Technology

I just bought an Innioasia Y1, which is an iPod classic clone for $50.

Put an unofficial Rockbox port on it and installed a 512gb micro SD card. Ignoring the mediocre DAC and comparatively unresponsive click wheel it's pretty good. I finally have my entire music library with me again and look at my phone less often (both of which were goals of getting an mp3 player again).

I was big into mp3 players 15-20 years ago and used Rockbox on all of them so this is really nice especially at the price point.

PS: They are working on a Y2 that improves upon a lot of things. The Y1 was marketed as a kids device but is awesome with Rockbox on it and went viral the past few months.

Just gonna leave this here: https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m500

I bought one of those used for my daughter a couple of years ago. It was quite the hassle to replace the apple firmware win with rockbox, but it's been working well since then. It's copy and paste mp3s now instead of using apples spying bloatware just to get a few files onto the device. The battery is not great but still lasts a couple of hours after 15(?) years.

I have a U2 branded iPod... Whatever generation those were that I found lying in the gutter years ago, cleaned up and still works (screen's scratched to shit but it's still readable). I just use it to store pictures.

Breaking news: A journalist just discovered that the thing he stopped using while still functioning normally still functions after a lng time left in a drawer.

The clickwheel ribbon cable on my iPod mini broke a couple of weeks ago, so at the weekend a friend of me very kindly donated his own mini to me, so I'm back on my iPod bullshit.

iPod gang rise up.

Oh, and if you're using Linux, or don't want the hassle of installing iTunes, TunesReloaded seems to be a genuinely great tool.

I really should get around to refurbing the 5th and 7th gen Classics I have too. They're more versatile than the mini. But the mini is by far and away the easiest to flashmod.

I have a 3rd gen nano, it's used everyday. Battery is still fine. Now to charge up my Zune HD.

Not to brag, but this is my mp3 in 2026:

It plays wonderfully. But only works with Windows XP for transfers...

I charged up my gen 2 shuffle very recently as well, but got the spicy pillow treatment instead. RIP to a real one!

Apple products are great. The Apple ecosystem, not so much. If you're into FOSS computing and FOSS media formats, you're not going to have a good time.

And the battery didn't bulge a few hours after a full charge?

Doubt it.

Jealous yours works. The battery on my 1st gen 2gb bloated and killed the screen. But apparently there was a recall on them years before, so I sent it in to apple and they sent me a 7th gen 16gb, which I still use. At the time it just felt like an upgrade, but now I kind of wish I just fixed the 1st gen

Recently resurrected a nano; it’s 20 years old. Works fine, but I haven’t done the music transfer yet.

My full size iPod though won’t boot. Just clicks and reboots constantly. I think the hard drive is toast.

I still use my iPod mini plugged into a music centre of the same vintage. I don't update it though, its lovely having my 2004-5 music capsule.

I miss my Zune. Best music player ever.

Surprise surprise

Creative MuVo TX FM gang

Cries in Sansa Fuse that I dropped several times until it shattered, still worked, and then the pastic got all gooie

Rockbox supports modern codecs including Opus, so you can fit nearly 4 days of decent quality music on a 4GB iPod.

Weirdly I picked 2 up yesterday. 1st gen I think battery isn’t to bad, I’d almost forgotten the swish around the wheel.

Also go a gen5 but the battery was shagged! Plugged it in and it went pop.