The $5 Ipod

[Guest Deleted_Account]

Well i know everyone has heard about the $100 laptop. but now there is a $5 ipod: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/5-...ptop-tradition/! This looks promising i am kindof curious on what people may be able to add on for a little bit more like say... $45 or so. Any thoughts? would you buy one to tinker with?

[Netshroud]

Looks like an iPod Shuffle (1st-gen) with more buttons.

[moonlit]

Why so desperate to involve Linux? There's absolutely no need to include an OS that complicated in a project like this. It just increases the hardware requirements and makes the software unnecessarily complicated. This would be more than enough for a cheap mp3 player but there's no way in hell it'd run Linux... and it's still well above $5. Here's an example of an entire player which, again, would easily play music and audiobooks, but Linux would laugh mercilessly at its utter lack of power. Granted, both of those links fail to take into account economies of scale, buy my point stands. KISS.

I've owned budget players which have even had LCD screens which have run for hours, days even, from a *single AAA battery*, so why they need 3 AAs I'm not sure, seems like it'd just make it harder to power it if you lack electricity and batteries.

As for what you could do with $50, I'm sure you could probably build your own basic mp3 player with an LCD and an SD card slot. Throw in an LED flashlight at the end of the case, might come in handy when and where there's no electricity. Maybe throw in an alarm clock too. Come to think of it, as long as you have a powerful and flexible enough hardware platform to begin with, there really aren't many limits to what you could add in software.

Edit: that article's over 2 years old, the "sub-$10" device now exists: http://www.literacybridge.org/talking-book/device/

Powered by 2 D-cell batteries (up to 15 hours playback) and with the footprint of a CD case, it's not small. I do wonder about their choice to use microSD cards instead of regular ones, it's certainly not the case that they were lacking internal space, and full size SD cards are usually a lot cheaper.

Edited August 2, 2010 by moonlit

[h3%5kr3w]

@vako:

Why so desperate to involve linux?

I have wondered this as well in numerous projects. I think it's just PR. It's pointless in devices like this to actually HAVE an OS at all.

I've owned budget players which have even had LCD screens which have run for hours, days even, from a *single AAA battery*

Me to! The Sony MD player was crazy for battery life like that!

As for what you could do with $50, I'm sure you could probably build your own basic mp3 player with an LCD and an SD card slot.

Well here ya go for that! http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_i...roducts_id=7832 and that's pretty expensive but it's pretty much a dev board! Send it to fab and in mass production, and your probably looking @ around $20 to $25/piece.

I think it's just huge PR moves by a few rich linux lovers out there. Why else would they do that (especially in those form factors :X)

Also FYI, for folks in 3rd world countries that aren't too 'computer savvy' I don't think an I-tunes esque interface is the easiest option.

Edited August 2, 2010 by h3%5kr3w

[Guest Deleted_Account]

I agree. I just wanted to see if anyone was interested in the idea of a "$5 ipod". I also didnt notice it was that old lol. Any ways the linux part is kind of stupid for sure but now a days i am sure we could make a cheap "iPod" that ran linux or some embedded platform. I think it would be a cool project to build a working MP3/MP4 player for under $50. Doesn't need linux but someone may find it easier to port something like rockbox or uClinux over to it rather than making their own Firmware. something like this is more along the lines of "practical" LINK