r/ipod

Hello! I've been working a replacement motherboard for iPod mini, 3rd and 4th (mono) generation iPods.

https://www.crowdsupply.com/certain-things/sprout-pi-mainboard

I’ve also got a site for it here with a few more demos: certainthings.studio/sprout

It uses all the original iPod parts (except the battery and hard drive) so it keeps the monochrome charm of the original.

It’s also a drop in replacement so no soldering and fully reversible.

What it adds:
- Bluetooth audio
- WiFi
- A HiFi DAC (CS43131) through the original 3.5 mm jack
- USB-C for charging
- Digital audio out
- SD card storage up to 2TB
- Local music via drag and drop
- Music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify on the bigger version (working proof of concepts, but streaming APIs are constantly changing)
- Target battery life of 40 hours on the 3G/4G and 20 hours on the mini, from my testing so far

There are 2 versions:

Sprout Pico is offline music playback with Bluetooth and WiFi. This is the only one that supports the mini.

Sprout Pi adds a Raspberry Pi Compute Module Zero for more powerful features like music streaming. Since it’s a Linux computer though you can run what you like on it. I’m working on a dual architecture approach with this one, so local music playback can all happen on the RP2350 while more power hungry features can use the Pi CM0, so it can squeeze out as much battery life as possible.

I tried really hard to keep the original feel of the classic iPods, so from the outside it’s almost impossible to tell the motherboard has been replaced.

Launching soon on Crowd Supply if you'd like to sign up for updates and learn more.

Would love to hear what features you’d want to see included!

In appreciation of Steve Jobs.
Different generations. One revolutionary idea.
Thank you for thinking different.

Its just such a neat design, and the way the button LEDs light up makes it look so cool

Hi everyone, for around 3 months I’ve been working in my free time on Clickwill - an app that edits/adds content directly on the iPod, without using any sync folder on my PC, long story short - When you plug in your iPod, Clickwill shows what's actually on it: the same albums, in the same order you see in Cover Flow on your classic. What you edit in the app is what ends up on your iPod.

Why i made the decision of making it:

I’ve had my iPod classic 7G 160GB for over a year, and so far the only issue was the friction I had with syncing/adding the music I own to the iPod with the use of iTunes / Apple Music - sometimes syncing would add tracks without audio files or with wrong format(songs skipped to the next, supported track with right format)/ missing Album covers on some of the track / splitting an album into two different ones because some tracks had features on it / etc…

I was spending way more time troubleshooting that I’ve ever intended to, where instead I wanted a “Apple” experience with I could just “drag&Drop” my files/ import CD directly into my iPod without Apple Music/iTunes or editing an album info / song info with couple of clicks, so as little friction as possible, with original firmware that apple put into my iPod.

What it can do so far:

* Edit Album info / change album Cover

* Edit songs title/order in album

* Detects songs without audio files and lets you insert that missing file

* Audio player - you can play audio files from your iPod through Clickwill

* Import CDs without the need of Apple Music (MusicBrainz API)

* Merge an Album that was somehow sliced into two or more

* Skips songs while adding it to your iPod, if clickwill sees there is a copy of it already on the device

* Change the CoverFlow album order

* Before every “write to iPod” Clickwill makes a local backup of your library(without / audio files)

* Detects if Audio file is supported by iPod and if not, lets you convert to a supported file (for example: FLAC to ALAC)

What I want to do, and where its gonna go in the future:

* Whatever the users say they like to see (IF there be any users).

I Still don’t have a clear roadmap for the app, but I plan to support it long term since it removed a lot of friction for me, for granted I want to expand the iPod models support (currently tested only on my iPod classic 7G 160gb 2009 version - I would mean a lot if someone with stock firmware and a different classic model would like to check it out - but please make sure to read the DISCLOSURE first, and only then make the decision to use Clickwill).

DISCLOSURE:

The “elephant in the room”: as the flair says - I’ve used Claude Code to write this software, I wish I could write it myself, but the reality is the app was written that way. Im not going to hide it, since the use of AI in software remains a sensitive topic when it comes to users privacy - and I fully support this stance, Clickwill was meant to be offline as much as possible, with the only expceptions of:

* MusicBrainz/Cover Art archive (optional) - if you want the CDs info filled autmoaticly while adding audio from CDs.

* Sparkle - checks for new app version.

* Feedback form(optional) - to send a ticket to my mailbox with a bug/error that you encounter.

If any one still interested after reading the disclosure, here’s the website: https://clickwilldev.com/ app is still in early alfa, so if you decide to use it, there will be bugs, and its free.. obviously.

I got black plastic flakes all over my room from the disintegrating earpads & the plastic was gunky but with a good clean & new ear pads they sound great on 5th gen, 4th gen & 3rd gen. 32 ohm & using them without the battery. I synched 10.000 songs from
the white unibody MacBook with Mavericks & it was a breeze. The numbers were running up faster than I could read them. On newer macs it was painfully slow and you had to synch in batches. Gotta use vintage tech with the tech of the time….

So I just bought a 30-pin adapter and aux to usb-c cable to be able to listen to my music. I saw advice before this works but now it’s not for me. I got “IPod” to show up but now it’s just stuck on searching. Does anybody know or have figured out how to get it to work? It seems like it wants to read it but it’s not. Not sure what to do from here anything helps!

Dark mode included of course!

Fair bit of progress made, twin decks now working seamless along with playhead and waveform. Scratching on both platters works flawless with per deck effects now implemented.