What happens when you hook up the original 1st-generation iPod with the latest version of iTunes? YouTuber Matthew Pearce attempted exactly that, and surprisingly found that the current version of iTunes (12.1) works just fine with the old 2001 iPod, and even prompts to set it up as a new device.
It appears that Apple is supporting the first-gen iPod, rather than it just happening to work: iTunes shows an icon for the original iPod design after connecting the device. The setup required a Firewire 400 to 800 adapter, and for newer Macs you’d also need a Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adapter.
Check out out the full experiment in the video below:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJsl02f2BU]
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This article gives me one more reason to continue to buy Apple! :D
Agreed!
Apple’s total LACK of support for their own USB Modem is a reason NOT to buy Apple. (Okay Modem trolls, let’s hear it.) Their fax modem was useful for receiving dinosaur communications when you needed to. How hard would it have been to support it in Lion? The hardware was only two years old!
This is well timed. My iPod 1st gen has music none of my other devices have and had its first freeze requiring a reboot yesterday. Granted much of the music is in my current iTunes but still…I want to sync! Bought the two adapters and will do it! Thanks for showing me the way!
Legacy support. MBA 2011 can support Handoff, but it can’t, because Apple said so.
While this is nice, it’s another reason why I feel iTunes needs a rewrite, or a funeral. Too much baggage. I would love it if Apple would take a page from iOS and release separate Music and Videos apps. They already have iBooks and soon, Photos. Build in iOS syncing into each app for their respective content and we will be fine. We don’t need one app to do everything.
Whoops, I meant to post this as a comment to the article, not your comment. In regards to your comment, I think it’s a little odd that a Mac with proper BT 4.0 support doesn’t get handoff.
I think if you sync 1984 to a first-generation iPod through iTunes 12 it creates a causality loop.
Talk about backwards-compatibility…
If some punk had not burgled my house and stole my 1st gen iPod I might be tempted to try it.
Where are they getting batteries for these? I have a 2nd gen without the mechanical scroll wheel but the batteries are completely shot and I can’t find replacements that actually work.
Apple sucks, I just bought a new ipod after my old one was stolen (a classic 160GB) and it wants to force me to upgrade to itunes 10.7, which I hate, because my vb scripts won’t work with it, also 10.7 is such an awful upgrade of itunes, it’s all about commercialism and more profits for Apple.