Anyone still able to use iPods? (Classics, Shuffles, Nanos, etc)

Mine finally died to to battery swelling, but my technique from Day 1 was to never, never, ever use any Apple software with it, just to mount it as a normal USB drive, copy files onto it, and re-generate the index file using a little script.

  1. Yes.
  2. Sometimes. It seems to depend on if my computer is in a cooperative mood.
  3. Plug it into the USB port and drag the playlist from ITunes to the IPod.
  4. N/A.

I’ve got a 3rd gen iPod Touch with 64GB of storage that is full of MP3s, about 10,000. I still use it while mowing occasionally, earbuds with hearing protection muffs on top. The iPod touch still holds a charge after ~15 years.

I’m listening to it now, and it’s my go-to music playing device when outside the house. But I’ve rfurbished this one: I took out the old hard drive which took up 80% of the space and the relatively small battery and replaced them with solid state drives (i.e. mini-SD cards) totalling 1Gb, which lie flat on the backplate and the rest of the space is filled by a gigantic battery. The SD drives use hardly any power and the battery is huge so this thing lasts forever. I replaced the scratched cover in front of the screen, bought a colourful wheel and I am very happy with the result. All these things were bought off the internet and it didn’t take any particular electronics knowledge to fit it all together.

There’s a whole community of people who do this, and some of them sell their efforts on eBay and elsewhere.

I have a bunch of iPod Shuffles and Nanos and they all work fine. I prefer having my own offline collection of music.

I have a full sized iPod that doesn’t work because I think the hard drive is bad. I may look to replace the drive using the method someone else in thread mentioned.

So here’s where I’m at . . . when I had iTunes installed, I could see all of my music, play it all, navigate folders, and build/edit playlists within the Windows program. For whatever reason, my desktop (“Ol’ Gurdy”) refuses to acknowledge any Apple device as being connected through the iTunes program–even though Windows pops open a folder as if it were a normal ol’ USB device. (iTunes: “Boo!” I can’t believe I’m going to say this… Windows: "Huzzah!’ I feel so dirty . . . )

This makes me wonder if this is strictly an Ol’ Gurdy-based software thing, however:

  • my issue seems to have been reported a lot in online Apple forums, and I got it to work in the past, and,
  • nobody here on the SDMB seems to be having an interface issue when they connect their iPod to a computer.

So, @Lare, you have helped–you’ve given me an alternative to try out next week. I’d like to offer you either a warm, juicy green-chile bacon cheeseburger, or, some biscochitos.

I’ve got some work to do. . . and this time I’m taking notes! (I’m sure this’ll come up again.) I’ll get cracking after a tech-free Christmas.

Tripler
“More to follow. . . Out.”

seems to be “sign of the times” that a device that is otherwise perfectly OK is slowly being run off the landing strip for:

  • SW-incompatability
  • HW-incompatability (physical interfaces no longer being supported)
  • battery woes, whose replacement cost doesn’t hold any relationship to the current value of a device…

I (sorta) keep that in mind when I purchase any “devices” nowadays → and no longer spend a significant amount of money on them, for the same reason … somewhat planned obscolescence (sp?)

IOW: I am somewhat OK’ish with a $50 DAC no longer being supported after 10 years and going to waste, wheras I would pull my hair out if a “$5k audiophile-true-class-A” DAC is no longer supported and gets turned into a doorstop …

Sold! And I’m even cheap, feeling that Whataburger’s green chile burger is more than adequate!