Tips On Hacking The iPod?

This is a letter I wrote to Steve Jobs & sent via email a year ago. I never got a response to this, which isn't terribly shocking news, I am sure. However, I had used the same email address previously, and that had elicited a response from someone who signed as "Steve." So, tbh, I would not have been completely surprised to receive a response, even if it was just "Leave me alone!" or similar.

That email was sent when I wrote to complain about the third party speakers Apple Computer had shipped to me. The response from "Steve" had been essentially that Apple did not feel responsible for all shipments from their warehouse, just the ones that contained products with an Apple logo. I was never really satisfied with the level of customer service provided by either Apple or Klipsch at that time. Otoh, I was reasonably impressed that a response had been sent, signed Steve, and I decided that I had maybe just caught him on a slow day when he had a few minutes to spare. That made we want to decide he isn't the schmuck that seems to be the popular image for him, despite the content of the response.

It took nearly a year to get that resolved, and I am unclear to this day whether the refund we ended up asking for ever got paid. The speakers were returned by us, RMA number emblazoned on several sides of the box in bold black Sharpie. Getting Klipsch to agree to accept the return involved many phone calls to Apple, Klipsch and finally a conference call involving both parties initiated by us after lengthy negotiations. It was not me that spent the money, or I would know for certain. My "better half" just started getting too upset to talk to me about it after about 6 months of "the return project", so I availed myself of the so-called "better part of valor." I used my discretion and just stopped asking.

Word of advice: Don't buy third party products from the Apple Store online.

I post this in hopes that anyone may have tips and tricks to share re: their iPod. I love mine, and bring it with me almost everywhere I go. It is the best birthday present I can remember ever getting. Parts of the letter have been altered slightly to make it seem a bit more current and coherent, as well as to remove personally identifiable info (eg I am not available at the 555 area code phone number at the tail end of this).

2006 February
Steve,

I got another great birthday gift this year, a new iPod. It is quite possibly the best present I have ever received, except probably for the iMac last year. The screen is even big enough to watch cartoons on. I had my doubts before I saw it.

This is an insanely great piece of tech!

That said, I think it could be even better. My suggestions are all software based (Lori had two re: hardware I added at the end here), and could be summed up as Threaded Playback and Grouping, Lists, Edit On-The-Go and Where To Begin.

I find myself using my iPod in shuffle mode primarily. Like most people will insist they also do, I have *very good taste* in music, and a good deal of music I've imported into iTunes. I rarely get bored during the day, at least, not because of my iPod.

I don't know about you, but I bet that, like me, how you start your day can affect the way the rest of the day goes, and by extension, how the rest of the week goes. So, sometimes I find it somewhat limiting to choose Shuffle Songs from the menu and just let the machine pick a tune at random. At the same time, they don't pay me here to sit around fiddling with the controls on my new iPod, so I settle frequently for something less then perfect.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could choose a starting point from that list, and then have the machine switch to it's own choices after that one tune, or maybe even two or three tunes, and not have to take your mind and hands off whatever task you happen to be doing at the time? Granted, with 30 or 60 GB (40 to 80 now) of storage, you will still find yourself stymied from time to time wondering Where To Begin, but on those days when you know exactly where you would like to start, that would be a nice feature to add.

Maybe add a little functionality ala pandora.com and allow a random assortment of similar music to follow, with tweaking of How Similar possible on the fly.

Threaded or Grouped playback is actually the first modification idea I came up with after listening to this fantastic new device. Maybe you are like me, and there are certain collections of music that you like to listen to in groups. I find that I don't often want to listen to an entire album at one sitting, but there are many sets of music I like to hear together - side 2 of Abbey Road, the "other" side of "Just Another Band From LA," parts of some soundtrack records/CDs, you get the idea. Wouldn't it be great if I could create a link between certain tracks, or tell iTunes to chain them together when importing, so that they always played as a unit? A lot of the classic rock albums from my school years that I listen to now and again would benefit from this.

The 3rd idea came from the machine itself, in a way. I find that the artwork displayed is often from a different album by a different performer, and this fact got me to thinking about how the display might be more useful.

The color display is quite lovely, and it is great to be able to see the album artwork there as a selection plays, but sometimes I want to know the name of the record playing, or see what is coming next, or recall what the 4th tune back was called. What if there were an option to turn cover art off and replace it with a list of songs, artists and/or albums coming up and that had recently played? Clearly, you would want to be able to reset the option later to be able to moon over the cover art when listening to "I Got You" or whatever floats your boat later, but when all you want to know is what is up next, more text is better.... and if there were some way to edit that list from that screen, that would be good, to. Don't want the randomly chosen Metallica tune to follow on the heels of "Last Train To Clarksville"? Press and hold the center of the wheel until a menu pops up that allows you to highlight a song and choose a replacement from a drop down, hierarchical on-screen menu system.

And, finally, while the above does begin to get into the Edit On The Go suggestion, what I was thinking about when I originally started writing this is:

I would like to be able to delete items from the iPod and have that change reflected in a non-destructive way in iTunes. There is one album or ambient/trance "music" that my better half gave me for my iTunes that I did not listen to first, which was a mistake. It's been on there since the end of December, and every day that one of the tunes pops up in my days listening, I make a mental note to uncheck that records tunes when I get home. I want to keep the files on the HD, and possibly play the tracks there occasionally, but not at work. Of course, when I get home every day I find that life takes my focus away from accomplishing this. If I could do the edit on the iPod when the ennui-inducing tune(s) come up in the course of the day, it could make me a more productive worker, and my world a better place.

And isn't that what the digital hub is all about?

Thanks for your time. If I can clarify any of this for you, or if you want music recommendations, feel free to give me a buzz at (555) 555-5555.

Best wishes from

An Apple Macintosh and now iPod fanatic,
Michael Sprague

P.S. Lori told me to tell you that the iPod screens need to be more scratch resistant, and that the power adaptor wire on the iBook needs to be a bit beefier. We have mended two power adaptors now that a kitten has chewed through, both times with remarkable speed. I think her primary concern is for the safety of the kittens of the world, but having a more durable power cord might be good, too. Eighty dollars every time Tennessee gets near the power adaptor seems a bit steep.