After running this site for a few years, I've come to know many people in the Mac world. Many of these fine folks are slaving away on pet projects, most of which will never see the light of day. Yet still, they toil, hoping for success. My good friend Richard is one such person. He's been obsessed with running OS X on his iPod since the day he bought his first generation machine. Not just installing it and booting a Mac with the iPod, but honest-to-goodness using OS X on the iPod. I should preface and say that Richard is brilliant, stubborn, and amazingly resourceful ... three required qualities for this particular project!
Richard has been working on this challenge in his home office for years -- starting with the open source Darwin download, trimming features and code from the OS, modifying the stock Apple applications as he can, and even coding the occasional application himself. All in the hopes of getting OS X to run in the iPod's meager RAM footprint. And now, though he's not yet ready to release his hacks upon the world (though he's promised to release them for free when or if he does so), he has authorized me to post a couple of shots of what he calls XiPod (pronounced zy-pod). As you can see in the image at left (click for a larger version), he's finally succeeded!
You can see the XiPod About box, clearly indicating that Richard's using an unreleased build of OS X (necessary for some new low-level routines, he told me), and showing the iPod's RAM and processor info. But wait, you're saying ... the iPod's got no method of taking user input. So how do you actually use it, once it's running? Keep reading for the details...
On the right (click for larger) is Richard's hack to work around the "no input method" limitation of the iPod. Richard's solution is borderline genius -- the scrollwheel is the ultimate input device. Tap it twice while pressing Play to bring up the Keyboard panel, then just slide your finger around the pad. As you do so, each character highlights. When the desired character is highlighted, just tap the pad once to add it to the string you're building. When not being used in keyboard mode, the scrollwheel is used to move the mouse. It's a hard process to describe, but simple in action. As you move your finger about in an area of the scrollwheel, the mouse tracks in that direction; continue sliding around the curve, and the cursor curves that way with your motions. It takes a bit of time to get used to the motion, but once you do, it feels amazingly natural.
Of course, given that OS X is squeezed into just 32MB of RAM, there are some limitations. Great chunks of the OS have been stripped out; there are very few applications remaining (Text Edit, Terminal, and a couple minor utilities), there's no real networking of any sort (though Richard has included a simple application to transfer files back and forth via the dock), and the vast majority of the System Preferences are non-functional. In addition, due to the iPod's small screen size, you'll be scrolling the screen around a lot to get anything done! Richard's grayscale hack for the iPod, though, makes the graphics quite legible, even if they are reduced to 256 gray levels.
You also cannot use your iPod as an iPod, as this solution requires a complete reformat before starting. A small price to pay, given the amazed looks you'll get when you show your friends what you can do with your iPod. You'll also need a third-generation (or newer) iPod, as Richard relies on some hardware that's not present in older versions. The color iPod Photos should work, though Richard doesn't have one available to test with; he's not certain if you'll get a color or a grayscale OS on these iPods.
I had a chance to play with this for about 30 minutes tonight, and it's absolutely amazing. I'm not sure if it's practical at all, of course, but it is very cool to see! I have no idea when/if Richard's project will see the light of day, but I thought you might all enjoy seeing what he was up to (and he gave me permission to post this). Perhaps if he sees enough positive feedback here, he'll release his work to the public.
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