If you’re like most iPod owners, your old iPod is starting to show its age. The screen is scratched and the buttons are starting to feel a little stiff. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of life left in your iPod – as long as you upgrade it to Rockbox! Rockbox is a free software application that allows you to customize your iPod’s appearance, add new music, and even create your own playlists. It’s easy to install and can be done in just a few minutes. Here’s how to do it:

  1. First, download the Rockbox software from the Internet.
  2. Once you have downloaded the software, open it up on your computer. You will see a screen that looks like this:
  3. Click on “File” and then “New Playlist.” This will open up a new window where you can create your own playlist.
  4. To add music to your playlist, simply drag and drop the files into the window. You can also use the search feature to find specific songs.
  5. When you’re finished adding music, click on “Save.” This will save your playlist in the Rockbox software folder.
  6. Next, we’ll need to make some changes to our iPod’s firmware so that it can use Rockbox. To do this, connect your iPod to your computer using the USB cable that came with it and click on “File” again. This time, click on “Update Firmware.”
  7. On the next screen, select “Rockbox” from the list of options and click on “Next.”
  8. On the next screen, enter your Apple ID password (this is different from your iTunes password). Then click on “Next.”
  9. On the final screen of Update Firmware, select “Yes” (or press Return/Enter). Your iPod will now update its firmware with Rockbox! ..

Rockbox is a replacement firmware for the iPod, iriver, Cowon, and many other devices. What the firmware does is extends the functionality and features of your current digital music player.

Installing Rockbox

The first thing to do is download the Rockbox utility from their website.

Rockbox provides prebuilt binaries for Windows, OS X, and Linux so just download the one you need and run the program. The first time the software loads you will need to plug in your iPod and autodetect the model. If you know the model you can also browse to a mounted drive and then just select your model from the provided list.

Note: You may need administrative rights on the computer you are running the utility from to write to USB devices.

Installation is a one click affair. Simply click the complete installation button and the latest files will be downloaded and installed onto your iPod.

Note: The installation will not erase all of the music and pictures you have on your device. If everything works the way it should, it will simply replace the bootloader and add its own OS files where needed.

Once Rockbox is installed you can install any optional playback themes from the built in theme installer.

Or you can also install fonts or games from the Rockbox utility.

Using Rockbox

Once everything is installed, disconnect your iPod and reboot it. It should automatically load Rockbox. Usability of the iPod should be fairly the same with one of the big differences is now you will have some more utilities and menus. You can browse for pictures and music from the files browser or if you have your music tagged you can also use the database browser.

You can change the theme to one of the ones you installed by going to system -> themes and selecting the theme you want. The menu should change automatically and you will also notice the new theme during playback.

Some of the extra utilites are found under the plugins menu. If you go into that menu you will find any additional software and games you installed.

Of course, the option to play Doom is there if you installed the games option in Rockbox utility, and have a supported device. You will have to figure out how to actually control playing on your own.

Uninstalling Rockbox

If you want to switch back to the default OS that came with your iPod you can hold the menu+select button (menu+play on some devices) to hard reset the iPod. Once the iPod starts to boot again turn on the hold switch and the original OS will load.

If you actually want to remove Rockbox completely then you can go back to the Rockbox utility and just click uninstall.

So next time you are tempted to throw out your perfectly working old iPod because Apple told you it would be a good idea, try out Rockbox. It may have the missing apps you were looking for.

Rockbox homepage