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.

All images from Del Hatch’s PCBWay listing

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.

Back view of the custom PCB with Raspberry Pi and battery mounted

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’s custom PCB with the e-paper screen mounted on the front

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.

The iPod’s click wheel invented by Norihiko Saito in 1998

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.

These iPod adverts were iconic. Maybe if we crowd-fund Del, he can make one for the ePiPod?

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.

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