Eight great iPod hacks, mods and tricks

The iPod is a deeply personal device. The music, contacts, calendars
and notes you store on it reveal much about your personality. From
playcounts to playlists, our iPods can tell others what we enjoy,
how we think and even who we are. But if you truly want to
transform your iPod into an engine of extreme personal expression,
why not customize it?

Hacking an iPod—whether it’s modding the case, installing custom
software, or tearing it up and doubling the memory—can transform
the ubiquitous music and media player into something unique.
Once again, Playlist has scoured to net to find the hottest
iPod hacks, mods and customizations. As always, you should
be aware that trying any of these tricks carries the risk of
ruining your device. We present these for the curious, but
urge you to exercise caution before even considering any of
them. Keep in mind that if you crack open your iPod and
destroy it in the process, Apple isn’t going to take pity
on you. In other words, don’t try this at home.

1. Penguin Power

We went over this customization in our last look at iPod
hacks, but we’re featuring it again as iPod Linux is the
essential hack, table stakes for many of the other hacks
you might want to try. It’s fully supports iPods in generations
1-3, and has been successfully installed on all others with
a display—which doesn’t necessarily indicate that you’ll
be successful yourself. You should also grab a copy of
Podzilla, which will add a graphical interface to iPod
Linux. There are multiple flavors of Podzilla available
for you to choose from. Once installed, iPod Linux and
Podzilla will let you boot up your iPod to a bare-bones Linux
mode. Furthermore, it will serve as the foundation for many
other hacks, both ones listed here and those in our previous guide.

2. Knowledge to Go

Everyone loves Wikipedia. It’s the free user-built encyclopedia
with entries on more topics than Britannica. It’s a great
information resource, but what if you’re away from your desk?
Now you can get it on your iPod and carry Wikipedia with you
everywhere you go. Unfortunately, it’s not yet available for
all models of iPods, nano and video users are left out for now.
(And obviously, since there is no display on the iPod shuffle,
there is no point to installing Wikipedia.) You first will need
to install iPod Linux.

3. Double your Damage

One of the two most daring iPod hacks we’ve come across was this
build featured on multiarcade. Not content with the 4GB of memory
iPod nano? So why not double it. Not for the faint of heart,
performing this hack requires that you conduct some major
surgery on your nano. First you’ll need to buy a broken nano
from eBay. Next up, crack it open and remove the memory. Then,
and here’s where it gets really dicey, you’re going to want to
open up your working nano. Finally, you’ll solder the memory chip
from the broken nano to the empty pad in the working one, seal
it back up, and perform a factory reset. You’ll now either have
one working nano with 7.2 GB of space, or two useless ones. Either
way, this courageous hack should make for a fun-filled weekend
project.

4. Mobile Movies

If you have a lot of movies on DVD, odds are you’ve thought of
transferring them to your iPod. Doing so is relatively easy
using free software available for both the Mac and Windows.
Be warned: unless you use an analog capture method, the DMCA
makes it illegal for you to take the movies you own on DVD and
put them on your iPod.

For Mac (and Linux) users, the process couldn’t be easier. All
you need is a copy of the free utility Handbrake. Handbrake is
already available as a Universal binary—good news for those who
have a new Mac Book Pro, Mac mini, or iMac—and can rip video from
DVD directly to mpeg-4 video, the format you’ll need to watch it
on your iPod.

Windows users need to make a few extra steps. First, you’ll
need to find a DVD ripping program, such as DVDFab Decrypter or
DVD Decrypter. Next, you’ll want to convert your video to AVI
using a decoding tool. Finally, it’s time to convert that AVI
file into mpeg-4 video that can play on your iPod, Videora iPod
Converter is a great
tool for this last step.

5. iPod to TV on the Cheap

This hack is almost the reverse of the previous one, at least in
terms of what it accomplishes. Want to watch content from your
iPod on your TV? You can easily do so by purchasing the $19 iPod
AV cable from Apple. But where’s the fun in that? Apple notes that
other AV cables are not compatible with iPods with color displays.
But that’s not completely true. You can accomplish the same task
using a standard mini-jack to three-plug RCA cable. Since these
cables tend to run southwards of ten bucks, it makes for a
slightly cheaper way watch your iPod videos on your TV set.
Set your iPod to output to TV, plug in the cable via the minijack,
and you’re nearly there. The final step is to simply plug the RCA
connections into your TV using a non-standard setup. Apple outputs
the iPod’s video to the red cable—rather than the traditional
yellow. So you’ll want to plug the red cable into the video
(yellow) plug on your TV, the yellow cable into the white plug,
and the white cable into the red plug. This is an easy hack that
anyone with an iPod video can try.

6. Pac Attack

Growing up, I spent endless hours in front of an arcade console,
popping pills and running from ghosts. Now I can re-live those
glory days with my iPod, thanks to iPodMAME, which allows me to
play Pac-Man right on my iPod. This hack will install a version
of MAME, the arcade game emulator program, on your iPod. As with
the Wikipedia hack, iPodMAME requires that you first install
iPodLinux. The program comes with romsets (the set of files
including all the game data) including one for Pac-Man, however others
should be able to be added. To date, iPodMAME has only been tested on
the 5G iPod with video and the iPod nano, but the creator notes that
it should work on any iPod with a color screen.

7. Radio Free Shuffle

As always, Jim Younkin’s Shufflehacks site is a great source
of inspiration. And one of the recent hacks he posted was no
exception. This risk-free hack will let you turn your iPod shuffle
into a portable radio station—perfect for taking your shuffle with
you on a road trip. The build notes offer instructions on how to
build a radio transmitter that plugs into your shuffle (or other
MP3 player). The example on Shufflehacks uses a computer mouse
for a body to house the radio, perfect for an über-geeky customization.

8. Scratchless Super Screen

There are only two complaints we hear about the iPod with any
degree of regularity. The first is that the screens can be easily
scratched, and the second is that they’re all the same. This
hack takes care of both of those complaints. Note that we include
this last mod not because we think you should try it (we don’t!),
but rather because it’s so daring. Like the memory doubling hack
featured above, this is a good way to ruin your iPod. But that
didn’t stop Seth Fogie from cracking open his iPod and scratch-
proofing the display. Noting that the faceplate on the Sony PSP
is more bulletproof than that on the iPod, and that it nearly
matched the iPod’s in terms of size, Fogie set about
two of them out. Fogie completely disassembled his iPod, and then
filed down his PSP faceplate to fit. After re-assembling everything,
he was left with a “Scratchproof” iPod. While we don’t suggest you
try this at home, we’d love to hear about it if you do.


njoy!!