Liberating iPods

I must be one of the few people left in North America who does not own an Apple iPod. Yes, I do have an MP3 player but I opted to use an alternative product rather than Apple's golden child. Why do you ask? Simple. You may own your iPod, but you have almost no control over what goes on inside it. One cannot, for example, plug your iPod into your computer and browse the contents, store PDF or Word documents for transporting data from computer to computer or even play music purchased from other legitimate music sites! These limitations are imposed by the firmware embedded inside every iPod.

This morning I stumbled across an article which explains that one can replace the firmware of just about any iPod, returning control of YOUR hardware back to you! Two projects (iPodLinux and RockBox) offer free firmware alternatives! Both of these solutions provide an interface very similar to the origional iPod interface and most people do not have any problems with the switch. After installing the firmware, one can browse the contents of their iPod as if it were any other USB drive, place whatever content they desire on it including non-music/video files for transport and are also able to play music that was purchased through other online services. Terrific!

I might just have to reconsider purchasing an iPod. That new iPod Shuffle v2 looks pretty cool!