Not much attention has been paid to the iPod since the advent of the iPhone, and that is a crime because it was a brilliantly simple device with a great user interface. To make it relevant again, Guy Dupont gave a 17-year-old iPod one a lot of-need upgrade with the ability to stream Spotify wirelessly so that it plays music again without ever having to be connected to iTunes.
But this isn’t a hack akin to jailbreaking an iPhone and side loading some custom software to add more functionality. Even the latest models of the larger format iPod Classic lacked wireless capabilities, so to upgrade a 17-year-old iPod to access Spotify, Dupont needed to remove everything in the MP3 player except the iconic click wheel on the front.
Instead of Apple’s original hardware, Dupont traded in a Raspberry Pi Zero W that he could use with the click wheel, a replacement color LCD display, a small motor to add haptic feedback, and a 1000 mAh rechargeable battery. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of room for modern, highly miniaturized electronics in a 17-year-old device.
With all of Apple’s original hardware gone, Dupont also had to recreate the iPod’s scrolling user interface from scratch using Python. While his modernized iPod can now play almost any digital audio format, the ability to wirelessly access the entire Spotify library, including search capabilities, is what makes this hack stand out. Other than the green and black Spotify color theme on the screen, this iPod looks like it came straight from an Apple Store in some cases adjacent dimension where the iPhone never entered.