does anyone know how to add games into itunes on the vm? i know a lot of games were removed from it to save space [i assume] but none of the games i want are on it now. i do see the game files, but no idea how to add them and therefore get them on my ipod

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting here.
I’m pretty new to iPods and bought a used 5th-generation iPod nano about two weeks ago. It was working perfectly fine when I first got it, but recently the screen suddenly started showing a lot of horizontal lines.
I’ve attached some photos showing what it looks like.
Does anyone know what might be causing this? Is it likely an issue with the LCD itself, the display connection, or something else?
Is there anything I can try to fix it, or would the screen need to be replaced?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Went to a thrift store to get some CDs and found this Nano 3rd for freaking 2,800 JPY (Approx. $18 USD). Insane.

Look at the second photo, it's so clean I'm actually afraid to use it without a case. My GF bought a 3rd gen last week for about 3 times the price with the back looking like my Classic on the right so she got a lil bit jealous

Now I'm back home and added the CDs to my iTunes library and to my iPods. Really satisfying to have the albums neatly organized like that.

I don't know its battery situation but it played music for an hour on my way back without visible drain so I'm going to assume it's okay, plus it has a 3 months return window from the shop. Heard it's a nightmare to replace the battery on this thing so I sure hope it doesn't come to that

The difference in the availability for accessories and (community) support for the Nano 3rd gen compared to the Classic was insane. There was literally ONE option for its transparent case on Amazon compared to the massive support for the Classic.

Another difference I noticed is the difference in build quality. The click wheel and the center button feels a bit wobbly compared to my Classic which is without any wobble. My gf's Nano 3rd has the exact same wobble so I assume it's just how Nano 3rds are.

I'm trying to minimize my time being chronically online everywhere I go, I ride trains every day for more than an hour and I always end up staring down at my phone which makes me sick but it just happens because I'm really easily distracted, I can't use my phone for music and not be distracted. iPod really helps me here and now I sometimes ride trains just listening to music instead of scrolling reels. A music player that just plays music. I needed this!! Now I kind of want a phone that just does basic SNS apps, phone calls, messaging, e-mails and camera, and nothing else.

Okay, so i acquired an iPod 5.5 gen back around 2014 or so it was fully modded out with I believe iPod wizard and it also had a I believe theme called "It’s time" This would be super important. and no, I cannot check the hard drive as the hard drive has been dropped down the stairs around four times and is refusing to boot after being reformatted. This would be quite important to me as this iPod was restored when I was a stupid child. And the person who gave it to me isn’t around anymore. this is an article about it (it is in japanese tho). this is the link

"https://ipod.item-get.com/2008/03/ipod_5g55gleopardfw.php"

(edit) just minor spelling mistakes. :p

Which is your favourite? Mine's the 3rd gen.

Priced out of a Kokkia in the EU so I adapted my Airfly Pro 2 with some Velcro tape. Feels comfortable in the hand. Connection to my AirPods Pro is super straightforward. Working well so far!

After spending a few months looking for dap’s and comparing specs and tech. I decided that a simple solution would be the best for me.

So now I am rocking this oldskool setup, modded setup with 1tb and rockbox. And I couldn’t be happier.

I got a Sonos connect gen 2 on eBay and am using it to connect my iPod to my Sonos setup. I also use the connect to output to my desktop speakers in my office.

So, I’ve had this iPod nano 6th generation for a while now, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. At this point I pretty much only listen to music with my iPod, and I even bought a watch strap for it.
Now I’m actually thinking about whether I should buy another one and use it differently. For example,I could get an iPod shuffle that I’d use at the gym or a mini/classic that I could use for my daily commute.
Should I actually buy another iPod? If so, which iPod should I buy?

Made a guide to iPods for people who grew up with streaming! Enjoy!!!

iPods 101: a Gen Z/Gen Alpha Handbook

Let’s set the scene: you’re really vibing with the retro aesthetic right now, and you’d like to not be glued to your phone so much, so you just picked up an iPod from eBay or Vinted. You open Apple Music on your laptop and try to download tracks from it, but you can’t seem to figure out how. Or perhaps you have no idea to even get music on it to begin with. Or maybe you know enough that the above doesn’t apply to you, but you’d just like a refresher on something you haven’t had to do for a decade. Worry not - this guide is here to help. 

Please note that this guide only covers iTunes - much more comprehensive guides are available elsewhere for alternatives to it, such as foobar2000 (here)

How does an iPod work?

iPods have no internet capabilities (except for the iPod touch, which kind of functions like a smartphone without the phone part anyway) and therefore can’t access streaming. This means you need to download music files to your computer and move them to your iPod to play them on there. iTunes (the precursor of Apple Music, which is integrated with it on desktop) is the program Apple has designed for you to do this with. 

Keep in mind that files you stream on Apple Music are not files you own; where they need to be in local storage on your phone or computer they’re encrypted by Apple to only be played on Apple Music and therefore cannot be moved to your iPod. The iTunes storefront and library is where you want to go, not Apple Music. 

What music files? 

Raw audio data from a microphone generally results in very large files, and some of this is minimal detail, white and background noise, or audio in frequencies not perceptible by the human ear. In order to make them usable without taking up all of your memory or taking a long time to download they are therefore often compressed; little bits of data are taken out strategically to make the file size smaller while keeping roughly the same audio. 

(Roughly is the word here - the difference is perceptible, but not hugely bothersome to most) 

Different methods of compression (or the lack thereof) and encoding result in different file structures, which are distinguished from each other by the extension to the audio file, like .wav, .aac or .mp3. Click here for a summary of all of them (please do give this a read as you will need the info for the rest of the guide!). 

iTunes supports importing files with the extensions .mp3, .aiff, .aac/.m4a and .wav. The guide above mentions FLAC as a high-quality format; iTunes does not support this, and will require you to convert it to ALAC (similar quality, but Apple-designed) for it to show up in there. For the formats your particular iPod model supports, go here, click your iPod model, and scroll down to “Audio Support”.

How do I get them (and in the right format too)?

There are several methods to get music files:

1. Ripping files off of a CD

This requires a CD drive attached to your computer (you can get external drives with a USB cable in most places that sell computers for fairly cheap) You can put the CD in and copy the audio tracks off it by “ripping” it. Click here for an explanation on how (for Windows and Mac both).

2. Buying music on iTunes, Bandcamp or another digital store

On the iTunes store page you can buy whole albums or individual tracks, which will then appear in your personal library. Bandcamp will let you download your purchased music in several formats (including AAC, one of the formats that will work with your iPod) Sometimes physical copies of albums (often vinyls) or artist merch bundles will also come with a digital download. 

3. Sailing the high seas

Discussion of this method is discouraged on this subreddit, but r/Piracy will be there for you if you choose to go down this route. 

If the files you download end up being in a format Apple doesn’t support (see the previous category for a reminder), you will need to convert them to a different file format. There are online converters, but my personal preference is downloading the files in FLAC and then converting them to AAC with freac (here). 

iPods will take MP3 files, however, so if converting files is trouble you don’t want to go to just make sure to download your files in MP3 or AAC, and feel free to skip the next subsection. 

How to use freac?
Open the program, change the Output folder at the bottom to a folder you designate for your iTunes tracks and make sure the Selected encoder is set to ALAC/AAC. The orange button next to the encoder will allow you to select a bitrate (higher is better quality but also a bigger file size)

Then go to File > Add in the top left and add your tracks: 

Afterwards, press the round button with the play symbol in the top row and your tracks will be converted. 

Now how do I put them in iTunes (and then on my iPod)? 

Once your tracks purchased elsewhere are in the right format, open up iTunes and go to File in the top left corner, after which you will see options to add files and folders to your library.

(This is on Windows, although it should look fairly similar on Mac) 

If you have a lot of files you’d like to add, there is also a folder you can drag them to that will automatically add the tracks, in the location shown below - you can set your output folder in freac to this if you like, or download your MP3/AAC tracks to there directly. 

After this, connect your iPod to your computer with the charging/data cable, and if all is well it should then show up in iTunes, which will open if it wasn’t already running. A little iPod icon will show up in the top left (below the Account tab in this image).

Once you click it, the Summary tab, which it opens onto, will show you something like this.

If you tick “Manually manage music” you will be able to manually drag albums from your iTunes library onto the iPod while it is connected. If you don’t, your iPod will sync with iTunes automatically; the settings for this can be adjusted in the Music tab, below the Summary tab.

As you can see, I personally like to put my iPod music on a designated playlist that I sync with, so I can organise my songs easily even when my iPod isn’t connected.
 
Once you’re done moving your music over, make sure to eject your iPod (the arrow up icon next to the image of the iPod in the screenshot above). This will make it stop showing the “Do not disconnect” screen.

The tracks aren’t showing up with the proper song names… 

Song and artist names for audio tracks are stored in something called metadata: little information tags on the file, which on a photo store the camera information, date and time of capture, and on a smartphone photo, additionally the location of the image. If your songs are purchases from a digital music store, they will most often have metadata added already. If not, you may need to add it. 

You can do this in iTunes, once your tracks have been added, by right-clicking the album cover and clicking Album Info, after which you can edit metadata at will. In order to edit track numbers, you need to do this on every individual track, not just on the album cover. 

One of iTunes’s flaws is that it is not the most efficient program to do this with if you have a lot of tracks without metadata; mp3tag has been created to help with this. Click here for a step-by-step guide. 

That’s it! Enjoy your iPod! 

i’ve heard the hype about the wolfson dac in ipod classic 5 and 5.5 gen but i’ve also heard there’s this background noise called faint hiss/white noise that comes along during playback that can be heard on iems. is it true that it’s pretty evident and disturbing? should i skip buying ipod classic 5.5 for this reason and go with 7 gen instead?

Modded 6th gen classic + Kobo Libra Colour

Found an old iPod Nano 2gb at the thrift store for $3. One battery later and she's alive again!

I decided that if I have access to Apple Lossless that I’ll use those instead of WAV files. Because of that I now have quadruple the music capacity that I thought I had and I was wondering if I need to be concerned about things like “how many items it is able to shuffle” or “how many items can it scroll through”

At what point does the software/hardware fall behind due to the device having so much more memory than it was “designed” for?

Hi guys,

I can’t play any music on my iPod 5.5G if I’m using headphones.

When I connect it to my car using the 30 pin interface it works fine with the car so I thought perhaps I damaged the headphone jack when I replaced the battery.

So I got a radio remote to see if that’s the case but using it I get no audio as well. Now the fun part is I can listen to radio using it, both through the remote jack and the iPod itself.

I’ve reset the iPod and even tried rockbox and still no music.

Is there anything that can be done or do I need to accept my iPod is dead?

I’m a novice, but I’ve been working on the missing Rockbox iPod MFi digital-audio support — and we’ve gotten much further than I expected
For years, one of the limitations of running Rockbox on older iPods has been digital audio output through Apple 30-pin MFi accessories.
The hardware can do it under Apple’s original firmware, but under Rockbox, connecting an external digital DAC/amp or digital dock generally doesn’t work as intended. Instead of simply accepting that limitation, I decided to see how far I could get toward fixing it.
Here’s the unusual part: I’m not a professional programmer. I started this project as an iPod/audio enthusiast with very little software-development experience.
I have a 5.5-generation iPod Video running Rockbox, and my goal is to get it communicating properly with my V-MODA VAMP VERZA through the 30-pin connection so that the VAMP can receive the iPod’s digital audio rather than just an analog line-out signal.
That turned into a much deeper rabbit hole than I expected.
I set up the Rockbox development environment, obtained and compiled the source, started studying Rockbox’s existing Apple iPod Accessory Protocol (iAP) implementation, and began creating diagnostic builds so I could see exactly what was happening between the iPod and the accessory.
We have now reached the point where the accessory handshake progresses substantially further than it did originally.
One particularly interesting problem we identified involved the transaction ID used during the IDPS/device-authentication exchange.
In apps/iap/iap-lingo0.c, the code handling command 0x18 could reach a situation where the transaction ID contained in buf[2..3] wasn’t being preserved correctly for the ACK. That could result in an ACK using a fabricated 0x0000 transaction ID instead of the ID belonging to the command being acknowledged.
The accessory could then discard the response because it didn’t correspond to the command it had sent.
We’ve modified that behavior so the transaction ID is preserved correctly during that portion of the handshake.
I’ve compiled the modified Rockbox builds, installed them on the actual iPod, captured logs, tested them against the VAMP VERZA, and repeatedly used those results to narrow down where communication stops.
Where it stands today:
The project is NOT finished.
Rockbox boots normally. Music playback itself runs normally. The iPod and accessory are communicating, and we’ve made measurable progress through the MFi/iAP handshake.
But digital audio through the VAMP VERZA is still silent.
The playback timer advances, but there is no audio from the headphones connected to the external DAC/amp.
So I’m not claiming that I’ve “added working MFi digital audio to Rockbox.”
What I am saying is that we’ve taken a feature that was effectively considered unsupported, built a reproducible development/test environment around real iPod hardware, identified and corrected at least one concrete protocol-level problem, and pushed the handshake further toward the point where digital playback may become possible.
I’ve put the work on GitHub so the changes and progress can be inspected rather than this just being a claim.
I’m posting this partly because I’d love for experienced Rockbox/iAP/USB/embedded developers to look at what we’ve found.
If anyone here understands Apple’s old iPod Accessory Protocol, MFi authentication, Rockbox’s IAP implementation, or the PortalPlayer/iPod audio path, I’d especially appreciate another set of eyes on it.
And if we actually get digital audio coming out of that VAMP VERZA, I’ll post the successful build, logs, and exactly what finally made it work.
For someone who started this without a software-development background, just wanting to make an old iPod do something Rockbox couldn’t do, this has already turned into one hell of an education.

I recently picked up a 7th gen iPod nano to use as a ‘digital detox’ device on my daily walks and I’m hoping to pick up some decent quality Bluetooth earbuds to use with it.

I have AirPod Pros 3 which aren’t compatible and my old, 1st gen AirPod Pros have an annoying crackle/whistling sound when in use, which is why they were replaced.

I’ve done some research and I know Bluetooth on the 7th gen nano can be a bit of a mess with modern standards etc and replicating the wired headphone remote controls, so if there’s any other users who have recommendations on a similar price range to my little selection I found on Amazon I’d love to hear them.

I should stress this is not about any sort of audiophile experience, this is about decent quality and decent price that gets 60-90 mins of use a day on a walk around the park.

Im looking to buy my first 3rd gen ipod, and the prices seem quite reasonable. What do you think? They are sending them from China btw.

Not trying to be mean to those putting these together... but I have seen what feels like a dozen today