My 4th generation 20gb iPod has a new lease on life with a battery replacement. It was totally dead, but the new battery brought it back to life. This is the second iPod battery replacement I’ve done — the first was a classic iPod mini. The mini job was a little tougher due to the smaller size. This job took a little work, but for $30 it was worth it.
And with my old iPod back up and running I decided to try some new software. Rockbox is an alternative to the standard iPod software. Think of it like a new operating system for your computer. The regular iPod software is still there, but the Rockbox takes over after the iPod boots up. In general I like the new software. It is fun to have something different running on the iPod, and it feels a little subversive to overide Apple’s control. The software itself has some nice advantages over Apple’s. For instance you can slow a song down or use the iPod as a recording device (if you have a mic.) You get an interesting group of games and can even load your own custom themes to really make the device your own. You manually copy the music to the device, with the plus that you can easily connect and copy music between multiple computers. It is really handy to be using iPodder lemon to put Podcasts directly on. I had to stop using it as it isn’t working with the latest iTunes. I prefer the iPodder over iTunes. And if you have a couple of non-iPod units all can be running the same software — they offer firmware versions for multiple music players.
But this isn’t for everyone. It may just be something particular to my aging iPod but the boot-up sequence into Rockbox is very slow — up to three minutes — and sometimes doesn’t work. The software seems slow to respond at first. And for the average user it isn’t any huge improvement over the basic iPod software functionality. And while it is nice to have more control over copying music on and off the device, it doesn’t work with iTunes, so no auto synch function. Now that apple has dropped their copy protection any new purchases can be copied manually, but it is still not as convenient.
Would I load this onto a new iPod? I’m not sure I’d bother — but for this old unit it is fun to experiment.
Rockbox – Open Source Jukebox Firmware
Rockbox is an open source firmware for mp3 players, written from scratch. It runs on a wide range of players:
Robust iPod Battery Replacement Kits
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Randall Rode's online home for thoughts, notes, and experiments with a wide range of technology topics. Visit the about page for info on my recent projects and professional background. I welcome your comments!
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