down to just the music player app(s) using parental controls.

> The big thing here is the concept of a device doing ONE thing and doing it well. Is there a name for that?

In Alton Browns world of kitchen gadgets, thats a "unitasker"[0], though they may be missing the "do it well" component, and perhaps targetting the wrong layer of abstraction. For example, a good chefs knife cuts, but nobody is going to tell you its not a versatile tool because the utilty of cutting applies to so much kitchen work. The Rollie on the other hand...

[0] https://lifehacker.com/watch-alton-brown-demonstrate-why-uni...

By the time I could afford an iPod, they had discontinued the classic, so I got the Sony A50.

Doesn't feel as nostalgic but does the job. Also acts as a Bluetooth receiver and USB DAC

I absolutely love rockbox on the ipod6g.

I have been through a number of iterations of them and compile my own custom builds of rockbox. One thing I would do is avoid the iFlash SD card adapters as in my experience files tend to corrupt. With an upgraded battery the iFlash mSATA SSD adapters work very well.

You can use transflac/oggenc to transcode your lossless library and it works really well for maximising space.

Edit: here is a link to photos of some of my iPods: https://imgur.com/a/I0yg4eR

I've only had mine for a couple of days now, but so far I love it!

> One thing I would do is avoid the iFlash SD card adapters as in my experience files tend to corrupt.

I had this experience too, but booting into the original firmware and transferring files while there sorted it temporarily.

Updating to a daily Rockbox build solved the problem on that side of things too! There was a forum thread about it here: https://forums.rockbox.org/index.php?topic=52560.0

Right in the screenshot I see a rockbox bug. The analogue clock shows a quarter to eight, the digital clock shows 20:43.

I'm not a big fan of RockBox, it's always been too buggy for me.

Regarding the iFlash, the best way to avoid file corruption is to transfer files to the iPod while using the Apple Firmware (don't sync with iTunes, just copy the files directly). There is some issue with Rockbox that corrupts the files if the device can't sync the files fast enough. Stock iPod Firmware doesn't seem to have this issue.

I've debated buying another standalone portable music player for some time (about ten years after I got my first smartphone and stupidly gave my Sansa Fuze+ to a friend, who promptly lost it), but none of them really tick all the boxes for me.

I want:

- A high-quality DAC

- A headphone jack

- Expandable memory or a ridiculously large HDD (I have about a terabyte of music)

- A modern connector/charging port (like USB-C)

- 20+ hours of battery life

The problem I have is that resurrecting old devices like an iPod or a Sansa falls back onto era of proprietary chargers, which I worry about losing and not being able to find replacements.

On the other hand, I periodically search for "newer" audiophile player devices, and a bunch of them feel like Android phones without the phone part. I don't want a smartphone OS, because then the battery life is inevitably going to be many times worse than the standalone mp3 player batteries of old. I don't need an app store, or a battery-sucking high quality display screen for watching videos. I just want it to play my music.

You and me both: I’ve had the exact same thoughts. I did buy a Sony device (NW-A45), and it’s not quite what I want. It frequently goes into a very slow “creating database” mode when it decides to reindex the SD card. That gets in the way of wanting to quickly add a song or two since I know such changes will induce the long database rebuild.

Not a fan of the proprietary connector either. I misplaced it once and had to order another one. All my other devices use standard cables, of which I have a bunch of each.

If the Sony device was updated to use a standard connector, and the software was given some attention with respect to efficiency and customizable navigation, I’d be pretty happy.

I totally agree on the Android/smartphone OS front. I do NOT want a device that does apps of any form: I just want it to do one thing and do it well.

I've got a sony NW-E393 and it's great. Sounds more in line with what you might be looking for

> I don't want a smartphone OS, because then the battery life is inevitably going to be many times worse than the standalone mp3 player batteries of old. I don't need an app store, or a battery-sucking high quality display screen for watching videos. I just want it to play my music.

I think you're overcomplicating this.

Modern mobile SoCs have evolved hand-in-hand with Android OS to be power efficient, perhaps equivalent or even better than the iPod Classic SoCs of the 2008 era. Using a modern 14nm or smaller process on a modern smartphone SoC isn't going to consume much power at all, even when running Android.

The screen is primarily for the GUI, not video playback. If you have a giant music library, navigating with a full, responsive screen is far better than spinning the old iPod click wheel. The screen can turn off when you're not interacting with it.

The products you're describing basically exist: https://www.fiio.com/m15 Battery life is around 15 hours, it has very high quality components, it has modern charging ports, and you can drop a 2TB card in it for twice as much storage as you need.

However, like all niche products it's not cheap. I think when most people see the price of a specialty, low-volume product like this they quickly become more than happy with just playing the music out of their phone.

I also wanted to mention Fiio. I've got the lower-end M3K myself, but it does run Rockbox for what I consider to be the classic MP3 player experience.

Is that better then the default fiio software?

It's $1200? How the market for DAPs really went up in price or something?

It sounds like the Shanling M0 fits your bill: https://en.shanling.com/product/222

I've used it for over a year and love it. It also works as a USB and Bluetooth DAC, so you get a nice little 3 in 1 tool.

Over $3,000?!

went to check: ~ 100euros

worth 5 clicks

> The problem I have is that resurrecting old devices like an iPod or a Sansa falls back onto era of proprietary chargers, which I worry about losing and not being able to find replacements.

Personally, I think one great thing about Apple is that because the branding is so strong, it's much easier to find cables for the iPod 30-pin connector than for most other brands.

I am using the xduoo X3ii right now, and that seems to check all of your boxes. It supports Rockbox too!

I am using a FiiO X1 still and love it. FiiOs have great DACs although their software is wanting at times.

My biggest issues with my X1 are: 1) Music Discovery, as my local collection has gotten so large, I often find myself using Jellyfin or local desktop music players to discover, then listen to them on my FiiO 2) Limited Queuing ability. This isn't normally an issue for me, as I usually listen to complete albums all the way through, but if you want to quickly create playlists, the X1 is terrible for that.

But, the sound is fantastic. Controls are simple. I don't get distracted and can just reliably listen to my music. Transfer/management is simple (I use rhythmbox with its usb device support). Battery life is great. Storage is expandable and supports a microSD card (I currently have a 256G, but will probably upgrade to a 512G soon). Supports ogg, flac, mp3, and other formats. Unfortunately it doesn't support opus, although I think newer models do.

I haven't tried any of their newer models as mine is 8 years old and still works perfect.

I was thinking that I'd love essentially an iPod Shuffle but connected to my Spotify and with Bluetooth. Running with an iPhone is still pretty annoying. It'd be nice to have a light device that clips onto your clothes.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Apple has ever explored turning the AirPods case into a mini iPod. I guess their iPod days are over but it'd be a really neat little device.

Edit: Apparently this exists! https://bemighty.com/products/mighty-vibe

Sounds like you need an Apple Watch. Not sure if it works with spotify but I run with just my watch and my airpods.

It works with Spotify. Sadly Fitbit and Android Wear do not do Spotify offline and every other option is a hassle.

It's a shame because I find the apple watch insanely ugly.

> Android Wear do not do Spotify offline

I don't own one to check, but it appears this is no longer true:

https://newsroom.spotify.com/2021-08-11/enjoy-all-your-music...

Yep, right after I wrote that I thought "I should actually check" and it appears to be all good on Android Wear now.

Yeah...I'm gonna get one soon. But it's a shame that I need such a "smart" device to just listen to some music while running.

I think the issue is that so many of the components are found in both devices that removing the "smart" parts would end up costing more in the long run. An older Apple Watch that handles music with wireless headphones just fine can be found for about $100 now.

Yep. As mentioned, Apple Watch is the way to go if you're looking for a modern shuffle, and it does support offline Spotify these days.

The issues with using an older shuffle is that replacing the batteries on ANY of them is a massive chore, and none of them have bluetooth, which means you'd be back to dangling wires, which (imo) sucks when running. I believe the later generation nanos supported BT, though, so they might be a cheap candidate for a "music while running" solution.

Plenty of other watches do music(Spotify) too and work with airpods. Garmin for example.

>I believe the later generation nanos supported BT

The 7th generation Nano does support Bluetooth, but it has some compatibility wrinkles with some BT headphones. For example, it plays back at a very low volume on first generation Airpods.

Can you upload your own mp3s to the Apple Watch? Do I need special software for that?

Sure you can. Add those mp3s to the iPhone paired with the Apple Watch. Go to the Watch app and tap on Music. You can choose music to be transferred to the Watch.

Apple Music has a cloud locker feature, which is the main reason I use it over Spotify. The process isn't as nice as the drag-and-drop into your browser like how Google Play Music did it (RIP), but you can add songs through the Music App on Mac (I assume you can also do it through iTunes on Windows?), set all your metadata, etc. and then you can stream it from any device (except the web player, which is among many other problems with the web player. I wouldn't recommend it)

This is why we can't have nice things. Pebble Core: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/getpebble/pebble-2-time... (basically android-ish + 3g + gps + bluetooth screenless widget)

Hype Article: https://www.stuff.tv/news/5-reasons-pebble-core-most-excitin...

RIP Pebble.

The smartphone killed this entire segment. No point having a standalone device when you can pair bluetooth headphones and have your phone just somewhere in the vicinity.

Doing sports and running with a 6 inch smartphone attached to your arm or in your pocket is just uncomfortable.

You can also get that integrated into a bunch of Garmin's watches like the Vivoactive and Fenix lines. Not the cheapest stuff but it's also a heart rate monitor, GPS, etc.

I think the Forerunner 245 Music is their cheapest music device (getting older and not a whole lot cheaper than the Vivoactive though).

It's a shame you cannot put your own mp3s on the Mighty Vibe.

I'd pay some serious money to have an iPod like that again. Just music, no bullshit, long battery life, top notch UI/UX. We went backwards.

FiiO.

This is the way. Decent hardware, support for FLAC, and the ability to run android apps if streaming is your thing.

Thanks. My buddy just lost his beloved original Nano last week, and the FiiO M5 looks like it may be a worthy successor.

Looks like something I would like.

What do people use to manage podcasts and keep downloads synchronized, and remove podcasts I've listened to? Does it handle resume for in-progress podcasts?

If I read https://www.head-fi.org/threads/fiio-m5-compact-and-versatil... correctly, it treats a podcast recording as a song and doesn't have a way to resume.

Or am I misunderstanding?

I started moving towards my own offline music library after getting pissed off with the record labels removing stuff from streaming services for no reason. Sometimes artists do it too, a lot of Adam Kay's offerings from a decade or so ago have been thoroughly memory-holed presumably in a pre-emptive attempt to avoid controversy for their vulgar humour now he's much better known as a public figure.

I'm not sure I would do it from scratch today but I had a large offline library between ripping CDs and Napster (which was mostly replacing music I only had on old vinyl) pre-streaming so most of my collection is online. I've thought of filling in the gaps with purchases but, for the time being, I figure the missing "classics" I'd want, I should generally be able to buy if I want to at some point.

Damn. I need to make sure to back that up somewhere. To be fair, some are in very, very poor taste. But a lot of them are genuinely hilarious.

I'd definitely advise it, I never did and I've not been able to find copies anywhere including Discogs. There was one CD on eBay but I was outbid on it just yesterday.

The Apple Watch can stand alone as a wireless wrist-mounted music player. It almost reminds me of an iPod nano but that’s maybe still too many frills.

The modern walkman is like this. You can drag and drop mp3 files onto it. There's no wifi or Bluetooth. It's got a crazy long battery life.

If only I could add Spotify playlists to it

>There's no wifi or Bluetooth.

>If only I could add Spotify playlists to it

There is nowadays and i think you can. Otherwise correct.

this is the one I have and was thinking of: https://electronics.sony.com/audio/walkman-digital-recorders...

These exist. Mostly they have moved upmarket to serious audiophile nerds, but some are still below the price of an OG iPod.

https://www.whathifi.com/us/best-buys/portable/best-portable...

Can't speak to the UI/UX, but they do one thing, for people who care a lot about that one thing.

This is an fantastically inspiring writeup (it makes me want to do something similar with the 5th gen ipod i have collecting dust) though I'd have loved a BOM and a manifest of the procedures you used.

That said, hats off for not just loading your blog up with affiliate links.

thank you! I'm glad it had that effect on you :) If you do end up building one, I'd love to see it!

I could probably add something about that, but honestly most of the procedures were taken straight from iFixit and most of the parts were just found from random eBay sellers

> That said, hats off for not just loading your blog up with affiliate links.

haha well, it's not for that :) it'd make writing there feel like a job

My personal experience with iPod 5th gen (the one used in the article):

- indeed produces the best audio with the wolfson chip, but this difference to a 7th/latest gen is hardly noticable (while 6th gen and others are not as good)

- does not support EarPod or similar headphone remotes, while the 7th gen does - with one limitation: fast forward and backward does not work

- supports a 2200mah battery (40h of listening) when used with iFlash Quad and a THIN back cover (i built one, google for "ipod 2200mah") but not the 3000mah one (only supported with the thick cover) - this is also the case for 7th gen

- has a far less good haptic expierience (the wheel does not feel as well)

- when using the wrong microSD cards behaves strange or does not event work

- when using original firmware, depending on the version (there is 5th and 5.5th gen), it does not support as many audio files (20000 instead of 50000)

- when using original firmware, I would not invest in more than 512GB flash storage because max 50000 Tracks/Files are supported - unless you want to listen to audiobooks

My advice:

- Get and iPod 7th Gen 160GB from 2009

- Get an iSesamo opening tool (only one - this tool is better quality than anything else for the first hull breach)

- Get an iFlash Quad and 3 similar to iSesamo opening tools from the same shop (lower quality, but cheap and good for second and third stroke)

- Get 2 to 4 NEW Transcend 256GB cards (TS256GUSD300S-A)

- Get a 2200mah iPod Battery from ebay (not the 3000mah, it won't fit in the thin case)

- Be extremely careful removing the old battery or you will break the headphone adapter (if this happens, buy a cheap 5th gen iPod, the parts are interchangable)

- Do not remove the blue rubber stuff but put it back in - these are dust protectors

- Test and restore your iPod BEFORE closing

- Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AF1Pjbwc6c&list=PLfSaYZHlgM...

- Build the iPod of your dreams with up to 1TB Storage, good audio quality and > 40 hours continous listening time

I’ve done this myself and the thing that ultimately blocked me from enjoying my iPod is the fact that I wasn’t able to take my music library, which is all streaming, and put it on my iPod.

It is still on my todo list to write a high quality open source scraper for Apple Music and/or Spotify

One pro tip to go further is that you can get a teeny tiny 30 pin Bluetooth adapter and listen using AirPods. It works great, and is a great use of the larger battery: https://store.kokkia.com/i10stinybluetoothipodtransmitterfor...

Best I have seen is a thing that converts Spotify playlists to YT ones and then just use youtube-dl. I have seen some automation around this. It is 80-90% accurate and requires a little cleanup in terms of playlist conversation, same versions of songs etc.

I would only use this in conjunction with something like iTunes Match (which is still around), because I want the original song data. That is what I meant by "high quality"

This (commercial) program[1] does the job for Spotify. I think what it does is just play the given playlist then it sets Spotify's audio output to a virtual audio device similar to BlackHole[2], then reads from it, encodes the audio, fetches the metadata (including album art) and sets it. There are open source[3] alternatives[4] but I haven't tested them.

[1] https://www.noteburner.com

[2] https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole

[3] https://github.com/jwallet/spy-spotify

[4] https://github.com/richardk80/spotify-ripper

My first thought after seeing this was how do I get Bluetooth onto one of these remade upgraded iPods?

Had to look at this device, and it is small but it would be even better if that could be moved into the iPod itself.

Is there possibly room to stash a Bluetooth transceiver inside the case once the large HDD has been replaced with an SD card board like it is shown in this walk-through?

I briefly looked into the same possibility, but I am trying to keep my physical modifications of the iPod to a minimum – mine is pretty tight in there with the big battery, although I could buy a deeper back plate.

Power and audio can easily be multiplexed, but I don't know about the playback control piece. The dock connector needs to be intact for USB

There is regularly-updated comparison chart of modern mp3 players/digital audio players (DAP). https://azalush5.hatenablog.com/entry/2022/01/dap-comparison...

I personally find them too expensive and bulky. With not so great software.

I wasn't able to find this when looking. When using Rockbox can the iPod still be connected to a car via the dock connector / USB and speak in AAP (Apple Accessory Protocol) to the car?

I ask because my 2015 Subaru Outback doesn't have AptX for BT, and inserting a USB drive full of music requires browsing by folder structure (ick). Thus, I use an iPod which very quickly lists music by artist and album and such. I've been keen on trying Rockbox so I no longer have to use iTunes, but I still need the thing to talk AAP.

It's a great write up. I like your "Don't forget the human" post at the bottom even more. You should probably share it here.

thank you! Haha I totally would, but I don't want to "self promote" on here too much

Somewhat off topic, I recently recovered all my mp3s and tried to import them into Apple Music. After having used Spotify for a long time, I’m finding it very difficult to use. The lack of intelligence around what I’m currently listening to, intelligent groupings, etc. I’m realizing how a central catalog with great data analytics has made Spotify such a powerhouse. Perhaps Apple Music, the subscription service, would be able to do similar. But what is one to do with just mp3s these days? Is there anything remotely good, or an I always having to pick an artist/album/genre manually from the entire catalog?

Apple should be able to identify your MP3s as long as those songs are also in the Apple Music collection (and you are subscribed to Apple Music).

There’s a “Create Station” feature that might be what you’re looking for.

Additionally, for discovering new music, Apple Music has plenty of recommendations and curated playlists to check out. Like most machine-curated approximations of my taste, these never quite do it for me and I end up finding new music by exploring artists/producers/labels I’m interested in “by hand”.

But in any case, Apple Music is definitely a better choice over Spotify if you want to maintain a collection of personal media files while getting access to a big streaming catalogue and recommendations. If you use iCloud Music Library, your MP3s are cloud-synced to all your devices automatically. Spotify allows adding personal files, but it must be done manually per-device, so it’s quite a headache if you regularly listen to anything that isn’t available to stream (due to business, politics, or simply never having an official release).

I’m not an Apple Music subscriber. I guess I’m asking for a pure mp3 experience that matches what the subscription services can do today, or at least a good amount of it.

I think the big blocker for an offline, subscription free Spotify-like experience is lack of a central repository where listening data from all users is stored. You could do some things with metadata on the songs themselves but automated playlists like Spotify and Apple Music have to my knowledge rely on models trained with vast amounts of listener data.

You could patch something together using last.fm as the data source maybe, but I don’t think scrobbling to last.fm has been popular for many years at this point, which is going to severely limit the quality of generated playlists for newer music. Additionally, last I knew last.fm’s API was still XML based which makes it not so ergonomic to use in today’s JSON centric world.

I used to own a 6th Gen iPod Classic. Loved the device, hated the "Apple experience" of having to sync with iTunes and not being able to simply transfer files. I recently stumbled upon DankPods on YouTube and it's really inspired me to try to acquire an old iPod and mod it with flash storage and a new battery. I didn't know about the theming options in Rockbox, which is a piece of software I've always found quite unappealing, so maybe this year is the year I give it a shot!

How much of a difference does a DAC really make on a 320kbps MP3? I feel like you're fooling yourself if you claim you can tell a difference.

If you ask me, honestly a good quality DAC sounds better playing a 320kbps MP3 than a bad DAC sounds playing a 96/24 WAV of the same recording.

I did something much like this a few years ago and still have the iPod. It's a really nice unit and does sound good. The OS took to a 200 GB SD card like it was made for the capacity.

However the earbud/IEM market has changed a lot since these were released. The iPod 5.5g is essentially unusable with some of the more sensitive balanced armature IEMs such as the Campfire Audio Andromeda, as I discovered. There's a very audible buzz whenever the amplifier circuit is on that really can't be ignored.

In my opinion, the spiritual successor to the iPod today are the Sony Walkman players that run Sony's own Linux-based OS. Recent versions of this such as the A50 series or WM1A sound excellent and are very quiet with even highly sensitive IEMS. Unfortunately they may not be much longer for this world any more either as everything moves towards Android.

I wish I had more single-purpose hardware without extraneous complexity and complications. Is using an iPod today practical? Does the original iPod firmware or Rockbox support FLAC and Opus file formats? What about the obscure video game emulation audio formats like .nsf and .spc?

Rockbox supports FLAC and .nsf and .spc and Ogg Vorbis, but not Opus -- yet. Look at the manual for the whole list.

However, Rockbox does support Opus on other devices. Been using it exclusively on my Sansa Clip+ for at least a year.

My wife’s shuffle battery finally died. Competition seems to be fairly lame. I can’t believe it hasn’t been beaten yet. I’ve ordered a replacement battery rather than risk some device with 3.5 stars.

Someone build it. Runners worldwide would thank you.

>I can’t believe it hasn’t been beaten yet.

The ipod was too good at it's own game. It's functionally obsolete now. Also, a shuffle has 2gb and no screen or bluetooth.

Sure, for running she doesn’t need a lot of storage or a screen. Run and listen, that’s it.

There are copies, there are people looking for them. Just nothing really good (it seems).

How much music do you want to carry when running? Not like you're gonna listen to more than 2GB.

Why isn't Apple Watch its spiritual successor? Easy to take with you while running, can hold lots of music, supports BlueTooth.

I have an 80GB 5.5 sitting in my night stand. I sometimes think about doing this after dankpods blew up but then I remember I have almost 0 use for something that has music already on it, vs streaming. The clear shell looks fantastic.

A bit off topic, but i wonder why no music streaming service (eg Spotify) makes dedicated hardware with iPod Shuffle like semantics (but 1000x more storage, store just about all music you ever played plus lots of discovery stuff).

I can't be the only one who wants to be able to disconnect but still enjoy music, right? (and doesn't have a huge mp3 collection)

I bet on the inside it could just be a cheapo android phone with wifi but no gsm and the whole OS locked down to the Spotify app on extra-aggressive-make-available-offline-mode. I'd totally buy that and switch to whichever music service sells it.

Smartphones have airplane mode and you can download from Apple Music (and probably other streaming services) to play offline.

I don't own a smartphone but carry an iPod touch everywhere and downloading to it works fine for me.

Wait, you can download music from streaming services to your iPod touch?

Yes. I’ve done it with Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.

https://support.apple.com/guide/ipod-touch/add-music-and-lis...

Spotify would presumably also have to lift the offline limits they are imposing at the moment. It seems to be around 10k songs, which doesn't make much sense to build a dedicated hardware around.

The iPod is great! It's what introduced me to embedded systems, and still provides the music I listen to while at work all day.

After replacing the hard drive with a Kingspec SSD, there's a lot more physical space inside. Here's a photo from a few years ago, showing an EspUSB, miniDP-HDMI adaptor, Corewind WiFiG25 single-board computer, and PQI Air Card.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/150180606@N08/albums/721577133...

The iPod is so hackable that it fills in for any lack of features on my iPhone (e.g. SD->WiFi makes up for the lack of SD slot).

There's a few changes now (Corewind replaced by Vocore 2, VGA->HDMI, USB-C->HDMI have joined the storage), and I continue to enjoy hacking it.

One of my favourites is using an Ultradock to act as a serial remote control.

http://www.chlazza.net/ultradock.html

The ICT department restrict what we can install on our office PCs, but we're allowed to use serial cables for work, and AutoHotKey is tolerated. So I've got a script to remap the numpad, and the Microsoft Intellimouse side keys (side as modifier, wheel for volume, buttons for next/back), to be an iPod remote.

All I need now is to figure out how to press the centre button so I can set a rating, and how to read the song title and lyrics over serial. That needs 0x04 Extended Interface Lingo, which normally needs a special Apple authentication chip, but I bought a Griffin iKaraoke and am trying to hack around with that to see if I can insert data after it's already authenticated.

Although there's no leaked schematics or boardviews for the iPod (unlike some MacBook models), there is an "iPod Accessory Protocol Interface Specification.pdf" that some very kind person discovered and made available, and it's been a huge help in trying to build this iPod remote. Apple documentation is really nice to read, too. I wish I could continue supporting the original authors, but alas, Apple decided to shift away from the Digital Hub and require streaming.

I really hope Apple does a refresh of the current ipod touch before they kill the line. Yeah theres all the stuff about screentime and kids etc. but sometimes we are stuck in a horrible waiting room like a hospital ER and you jsut want them to be able to occupy themselves without it having to be an educational experience of some kind (just like the rest of us).

Can even use it for facetime and so only contacts in the devices are grandparents and us.

The iPod touch is so good for that, but worried theyre going to kill it off...

I did this last summer with my iPod classic. Fun writeup, great way to revive old tech and reclaim media ownership.

If you have the iPod already, it's a great afternoon project and not too expensive to do.

Man, no idea that iFlash Quad existed. Every iPod I had died because of a broken hard drive. I'm going to have to get one of those and dig out one of my busted iPods.

I posted about this yesterday; as time has gone on, I've found myself wanting a separate camera and music player from my phone. The best music player I've ever used is the iPod classic (a couple Nano models were okay too), it was focused, lightweight, and not distracting.

Would love for someone to build a modern iPod mini/nano with just 8 or 16 GB of memory for under $100, but I'm guessing the click wheel is patented?

I've looked at this a bit. A modern sony walkman is really a better option. A used, 15 year old ipod will always have issues and feel dated. While this mod is very nice, an iflash and sd cost so much time and money that you may as well just buy a walkman and be done. Alternatively, buy some generic, cheap thing from China, if that kind of thing doesn't bother you.

[P.s don't forget ipods need itunes...]

I love this! I've been meaning for a while to cram a TB of storage into an iPod Mini I have lying around to fit my lossless music library in a gorgeously cheerful package of mid '00s design, this is definitely a cooler project though!

Anyone know which iPod had the best DAC? Might have to look at doing a 5.5G as well as my Mini at some point.

This is great, I've been really wanting to get a dedicated media/mp3 player again after finding my little zune stuffed in a drawer (which rockbox worked on that bad boy)

I've pretty much moved back to purchasing mp3s and syncing them with my phone but I would much rather have a dedicate device for it

I love the idea of tinkering with iPods, but I'm really, really not going to actually carry a dedicated music player device. Going back from modern convenience to retro inconvenience just isn't practical to me.

Back in the day, Rockbox was the way to play FLAC on your iPod. I never found it to be as responsive or stable, though. Would be tempted to update my old Classic to solid state but keep the official firmware.

Ironically, I upgraded my Sansa clip+ to Rockbox so it could play ALAC.

there was a sweet spot around 2014-2016 where streaming was new, and the price of old ipods fell through the floor. i used to make a few bucks refurbing like this and flipping to nostalgics.

> Almost all of the cables can be removed by lifting a little black lever, and are equally as easy to replace.

I’m guessing that’s not commonly seen in electronic devices made today.

Not too interested in any of these mods but will give Rockbox and FreshOS a look. Thanks for posting this.

Fwiw, can anyone answer is it difficult to revert Rockbox back to original OS?

Nice! It's one of things I really wish I had a use case for just to excuse myself to own one.

How much did you spend on replacement parts?

I've found it to be a nice way to disconnect, if you want to use my excuse :)

I think it was around £200 total, with most of that being the SD cards!

My most recent build was:

$25 for new case and click wheel

$42 for the iFlash Quad

$20 for some SD cards, caught them on sale.

$18 for a new battery.

$32 for a rough condition iPod 5g. The screen was in good shape, but the case was beat to hell. The only things that have to work is the motherboard, dock connector, and screen. (you can find people selling working screens, but it's easier/cheaper to find an iPod with a screen in good condition).

Wait, did Apple really once sell an 1TB iPod or do these eBay sellers just etch in whatever you want them to?

read the article, it was a self-udate

I wonder if OP made an actual 3000 mAh battery or if she bought a "3000mAh" battery from eBay.

More info on the actual 3000mAh battery: https://www.reddit.com/r/IpodClassic/comments/lmnk38/lg_g4_b...

This would be even more awesome if there were holes in the case to allow for swapping the SD cards.

That's a great post, a video about this would be incredible.

Speaking of iPod videos, last week I shared one [0] about the story of the first iPod. A deep look into the crazy 11-month ride that led to its creation.

It's my first YT video, so please be merciful.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8JoM9Lr3Go

I'll give you money for this. Can I buy one?

You can buy pre-modded ones on ebay, although they are at a significant premium.

Hell ya

Proud of youuuu ^-^

I love how everyone is chomping at the bits to get one of those iPods with the Wolfson DAC when a) most people can't hear the difference and b) even among people who can, they're probably not using headphones* that are good enough to take advantage of the difference.

* and/but/also c) even if they can hear the difference, and have a headset that can express the difference, they're probably not using these in a quiet enough environment where it matters.

Woah there fella! That's an awful lot of assuming.

It's really not. That was the concensus of many reviews when these things were new. I'm not (by any stretch) implying that DAC differences are 'audiophile snake oil'. There is a difference. It's just that the 'difference' is vastly overstated.

With hardware so cheap there's no reason to settle for lower quality.

It's a single "most" and a two "probably"s. That doesn't seem out of line for a reasonable estimate to me.

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