Rockbox: Difference between revisions

← Older edit

Latest revision as of 17:16, 1 June 2025

Rockbox is an alternative firmware for many MP3 players, including the iPod.

Comparison with the iPod's original firmware

It has some advantages over the original firmware:

It can play more audio formats (FLAC, OGG, MIDI, etc)
Its visual appearance can be customized.
When connected to a computer, it appears as a simple USB drive. One can just drag-and-drop music files onto it.
- In contrast, the original firmware requires either iTunes or macOS Finder to copy music to the device.

It also has some disadvantages:

The controls are less intuitive than the original firmware.
The themes are community-sourced (even I have made one), and vary wildly in quality.

Controls

The controls on Rockbox differ from the original firmware.

Here's how we'll refer to the buttons in this section:


iPod Hardware	Rockbox
Menu	[North]
Play	[South]
Forward	[East]
Back	[West]

TODO: Finish this section

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-Rockbox is an alternative for many MP3 players, including the [[iPod]].
+Rockbox is an alternative firmware for many MP3 players, including the [[iPod]].
-It differs from the iPod in a few key ways:
+== Comparison with the iPod's original firmware ==
-* It can play more audio formats (FLAC, OGG, etc)
+It has some '''advantages''' over the original firmware:
-* Its visual appearance can be customized
+* It can play more audio formats (FLAC, OGG, MIDI, etc)
-** For example, [https://github.com/rsh/rockbox-themes this theme] adds the release year to the While Playing Screen.
+* Its visual appearance can be customized.
-* When connected to a computer, it appears as a simple USB drive. One can just drag-and-drop music files onto it. In contrast, the original firmware requires either iTunes or macOS Finder to copy music to the device.
+* When connected to a computer, it appears as a simple USB drive. One can just drag-and-drop music files onto it.
+** In contrast, the original firmware requires either iTunes or macOS Finder to copy music to the device.
+It also has some '''disadvantages''':
+* The controls are less intuitive than the original firmware.
+* The themes are community-sourced ([https://github.com/rsh/rockbox-themes#snazzybones-rockbox-theme even I have made one]), and vary wildly in quality.
 == Controls ==
@@ Line 12: / Line 16: @@
 The controls on Rockbox differ from the original firmware.
-TODO: Finish this section.
+Here's how we'll refer to the buttons in this section:
+{| class="wikitable" style="margin:left"
+|+
+|-
+! iPod Hardware !! Rockbox
+|-
+| Menu || [North]
+|-
+| Play || [South]
+|-
+| Forward || [East]
+|-
+| Back || [West]
+|}
+TODO: Finish this section