Although it has been eclipsed in importance by the iPhone, it is fair to say that most people have a special place in their hearts for the iPod. It is, in many ways, the device that defines the children of the environment. So, what better way to honor your legacy than to give it a new lease on life and modify it to work with a streaming music service? That’s exactly what YouTuber Guy Dupont (via Gizmodo) did when he updated a 4th generation iPod Classic that his mother-in-law gave him to run Spotify.
Before you get too excited, know that it’s not just sideloading the app. The 2004 model that Dupont hacked does not come with a way to connect to the internet via WiFi, so he essentially had to rebuild the device to allow him to access Spotify.
The resulting “sPot” features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing connection to wireless speakers and headphones, as well as a color display and 1,000 mAh battery. If you are an audio purist, you will hate the next part: the headphone connector on the top of the device is for display and does not work. At the heart of the device is the $ 10 Raspberry Pi Zero W. There is also an engine that creates tactile feedback when using the click wheel. To charge the device, there is a Micro-USB port. Although we preferred a USB-C connection, Micro-USB is definitely an improvement over Apple’s 30-pin connector (remember them?).
In all, all components cost less than $ 100. At $ 40, the most expensive part was the color screen that Dupont used to replace the original iPod screen (the 4th generation model was the last to be launched with a monochrome screen). Part of the reason it was so expensive was that most manufacturers no longer made screens that small, since even the smallest screen on the smartphone is bigger than anything that came with an iPod click wheel. The fact that the device works so well is due to a bit of luck. Dupont found a decade-old Hackaday article that details how one of the connectors inside the iPod works. This allowed the click wheel to work well with all other components.
The programming that powers sPot is a mix of software that Dupont wrote for himself and an application called Raspotify, which allows a Raspberry Pi computer to access the streaming service through the Spotify Connect API. The front-end interface he coded even allows sPot to search for music – although, as you can imagine, without a touchscreen keyboard, it can take a while to enter even a few characters.
If you have an old unused iPod in a drawer somewhere and want to take on the project yourself, Dupont has uploaded a detailed overview for Hackaday. He is also in the process of uploading the software he wrote for the project to GitHub.