Apple iPod Classic 120GB

Shocking statement ahead: I own an iPod Classic. I know, I know, what a shame. I’m not too proud of it, but I swear, I had a good reason!

Why I got an iPod!?

Jokes aside, people who know me knows how much I dislike Apple products. Anyway, I had to acquire a portable media player in a rush after my Microsoft Zune died one week before leaving my comfortable home to go live an incredible adventure in Tanzania. I couldn’t imagine myself living 6 months far from home, in an unfamiliar place without any kind of music! I already had my eyes on a Cowon player but I couldn’t get one in time before my departure. Because I had a lot of music already at the time, I couldn’t go with a simple flash-based PMP. That left me with very few choices. The iPod was the ONLY available option. So I rushed to a nearby BestBuy (rip FutureShop) to get myself a 120GB, space gray Apple iPod Classic.

I remember very vividly the first thing I did with this iPod. Can you guess? Yes, yes of course I flashed Rockbox on it! What else an iPod is good for?! Rockbox is an alternative firmware for many PMP, including Sandisk’s Sansa and Apple iPod to name a few. Two of the main features I looove with Rockbox, is the ability to send music (data really) just like a flash drive. Bye bye iTunes! The other feature is the ability to play music of any format, including Flac and OGG. Since a big chunk of my music is in Flac, it is really a time-saver to be able to play natively my music on the iPod. Plus it can act as some kind of backup. A bad one, but still!

Its last days

The iPod served me well over the years. I’ve been using it daily in the bus, while going to and from work. I eventually retired the iPod when it started to act up. Everytime I was trying to play a song, it was trying to play for a few seconds, and then skip to the next song. And it did that again. Imagine when I was playing all my songs! It was looping endlessly! Oddly enough, the default iPod hardware was working fine. But I wasn’t an iPod owner for its stock firmware, hell no. Soooo it ended up in a drawer for a couple of years

The life of a forgotten iPod

The drawer was a dark place, darker than a moonless night. The kind of place no one wants to end up, but even the best of us cannot avoid this unfortunate fate. Waiting for a sign of a brighter after-life. One day, the drawer opened. Slowly at first, letting a small ray of light reaching the obscure corners of this damned place. Was it an illusion? Maybe it’s the light of my swollen battery finally deciding to burst in flames. It’s impossible! I’m being taken!

The pheonix is rising again

Sorry for that last part, I felt inspired and I just went with it! Last week I did in fact took the iPod from that infamous drawer. My plan for it? Change the hard drive for an SD Card. That was the initial plan, but it took another turn when I tried to execute it. You see, Apple really didn’t want you to peek inside, and made sure to make it hard to open. Combine that with a life exposed to dust and sand, and you end up with an iPod that is really stubborn to dissassemble.

What about the plan?

Yes! I mentionned an inital plan! That implies that I had to come up with a new plan! The iPod was so hard to open, that I had to resort to … destructive force to make my way in. So I had to order a new front and back shell. Annd a midframe too. If I was to change the shell, why not change it for some funky colors instead? So I ordered an translucid orange Atomic shell and a black back. These are parts for the 5th gen iPod, and according to some guides, I need to swap the midframe. My hope is that it will make it easier to open in the future 🤞. The parts are ordered so the waiting game starts.

So stay tuned for the upgrades!