Not much attention has been paid to the iPod since the iPhone arrived, and this is a crime, because it was a brilliantly simple device with a wonderful user interface. To help make it relevant again, Guy Dupont gave a 17-year-old iPod a A lot of-update required with the ability to transmit Spotify wirelessly so that it plays music without ever having to be connected to iTunes.
But this is not a hack similar to unlocking an iPhone and loading custom software to add more functionality. Even the latest models of the larger size iPod Classic wireless capabilities were lacking, so upgrading a 17-year-old iPod to access Spotify required Dupont to destroy everything inside the MP3 player, except the iconic click wheel on the front.
In place of original Apple hardware, Dupont exchanged for a Raspberry Pi Zero W that he was able to interface with the click wheel, a replacement color LCD display, a small engine to add tactile feedback and a 1000 mAh rechargeable battery. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of space within a 17 year old device for highly miniaturized modern electronics.
With all of Apple’s original hardware gone, Dupont also had to completely recreate the iPod’s scrolling UI from scratch using Python. While your modernized iPod can now play almost any digital audio format, its ability to access the entire Spotify library wirelessly, including search capabilities, is what makes this hack stand out. In addition to Spotify’s green and black color theme on the screen, this iPod appears to have come straight from an Apple store in some neighboring dimension where the iPhone never existed.