News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved for posterity. Parent comment

Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by liquidise on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @09:50AM (#45197681)
I daily drive an iPod (currently listening to it on a flight). Some benefits:

- Listening to music doesn't drain your phone. Also it's offline, which is a bonus for hiking/biking/flights.

- Underrated convo starter. Set one down on a bar top as you sit down and i promise you'll be talking to everyone around you

- The battery life is unmatched, including by modern DAP's. Mine is running a stock battery (still!) and gets days of playback. Weeks/months when idle (use it too much to know for sure).

- iFlash [1] has replacement boards for $30-$40 that let you use modern nvme storage over spinning media. Simple swap and has been rock solid for me for years.

- Audio quality over 3.5mm aux ports is noticeably superior to bluetooth in most (older?) cars

Would they take off today? I think there could be a retro-y scene for them, especially if they had any wifi connectivity. The device remains one of the best purpose-built consumer devices, and that's hard not to appreciate. My 10yr old daughter thinks it's less cool than i do, though.

1. https://www.iflash.xyz/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by rnrn on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @10:21AM (#45198137)
Do you use some old version of iTunes to put music on it or are there other tools with better support for old iPods?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by neckro23 on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @11:43AM (#45199373)
Original iPods (and early iPhones) weren’t locked down as much. There were a number of utils that could manage your library. ml_ipod plugin for WinAmp comes to mind.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by echelon_musk on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @11:10AM (#45198939)
Rockbox.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by sgerenser on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @02:40PM (#45201931)
on macOS you can still manage/sync iPods from the Finder (it was moved to there from iTunes when they killed iTunes).
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved... by liquidise on Wednesday September 10, 2025 @05:09PM (#45203755)
All my music gets copied into OS X's Apple Music, which still supports iPods. Other repliees are arguably better alternatives these days.
[ Parent | on HN ]