Gaming Upgrading iPod GUI?

[War]

(Sorry if this doesn't go here, I wasn't sure where to post it...)

A friend of mine and I were talking about iPods today, and he mentioned that it's possible to hack a new GUI into an old iPod. For example, I have a 5th generation iPod video. If it's even possible, I would like to upgrade to the GUI they put on the 5.5 Gen iPods, which is the split-screen/coverflow GUI. Is that possible?

 

[AXYPB]

If you have an older model, try Rockbox. It's open source and has support for many more formats than any official firmware will consider. For iPods, it installs itself as a dual-boot firmware so you can still use the official firmware if you need to for whatever reason.

 

[War]

Yeah, I was actually looking into that. It sounds interesting, but I don't see much of a difference between Rockbox and the 5g GUI.

 

[Awdofgum]

Is this what you're looking for?

http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=80732

 

[AXYPB]

Other than that and iPodLinux, I don't know of anything else.

 

[Salamantis]

This is what you're talking about:
http://www.ipodwizard.net/showthread.php?t=30444

You won't get coverflow with any mod, since the iPod 5G's hardware isn't made to run Coverflow well.

 

[Mewgia]

Also, it's not really a "GUI," it's a firmware.

A GUI is only part of a firmware.

 

[War]

If I won't get coverflow, then I guess I might as well go with Rockbox. Thanks for all the help!

Btw, is Rockbox hard to install? Is it worth it?

 

[Deleted member 76381]

Btw, is Rockbox hard to install? Is it worth it?

In my experience, no, it's not hard to install. Just follow instructions, and that's really it. And it doesn't overwrite the original iPod firmware, so you can dualboot if you so wish. And honestly, it is worth it. I made a topic a few months back where I was actually contemplating chucking my iPod and getting something else, and someone suggested RockBox. I haven't looked back since.

Things of note are that you can store music anywhere on the iPod and Rockbox will recognize it and play it on the go no matter the filename, unlike iTunes. You can just drag a folder into another and it'll play when you're listening to the iPod itself. I have some gripes, like...some applications will be impossible to get out of unless you have that app's instructions in front of you, and when you want to search for a song, you have to scroll through the Database from the start. And when you play a song, it has to remake the entire database if you have it on shuffle like I do, but that's not much more than a few extra seconds of waiting, really.

There are a number of visual themes you can use too. None of mine seem to support displaying the cover (or maybe I've disabled that somewhere), but I use this brushed metal background and one of the fonts that displays Japanese text instead of blanks or boxes. It works out well, and it even tells you in decibels how loud you're playing, a visual representation of this and battery remaining, and a written representation of how long you have until the battery runs dry (like 9h 6m or so).

Best thing I've ever done to my iPod. No longer do I have to figure out what FKEC.mp3 in hidden folder F38 is. =P

 

[xJonny]

I've tried iPod Classic for iPod Video linked above, thought it was ok, a bit buggy.
I also tried some custom themes with iPodWizard.

I've also installed Rockbox, it was quite easy, but never really used it.

 

[Twiffles]

You mean like this?
5g iPod with iPod Classic FW

I read about it somewhere, forgot where.

 

[El Blacksheep]

i put rockbox on my 5th gen video ipod. it was awesome until i realized it drains battery life a hell of a lot faster than the ipod firmware does.
i also put the split-screen firmware on it, but it didn't really add any functionality.

i ended up just resetting it to factory default, giving it to my mom and picking up a shuffle. best decision ive made regarding ipods.

 

[donuthobo]

http://ipodhacking.com/ has all the hacks and themes for ipods/iphones. just go to the forums and then the 5/5.5G section.
Rockbox drains battery but lets you play high quality music. It lets you play flac encoding without first converting to apple lossless format which the official ipod firmware requires if you want to play quality music. rockbox also lets you play gameboy/gameboy color games with rockboy on your ipod.

 

[Mewgia]

i put rockbox on my 5th gen video ipod. it was awesome until i realized it drains battery life a hell of a lot faster than the ipod firmware does.
i also put the split-screen firmware on it, but it didn't really add any functionality.

i ended up just resetting it to factory default, giving it to my mom and picking up a shuffle. best decision ive made regarding ipods.

why the fuck would you want a shuffle?

Is it the awesome lack of a screen? Maybe you like the amazingly bad price/capacity ratio?



I don't really see why you would like a shuffle over a regular iPod.