Idea: "PiPod Classic"

[raindog308]

I love my iPod Classic but alas, they've stopped making them. I'm quite aware of the Touch but was wondering what it would take to engineer a Pi-based home grown alternative.

This would be a small portable media player - something you could watch video and listen to audio (in headphones) with.

I was somewhat inspired by the PiPhone project: http://www.davidhunt.ie/piphone-a-raspb ... martphone/

So I was thinking of something along these lines:

• Raspberry Pi
• Adafruit 3.5" 480x320 touch screen. Or maybe the 320x240 to save on battery.
• The battery setup used in the PiPhone, though there are concerns about heat and longevity
• A 128GB SD card (or MicroSD card in an adapter). Not 100% sure how big the Pi supports
• Possibly some kind of button controls (?)
• Some kind of case to make it pocket-durable

The idea is that you can store tons of audio/video files on the SD card, which would be partitioned into a small OS partition to boot the media player and then a big partition for media. Just insert into a PC for media transfer - would have to think about what interface to use on the PC to organize playlists, etc. There's an added advantage in that you can carry a pocketful of SD cards so capacity is unlimited.

The screen is for media control (I don't mind writing that part) and video playback. For the media controls, it'd be a sort of scroll-through-the-list metaphor, but I haven't thought this out. Software is easy

It would be nice to do some kind of actual buttons on the side - I find it nice to put my hand in my pocket to skip forward without having to take the device out and shield it from the rain. I live in a very rainy place (Yes, I'm aware of the Touch's voice controls, etc. - not trying to build an Apple-killer).

Not sure how the battery would work out - the PiPhone creator felt his device would only get a couple hours out of a charge. I'd want more than that. Charging also might be a headache - what I see on Adafruit is plugging it into one side of a special board. Doable, but not slick and I wouldn't want to have to crack open the case every time I want to charge.

I think overall the device (with its case) would be more Walkman-sized than iPod-sized, but that's OK.

Anyway, at the moment it's just an idea so...what are your thoughts?

[drgeoff]

You should be thinking of a Model A (or A+ when available) for its lower power consumption as you don't need the ethernet and additional USBs.

Size and weight versus run time is going to be your major trade-off.