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Hacking the iPod Firmware

Posted by michael on from the void-your-warranty dept.

skreuzer writes "Earlier in the week, someone figured out how to get all the fonts and graphics off the iPod's firmware. Today, Engadget has an article that details on how to mod your own iPod's firmware and display just about any graphic for icons such as power, battery, status, etc."

9 of 273 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing to see here, please move along... by isa-kuruption · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm waiting for the NetBSD-iPod-HOWTO.txt

  2. adding in OGG? by the_2nd_coming · · Score: 4, Interesting

    when will some one hack it to play Ogg?

    --



    I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
  3. Its only changing some icons & graphics. by Viol8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hardly modding the firmware! Isn't there some way of programming your own apps on the thing?

    1. Re:Its only changing some icons & graphics. by damiam · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes. The easiest way at the moment is iPod Linux.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
  4. Funny battery monitor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I did this. I changed the power monitor so it starts as a fully erect cock that becomes more and more flaccid as the battery runs down - it's totally hilarious. Of course, now people think I'm a gay pervert. But it's worth it.

  5. Re:Anyone do this to a non iPod photo model? by CrazyBusError · · Score: 4, Funny

    No, it comes up in colour.

    It's a *really* clever firmware hack...

    --
    -Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience-
  6. BETTER iPod HACKING GUIDE by mbeck145 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Chris Nowak has figured out how to do something the smart people at engadget couldn't do, hack the iPod images without loosing all your songs or data. Check out Chris's article "iPod Hacking". Props to Nowak for coming up with this.

    http://cnowak.blogspot.com/2004/12/ipod-hacking. ht ml

  7. Of course it might break the HW by Flexagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As far as I can tell, this can't damage the iPod's hardware, can it?

    How do you know? In many highly cost-reduced platforms, critical control is moved into software, so that it might be quite easy to break the hardware by breaking the software. Fiddle with the power management (charging) firmware on some mobile devices and you might blow up the batteries or at least create a serious overheating condition. This kind of thing happens often enough to cause recalls and firmware updates even in "official" firmware to easily back up a claim that hacking the software can break the hardware.

    The earlier sibling's response is also sufficiently valid on its own: the vendor has no obligation to diagnose your problems if you've changed the (software) platform that provides the basis for their diagnosis capability. You didn't pay for an advanced hardware-only diagnostic service.

  8. read on by gotr00t · · Score: 4, Interesting
    They're currently working on making it work for the newer generation of iPods. Because they use the newer chipset from PortalPlayer, the memory mappings aren't quite the same (please correct me if someone understands this better).

    You can still use your iPod firmware pretty easily. I have Linux installed on my 3G iPod, and it's kinda like a dual-boot.

    If you think about it, it's a lot easier to program in C, using documented libs (podzilla) for the iPod, rather than hacking the Apple firmware and trying to add functionality, which will probably break your firmware anyhow.