I think Apple needs to start taking some of their cues from hackers because they are truly demonstrating what the masses want. When the iPhone was originally released hackers were forced to find a way to get real third-party applications onto the device, and it didn’t take long for that to happen. Now Apple is trying to make amends by releasing a true SDK in February for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
And then Microsoft announced that the original Zune will be getting the same firmware update that the Zune 2 will have, and many people were angry that Apple didn’t do the same thing with the iPod Classic. Hackers went at it again and were able to port over the firmware to 5G and 5.5G iPods!
Information on the hacked firmware can be found here, and here is the page that you’ll need to download it from. If after installation your iPod doesn’t get past the Apple logo you’ll need to press and hold the center and play buttons at the same time until “Disk Mode” appears on the screen. From there you can restore your iPod’s firmware back to the original. The developer claims that this firmware update “cannot, and will not brick your iPod.”
Here’s a video demonstration that shows what the new firmware looks like on a 5G iPod:
[via iLounge]
Thanks for the tip Pieter!
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Tags: Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Apple, Hacks, How To, iPod, Videos
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I don’t get it. Which iPod’s firmware is that? The iPod touch? I don’t see what new firmware features could be ported back, since the old iPod doesn’t have WiFi.
On the case of the Zune, unfortunately it appears there’s no removable disk support in the upcoming release. That’s what I really want.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the firmware shown above just a modified version of the 5/5.5 iPod Video firmware, meant to resemble that of the classic? I had the understanding that it wasn’t a port of the Class to Video.
Apple decides to act a certain way with its products and the market embraces it. Personally, I think Apple have a poor attitude for customers regarding their products. So many examples re: their warranties, or the fact that they dump iPods once new models come out etc. Really sucks.
But hey, whatever the market will bear, right? Some consumers are apparently willing to bear quite a bit.
That’s the new iPod Classic firmware. That’s the iPod with 160GB of storage or something along those lines.
What I read was that it is a modified version of the iPod Classic firmware. That may be in correct, but I saw that in a few different spots when researching the article.
I have a friend who had dropped his iPod and Apple still replaced it, so I would say that their warranty is pretty good. That could have just been a fluke, but I haven’t really found too much to complain about with them. But yes, consumers do generally sit back and take a lot of stuff that they shouldn’t.
No, this is not iPod Classic firmare, it’s just 5/5.5 firmware modified to give the split screen look of the Classic. The iPod Classic firmware has Coverflow integrated - this 5/5.5 hack does not.
I read that Cover Flow was removed because 5G iPods don’t have the processing power needed for it.