New life for your old iPod

Got an iPod gathering dust? Even if your preferred iPod is one of the shiny new ones you've recently acquired, there is still plenty of life left in those relics of iPod history.

Lifehacker just published a list of their top 10 suggestions to use an old iPod in new ways. There are some of the more common methods (such as a making a basic stereo system by adding speakers or turning it into a backup drive) and some pretty inventive ones like as turning it into a standalone portable Windows XP boot drive.

As one of the readers at LH commented, the biggest missing suggestion is to give the old iPod to a friend or family member. That's exactly what I did with my first iPod. I took my eldest niece with me when I upgraded two years ago, then presented her with my 3G iPod when she expressed an interest it. Since then, she's received a new one of her own. The iPod I purchased then is now alternating between providing music in a home speaker system and in the car.

Have you found an inventive way to recycle your old iPods? Let us know in the comments!

(Via Lifehacker)

View Tags

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5117895/top-10-ways-to-repurpose-your-…

Categories

iPod Family How-tos

Got an iPod gathering dust? Even if your preferred iPod is one of the shiny new ones you've recently acquired, there is still plenty of...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

14 Comments

Filter by:

Alan Cook

Purchased a set of speakers for our 1st Gen iPod Mini and we're using this in the baby's room for lullabies/soothing music.

December 29 2008 at 12:32 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

andrew McFarland

Besides ebaying my 4th gen 20GB (which I still regret) to afford a Powerbook? Giving my shuffle to my wife to get her hooked :)

December 28 2008 at 8:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

HappyHoliday

I subscribed lifehacker.com and tuaw.com both.
And read this article on lifehacker.com first. =_#!!!

Share another ipod article: Top 5 Things for Your iPod.
http://www.applemacvideo.com/blog/2008/12/christmas-gift-ipod.html

December 28 2008 at 8:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

SysRq

I just brought my brother's old iPod (which was fried) in to the Apple store and recycled it, getting a discount on my new one. I have another old iPod that is now a portable 30Gb hard drive. =]

Cheers,
~SysRq

December 28 2008 at 7:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2g jailbreak :\'(

Back to the terabyte conversation, if apple ever released an iPod capable of video files larger than 2g than blue ray may be an option (or hd-DVD for the few followers) for either viewing, storing or transporting your video files, with 7g movies that would fill up decently fast

December 28 2008 at 12:02 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

vandil

3G iPod -> Gave to father-in-law as first iPod when I picked up a 5G iPod.
5G iPod -> Once I got my 16GB iPhone 3G, my 5G iPod now serves as BOSE Sound dock iPod for use as a stereo system and as a backyard barbeque/fire pit music box.

December 27 2008 at 5:29 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jeff

3G iPod = FireWire boot disk containing the Tiger install DVD, for wiping and reinstalling older G4s at the office that don't have a DVD drive.

December 27 2008 at 4:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

SSteve

My wife's a vet and we own a clinic. My old 1G iPod has been running non-stop for almost three years serving up our hold music. The hard drive finally gave out a few weeks ago.

December 27 2008 at 4:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eric

I have a 4G with a dead screen... it is now a hard drive, especially useful when I migrated from my PC to my Mac. The USB performance was painful, but Firewire was much better. I now use it to move things between my MacBook Pro and my Internet-less iMac G3 - both have Firewire.

December 27 2008 at 3:26 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Level 5

I remember hearing about a 3.5" drive going into an old iPod, which I'd LOVE to try in my car's audio deck. The problems are power, heat and headcrashing. It's only a pipe dream, but if we could get SATA working and not IDE, I'd totally be down with a 1.5TB iPod in the car.

December 27 2008 at 2:37 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Level 5's comment

michas_pi

I think your car would fall apart before you listen to all of that music :)

December 27 2008 at 3:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply