Yeah, that was stupid. But it just came to me. Anyway!

I’ve discovered a handy little something called Rockbox, a firmware replacement for mp3 players. Yesterday I took a notion to reorganize the music on my iPod and encountered an impasse when I tried to put some of my .ogg files on it. By default, iPods are only compatible with .mp3 and .aac files (seriously… aac?). I blame Apple, but that’s another story. My Internet searching led me to an interesting solution: replace the default iPod firmware with Rockbox. Firmware is basically a piece of software that is “hard-wired” to a piece of hardware. Your computer’s BIOS menu (which you may or may not have ever seen) is an example of firmware as it is attached to your motherboard. In the case of mp3 players, the firmware is basically the operating system - it is the code that creates and displays the menu, determines how the player responds to button clicks, organizes data, etc. In a nutshell, it’s what you see on the screen. Well, Rockbox is its own firmware that you can load onto any one of a number of various mp3 players. This was the first time i’ve been glad that my iPod Nano is an old 1G (well, maybe the second.. I recall a sense of pride when I noticed how stupid the younger models look.) as when it comes to Nanos, RB only works with 1G (1st Generation).

After some reading, I decided to give it a shot. Installation was a hundred times quicker and easier than I anticipated. Now with Rockbox, I can do so much more with my iPod. Well, okay maybe not THAT much, but it does give a greater sense of freedom. For one, I can customize the menu with themes - and since it’s all open source, I could even create my own theme (if I were feeling so inclined) or at least customize the existing ones. I also have direct access to the file system on the iPod. Remember, an mp3 player is essentially nothing more than an external hard drive. The way iPods handle the transfer and organization of music files really makes no sense when you think about it. Take a look at this image:

This is where the iPod stores music by default. The “iPod_Control” folder and the “Music” folder in it are both hidden. The songs are stripped of a majority of their file names - those used to be “11 Optimus Prime.mp3″ and “15 Phoney Phranchise.mp3″, grouped in twos, and placed randomly in obscurely-named folders (also notice how track 15’s metatags have mysteriously disappeared). Now, this is generally not a problem when it comes to simply using the iPod because you don’t need to deal with these folders. The iPod database tends to correctly track and organize these songs for you and on the surface (your iPod’s menu), everything looks peachy. But this system is why users are forced to use iTunes. We’re led to believe that iPods are magical devices that somehow hold and play music, and in order for them to function properly, you have to use Apple’s magical (and proprietary) software to teleport your mp3s to the player. And if you don’t want to use iTunes, alternative software like WinAMP and foobar2000 can function as replacements, but first you must install a component or plugin in your choice to make the iPod “think” WinAMP or fb2k is actually iTunes. In the end, the music still goes to the same iPod_Control\Music directory. And the iPod will still complain if you try to give it a file type it isn’t comfortable with (actually, WinAMP will most likely convert them to mp3 for you as it transfers.. but this results in a loss of file quality).

Rockbox lets you get around this. If you want to directly click-and-drag your music files from your hard drive to your iPod, you can do it. You can do this without Rockbox. But the iPod’s default firmware won’t even see it. But let’s say you create a folder in the root directory of your iPod called “Music” and then copy your music over to it. In the main menu of Rockbox, you can select “Files” and then the “Music” folder, and whammo - you can access to your music - organized the way you want it. The biggest advantage to this is you no longer have to worry about filetype restrictions. Also, you’re totally free to organize the structure of your music directory on your computer instead of relying on the iPod to do it for you.

Finally, one of the coolest things about Rockbox is that it is essentially a “dual-boot” installation. It does not replace the default firmware and it can easily be removed without worrying about ruining anything. At any time if you want to load the original firmware instead of RB, you can. And don’t worry, Rockbox also has access to the Database created by the iPod, so if you still want to transfer music to the iPod using a piece of software (which you will most likely still prefer, as it is quicker) then do it! Rockbox sees both the default Database and your own manually-added files. I have really started to enjoy my iPod again thanks to this. Even if it’s not all entirely necessary, the sense of freedom and amount of possibilities opened up are really great.

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