Digital Minimalist - OG iPod circa 2007

(scroll to TLDR if you want) //

Not all of us experienced being a young adult in 2007. If you did, you remember the apex of youth culture + technology before it... well... evolved to say the least. Gen Z may not have experienced side swept bangs and bisexual sad boys but perhaps they can still find us a way forward that honors the past. It was so chill and I didn't even know what we had until it was gone. We had uncorrupted internet, message boards, Myspace profiles to share our favorite songs and pine over being in someone's top 8 until it became straight savage (but Tom BFF). It was anarchistic and egalitarian in chaos.

We had 3g phones you could buy at a local store and throw at a wall or lose in a mosh pit and it was fine (what, you never threw your Nokia brick at the wall?? You never got in a mosh pit??). Mostly relevant to this blog post, we would carry music in our pockets with MP3 players. It was slightly post the Limewire / Napster debacle but most people still had hoards of libraries shipping around to each other (it's called P2P). Pirate Bay was still unassuming to the narcs. We still made personally curated CD mixes for those we were trying to woo, the equivalent to "my love language is playlists" on someone's dating app one liner that you determine if you want to go on a date with them or not (no pressure). This was of course pre-hotornot.com era (I was a solid 4). Anyway, it was fun. Apple hadn't totally locked down their monopolizing hardware + software combo (Looking at you Apple) and billionaires weren't capitalizing on your insatiable streaming needs and surveilling you. You had to understand the hardware format and how it worked (it was really simple lol). I think interaction design moving forward should consider this mindfulness as we grow more interconnected and risk losing autonomy in it... ANYWAY

TLDR: Here is how I got an iPod nano 3rd generation working.

1. I ordered the iPod off eBay. Honestly, it's great and came really fast from this vendor but don't hold me liable! It came in fast and in like new condition with accessories.

2. You need to run an older version of iTunes to sync music to the iPod. iTunes encodes the files in it's specific way so the iPod will not read the music unless it has this. What I'm saying is you HAVE to use iTunes library. If you have windows, good for you (eyeroll) you get to skip to step 5.

3. I got VMware Fusion Pro for free from the very kind Broadcom. I was able to register with them and then download version.

   
   

Install and run VMware Fusion 13.6.1 and then install Windows 11 (one of the prompts requests a registration number. There is an option to put you don't have one and it will continue without it thankfully).

1. After installing Windows 11 you are in it baby. Then you can use.. microsoft edge... and download the older version of iTunes : 12.10.11 which is required to speak to the old boo boo nano 3g.

2. Once you have iTunes up (don't update it!) then you can hook up your iPod to your computer and choose to open the removable storage (iPod) in Windows.

3. I had to restore my iPod and format it to Windows. I followed the prompts to do this (patiently bc the VMware is lower performance but you can try to improve).

   
   

   

4. Then it showed up in iTunes all cute like in the side bar. You should add your music files to the library (PLEX is good) THEN drag them into the iPod icon. You can also ensure under the iPod "summary" setting --> "manually manage music and videos" option is checked. You can reveal this summary by finding the iPod icon in the upper bar and clicking.

   
   

   

5. So, load up your favorite songs, like the sick new NIN Tron soundtrack (I don't get paid for anything on this) -------------------------------->

   and walk off into the sunset having a cute old nostalgic anti-music streaming time