The iPod is back… kinda
Full disclosure, I never owned an iPod because they went out of fashion and into obsolescence before disposable income was a thing for me. Still, I love a good nostalgia bandwagon, so here we are.
Maker Del Hatch put his electrical engineering skills to use and created the ePiPod, a portable music player with a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W for a brain, masquerading as an iPod.
How is it made?
All of the external components are wired directly to the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO.
A Waveshare 2.13-inch e-paper display with 250 × 122px resolution makes the ePiPod’s screen easy to read in direct sunlight. It’s also a nice power-efficient option: with a 1200mAh battery which supports up to five hours of continuous playback, you’ve got a long afternoon full of sunny musical fun in the palm of your hand. The device is charged via a USB port, and there’s a microSD card slot for storage.
Del created a custom PCB with a 24-bit DAC and a 3.5mm audio jack, covering all high-quality audio output bases. You can purchase his design on PCBWay.
Moving away from the iPod’s click wheel design
Instead of the classic iPod click wheel (which has its own Wikipedia entry; we were truly blown away by capacitive sensors in 1998), the ePiPod uses a more visually straightforward set of tactile push buttons. Five buttons in total control navigation and volume control.
While I did not own an iPod, I do remember playing with one or two. Figuring out how this lone circular button did several different things was much like meeting Snapchat’s interface for the first time in my thirties. Not good. I have since come to terms with having to look at my phone screen to type, and agree that my current setup is better in almost every way than a Nokia 3210, but I do so miss being able to maintain eye contact while texting because I know, off the top of my head, that hitting the “7” button four times get me an “s”, and the “0” gets me a space, and so on.
And this is why I like Del’s ePiPod design so much. it harnesses a little nostalgia but makes it easier for the likes of me to use the buttons. Perfect.
9 comments
Josh
nice would love to try this out
Michael
This is pointless without the clickwheel. The clickwheel is what made the ipod. The tactlile feeling of scrolling through your music with the wheel was amazing.
Raspberry Pi Staff Ashley Whittaker — post author
It was witchcraft is what it was. Haptics without physical *buttons*. It was like living in a Star Trek episode.
Phill
Here me out, why not just get an ipod lol, i see the fun side of it, but seriously just get an ipod, i still use mine
Hellmark
Not everyone wants an ipod. Depending on the model you want, they can be expensive, and difficult to repair once it starts having issues.
Lewis
Why on this green earth would someone design something with micro USB in 2024???
youlk
Why does nobody (except me) like USB B Micro???
Hellmark
Micro USB connectors aren’t that durable. The springs wear out, plus prone to bending and breaking. Also, as most everything else has moved to USB-C, it is one more cable to keep around for just one device.
Peter
I will wade in in favour of micro usb.
This is a sort of nostalgia trip with all its (well it’s not quite right bits), and I bet someone owns that original wheel!
So to keep the fun of getting both ends of a cable wrong at least two times per end seems in keeping.
That said, “USB C” seems magic. Now all we need “USB Aye” for aye, that works which way either end plugs in.
Will I build this, nope, so many more things to do but Thanks. Love to see and pick ideas.
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