iPod + DS = DSpod? iDS? ipoDS?
by Kyle Orland 
{ Jan 8th 2007 at 12:20PM }
OK, so the white DS Lite already looks an awful lot like an iPod, but the resemblance is even stronger now that hackers have made an MP3 player for the system that mirrors the iPod interface, right down to the blue-on-white menus. GBADev has more info and a download link, and YouTube has a video showing off the touchscreen-as-clickwheel hotness.
The player requires a specially-designed DS or GBA flash cart to work, and the memory on those things pales in comparison to even the smaller iPods. Still, a neat little hack to show off to your iPod-loving friends.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Dan Russell @ Jan 8th 2007 6:40PM
"Hackers"? Really? How about you give homebrew programmers some credit for their design and coding efforts rather than calling them a term for computer criminals.
Aeris130 @ Jan 8th 2007 1:04PM
The circle is complete. :)
just_somebody @ Jan 8th 2007 1:15PM
I know nothing about DS dev, but I would think a solution to the lack of storage would be to use the Wi-fi to stream from a computer. With a nice little UI addition, 'storage' would be a non-issue
Miko @ Jan 8th 2007 1:17PM
Actually, the newest flash carts take micro sd cards which are up to 2GB I believe and there are versions of the flash carts that use sd cards as the memory. Since you can get sd cards at 2GB, 4GB and 8GB you can get capacity at or around an ipod nano atleast.
clay @ Jan 8th 2007 1:57PM
my ds phat is modded and i have a supercard with a 2gb SD card. right now i have around 40 to 50 ds games on there, as well as a few videos and mp3s. i dont see a need for this player, only that it looks like ghey ipods.
crono141 @ Jan 8th 2007 8:35PM
Clay,
How does using the supercard affect your battery life? Any issues playing your saved games?
Also, does it come with the software to dump nds games from the original cartridges. I'm not interested in pirating and downloading games off the internet, I'm just tired of carrying around my 15-20 games at a time.
I'd also like it for some good media player capabilities. I don't have a dedicated MP3 player, and my DSlite would make a bitchin player IMO.
Metro Mapper @ Jan 8th 2007 4:55PM
I believe this project died about 6 months ago. The link to download the software in the forum does not work, and I've heard that one of the current issues is that the playback is a little choppy.
tack @ Jan 8th 2007 4:26PM
ghey rhymes w/ clay
TheMayor @ Jan 8th 2007 4:40PM
"now that hackers..."
the attention you're giving the scene is nice, but we prefer words like "developers" or "programmers" as opposed to "hackers", as it carries a negative connotation with the general public, and really doesn't describe people who write programs for an already opened system at all.
GeekAustin @ Jan 8th 2007 9:48PM
That's nice and all, but I'm waiting for the touchscreen ipod to come out so it can be hacked to have a winamp front end like this: http://wapurl.co.uk/?2G5BQAO
THEN the circle is complete.
Psaakyrn @ Jan 8th 2007 7:22PM
to #3 just_somebody
Really, you should get out more. Most people use iPods OUTSIDE their house, so streaming is not an option.
tom @ Jan 9th 2007 5:46AM
have they managed to make a gba card that takes an SD car and DOESN'T stick out miles yet?? Thats been the only problem up til now.
Maybe if they make a supercard that takes a mini-sd or a micro-sd?
As I've been saying for months, why on earth hassn't nintendo brought out an official media player for the DS???
The DS is about the only thing out there that rivals the ipod in terms of market penetration.. if they brought out a DECENT media player SD card cart for it, and then alowed you to download media from wii channels they could instantaneously leapfrog MS, Sony, Iriver etc.. into 2nd place in the MP3 player market.
Plus, if nintendo fans are willing to pay $8 for a copy of R-type, they'll certainly pay $8 for an album or an episode of Tansformers or anime...
Gnomon @ Jan 11th 2007 10:54AM
Tom: first of all, Nintendo *has* come out with an official media player. It's called the Play Yan. (If by asking for a "decent" player you were deliberately excluding this device, please grant your pardon and ignore the following bit) It's even available in namerica now. The thing has some ingenious bits - it even includes its own headphone jack to bypass the dongle annoyance and relatively low quality of the GBA SP output - but the interface is awful and it's a non-starter. The hobbyist scene is more likely to produce nifty stuff anyhow. Check out Moonshell.
Second of all, there are most certainly flush MiniSD and MicroSD hobbyist carts for the DS and the DS Lite now, yes. Check out the Supercard Micro, the M3 Perfect or the M3 Lite: these all allow one to boot DS and GBA homebrew code with the appropriate PassMe device; the M3 Lite even sits flush inside the GBA port on a DS Lite. There are other options as well - the DS-X and the M3 Simply come to mind - which are boot and code-holding devices in one, but they both suffer the drawback of not being able to run GBA games natively on your DS and not having the additional 32 megs of DSLinux-pleasing RAM that the earlier devices contain. Your very best bet is two 2-gig MicroSD cards, an M3 Lite and an M3 Simply; you'll be loaded for bear.
TheMayor, Dan Russell: your comments disappoint me - not because I disagree with you, but because you may be right. The term "hacker" only recently acquired primarily negative connotations. It has traditionally been a term both complimentary and respectful.