Back in the day the Apple iPod was the personal music player (PMP) to get even if mostly because everyone and their dogs had one. These days most people just use their smartphone as a PMP, but what if you were to take, say, a 5th generation iPod and modernized it? That was the basic idea that [Zac Builds] picked up and ran with, with the results as shown in the video he made about it.
The 5th gen iPod was the first one capable of playing video, and was released in October of 2005. Powering it is a Broadcom BCM2722 for video playback, and came with a 30 or 60 GB HDD. First thing that [Zac] tosses is the old (3.7V, 650 mAh) battery, which appears to be already a replacement for the original, followed by the 60 GB 1.8″ HDD. Next tossed is the 2.5″ 320×240 QVGA screen, which gets replaced by a compatible modern LCD. The case is replaced with a transparent case, along with a transparent touch wheel, and the HDD is replaced with a 256 GB SD card in an iFlash Solo SD card adapter for iPods.
Next up was the installation of more off-the-shelf mods, such as a ‘taptic mod’ – which adds a rumble motor – and replacing the iPod’s 30-pin connector with a USB-C connector, requiring some fiddly soldering and desoldering. Following this a Bluetooth audio transmitter was added, extreme PCB mods performed with a cut-off wheel to make everything fit with a custom midframe and rear case.
Ultimately, the parts left of the original iPod were most of the mainboard and some flex cable, which raises the question of whether it might not have been faster and easier to start off with designing a custom PCB. Perhaps the true value is in the modding journey and not the destination?
Thanks to [Keith Olson] for the tip.
its nice that my 5th gen still works fine, only having replaced a screen and a battery. wanted to do the storage upgrade, but my inability to read the tiny screen in my old age has put a damper on that pursuit. ive been using my steam deck for the job of portable jukebox.
similar old age eye problem. I’ve got a 5th gen I inherited from my son, with new battery and solid state storage. Running rockbox. That allows me to easily change the screen fonts so I can read it.
i use rockbox too. its probibly why the thing still works, so the ipod cant run its built in kill code.
I miss the days of having a personal music library. Not so much having to maintain one… but nowadays, music is just everywhere and nowhere, some of it is on this one app, some is not… so you just don’t get the “all your music in one place for you to leaf through” experience any more. I suppose this is akin to what vinyl enthusiasts feel like about the disappearance of physical media. Which I never cared for that much. Interesting how we seem to have a tendency towards getting attached to however media is organized at some key phase of our lives.
Some of us still have and prefer a proper offline music library that we own rather than streaming
its not like the files go away just because someone invented streaming. i still run winamp too. im too old to change.
Count me in on that
i also updated my ipod with SD memory, larger battery and rockbox but could not find a way to fit a BT module inside.
i have a ridiculous idea for a niche dongle/gadget that i know most streamers would scoff at, but hear me out.
if you’re the type that cherishes their MP3 & FLAC collection, and prefers boutique wired headphones to Bluetooth, i think this type of adapter would be neat. it would a pared-down inline USB-C hub of sorts, except it accepts only a microSD card and a 3.5mm jack.
you could spare your phone’s internal storage from the heft of a huge library by only using it when you want to listen, and it’ll live with your nice headphones.
This sounds like a modern version of the Creative Muvo from ~20 years ago. It was basically a AAA battery and DAC wrapped around a thumb drive. Mine was only 512MB, but at the time, that was enough.
My first MP3 player was a cheap version of this. Held about 10 tracks, so 16mb?.
Was useful at uni as you could save projects to it, and just plug it in to the uni computers. Saved having to cart around floppies.
Like the shangling M0 pro? It works like a portable player (up to 2 TB micro sd), Usb dac, bluetooth adapter (receiver or transmitter), 10 to 14 hours of battery and it’s very small, 44 mm x 45 mm.
There was at one time a cheap chinese no name gadget built into a modified flash drive case which presented as a memory card reader to a computer but when you turned it on without the usb plugged in, it would play the contents of its memory card out the headphone jack. I imagine the combination is really no different from if the smallest mp3 players had been built with a usb-a male instead of needing a separate cable.
would have been better as a cellphone app :)
I have an original iPod, which I just replaced the battery in – hoping that it would start up. It does. The Hard disk spins for a moment (oh my gosh, it’s loud) and then tries again. I don’t know if it’s not properly formatted or something is wrong with it. I started looking for new drives (solid state). I haven’t yet figured out connecting via Firewire to my 2020 MBP. Let alone software to support it…
“connecting via Firewire”
– this should still be possible on your macbook pro (just slightly annoying and expensive). You need apple’s official thunderbolt-to-firewire adapter ($40) paired with their thunderbolt 2-to-3 adapter (another $40).
(alternately, you could buy a 2009 Mac Mini for less than the cost of those dongles and get firewire and an old version of iTunes that’s guaranteed to work with the iPod)
“software to support it…”
A few years ago, this was super simple – it “just worked” in iTunes. Since Catalina, synchronization is supported through Finder (not Music) and is a bit more janky, but it does at least allow you to put music on the thing.
Two caveats:
– no classic iPod is compatible with apple’s modern DRM, so things you’ve downloaded through an Apple Music subscription will definitely not work. other purchases downloaded from apple in recent years may not work.
– I can’t personally confirm any of this works with the original firewire iPod, but I’ve been told it does. My experience is with a slightly newer model with the 30-pin connector.
(another option is to install the open source “rockbox” firmware on your iPod, which, among other things, will free you from the need to use any specific software to sync music – it just presents the iPod to the computer as a mass storage device and lets you play whatever you copy to the drive).
You need to download the old version of iTunes to reformat it if that doesn’t work, a new hard drive.
I have a 4th Generation iPad, the touch screen doesn’t work, and I forgot the passcode.
I’ve also forgotten my Apple login password.
But I put it on the 30 pin charger every couple weeks, just in case.
I have a 7th gen Ipod. I cannot add or delete any music through itunes. Rockbox does not yet support that Gen Ipod. Any other suggestions?
You need to use a Mac. It’ll just work.
If the music is already backed up elsewhere or not important just do a recovery to reinstall the firmware. It sounds like something’s corrupted which is preventing the ipod from syncing. It’s also possible the drive is failing due to age which while not affecting booting does affect syncing. If the first suggestion doesn’t work then you’ll likely need a new drive or a flash mod.
“even if mostly because everyone and their dogs had one”
Speak for yourself, I had a sansa fuze with rockbox. Uphill, both ways! I bet you also had a multi-disc cd changer and dual tape recorders on your stereo, too.