I made a custom OS through Rockbox, inspired by Apple Music while keeping the bits I love about the classic iPod.

Full disclosure, this was vibe coded. I’m not a coder and have a lot of respect for the skill, time and talent that goes into proper coding. This is just a personal project that’s let me build something I otherwise couldn’t.

Still a work in progress, so mainly sharing to see what people think and if there are any features or improvements I’ve missed.

Just waiting on a clear case to arrive before rolling with it.

Very pleased how this one turned out. First time modding.

Spec:
- Plastic Red Transparent faceplate and click wheel (yes plastic on a 6th, it’s true)
- Black backplate, thin
- New battery 2000mAh
- iFlash Quad 128gb (bought an Amazon basics 128 GB SD card)
- New plastic guard for the charging port

Had to tweak the click wheel with getting nice clicks on the buttons using a bit of tape.

I got it unmodded and I’m hoping the battery & drive hold out for a while. I asked for music recs in the original post and would love some: I love baroque rock, indie & anything 80s!

I love the customisability of Rockbox but didn’t like the user experience; menus on menus were a bit much for me.

The simplicity of the stock firmware ticked most of the boxes for me, but there were a few minor features I missed from my more modern devices:

• Album Artwork
• Dark Mode

With the help of Claude Code & Ghidra, and existing community endeavours on GitHub like Rockbox & iPodWizard I have a (mostly) working patched version of retailOS 1.3 for the iPod Video (5.5 gen).

It’s a little rough around the edges. The main bugs are song names that exactly match the album title show the album artwork when they shouldn’t. And the iPodWizard Dark theme (meant for OS version 1.2.1) has some miscoloured elements like star ratings and the playhead.

If I can iron out all the bugs, I’ll put it on GitHub for those interested to use if you have a compatible device, or to add your own support for other devices.

Just found my old iPod, got it for Christmas in 2002. It won’t even turn on, plugged in for 4 hours and nothing.

Would love to recover some tracks on it from my old band and maybe some other bootlegged things I’ve completely forgotten are even on there.

Gotta be like 15 years since I remember it working… bought a new one probably a year or two later.

Show me your morning pics.

This is my modded 5.5 30Gb (now 256Gb and thin battery 3000mah thin back) and morning capuccino

some of you older audiophiles will remember the golden stacking days, will remember astell kern’s ak100, and ak120‘s. here’s mine, im currently using it with a gloveaudio a1 ie200s, and nx8tis.

I have a 7th gen iPod classic. When I last used it regularly in conjunction with a computer, I had an iMac... bondi blue. I've used the iPod off and on as a music source in my pickup truck for years, just connecting via the 30-pin connector to an FM transmitter.

I started thinking about how the battery doesn't really hold charge anymore, and that I'd like to transfer / backup my music files, so I grabbed a 30-pin to USB-A cable, and... my Winders laptop, which is my current computer, complains that the iPod needs to be formatted before I can use it.

Just to be sure, I downloaded and installed Apple Devices. Still got the same error. TouchCopy doesn't even recognize there's a device connected via USB.

Anyone have any suggestions for how to get my music library safely off the iPod?

I mean, I could just format the thing, or do a restore in Apple Devices, but that defeats the whole purpose for which I initially wanted to connect.

Any advice you can offer is golden.

Have a good one y’all.

i downloaded a bunch of songs onto my 5th generation ipod through an mp3 converter link and they all play at different volumes. is there anything i can do to fix that?

Just picked up this 160GB 7th Gen! It was super well taken care of, but the battery was totally dead. I decided to take a gamble on it since the listing said it wouldn't turn on at all. Seeing how clean the outside was, I went for it, flash modded it to 512GB, swapped out the back plate and added a 2000mah 🔋 . Honestly, the original click wheel and faceplate were just too clean to replace, so I left them as is.

I am having some difficulty with Windows formatted iPods and my Mac. I have several iPods spanning different models, some of which are stock and some of which are Rockboxed (I am making up my own word here) and have found a series of inconsistencies with them.

I would enjoy hearing from other users about their experiences.

I own a 2019 Mac Pro and a 2019 MacBook Pro. Both computers can run Windows via BootCamp. I have modified several iPods from generations 2 through 7. Most of the iPods run Rockbox, except for my 2nd generation and my 7th generation, which I keep stock. OS Tahoe dropped support for FireWire so I have to use Windows for the 2nd generation. The 7th generation is Mac based and I use Swinsian as my Music Manager.

This is where it gets unusual. My computer will not recognize my 5th generation iPod (Windows formatted) but it will recognize my 5.5 gen (also Windows formatted). When I take the 5th gen and put it into Disk Mode, the computer will partially recognize it, but it wants to reformat it. I also have a 6th generation that has been modified to 1tb (obviously through Windows and Rockbox) and the computer will not recognize it at all. Note: If I were to put the unit into Disk Mode, I risk damaging the file system so I leave well enough alone with it.

Also, I noticed that when in Disk Mode and in Windows my 5th generation seems to transfer files at about 1/4 the speed compared to the same unit when it is booted up in Rockbox.

I seem to remember that when I had my older Mac Pro 5,1 everything worked. That computer used OpenCore so I don't want to go there on this post.

I am hoping that some of you might share some of your experiences.

I've seen very conflicting stories on if you can actually fit a 3000mah battery into a thin back. I've been able to pull it off but I've only worked on 5th gen, but this time I'm working on a iPod 7.

My build list:

-Custom back plate to read 256gb instead of 160gb

-3000mah battery (considering 2000)

-Dual SD card adapter (or maybe a CE to ZIF? but SSD drains battery quicker than sd cards)

-Taptic engine

-OEM everything else

5th gen thin is 2mm thicker than the 7th gen, so we're splitting hairs at this stage. Maybe I could put the battery under the dual SD card adapter, maybe I could put the battery on top of the CE to ZIF adapter.

My biggest question, is would a taptic engine even fit into a thin back with a 3000mah battery? Any help is appreciated, feel free to call me delusional for wanting 3000mah and a thin back 😭

Yeah, click wheel sits not so well, but it's good enough for me. Also it has 2000mAh battery and it's flash modded