iPod as microcontroller

[kunm]

I will be the first to admit that I am new to this, but I want to start building a few more advanced robots than what I have done with the Mindstorms unit that I have. I think I have heard of people who have used old iPods as microcontroller units for their robots. Does anyone have any experience with this or could point me in the right direction?

[blackbeard]

to do this you would NEED to jailbrake your ipod. the gains would, in the end, be very minimal though as you would need a whole custom built interface. you would probably be better off using a netbook or something or a regular atmel micro if it is up to your tasks

[macdad-]

Depends upon what kind of Ipod is it. If its the touch screen models then those are relatively easy to program(Although you need Apples SDK and pay for each program  ) without Jailbreaking.

For the newer click wheels there is a project called FreeMyIpod.org and they have managed to crack all the way up to the 4Gen Nano, with code execution, serial and some of the basic stuff for most of the Nanos and some of the Classics:
http://www.freemyipod.org/wiki/Status

If its a click wheel Ipod then depending upon what model and version, there are firmware replacements out their. There is a IpodLinux Firmware for some of the older click wheels and it has C programming support for it with access to the serial ports, video, audio, etc:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPodLinux

There is also another firmware replacement for the click wheels partially based upon IpodLinux, I believe they do have C programming support but are still just as open-sourced as IpodLinux:

http://www.rockbox.org/

The only other thing that I can think of that is relatively official, but VERY expensive is Microchip's Iphone Development kit with their interface software/hardware kit.
http://www.microchip.com/stellent/idcplg?IdcService=SS_GET_PAGE&nodeId=2018&mcparam=en547660

Good luck