When not puffing on his pipe, petting his sociopathic parakeet or growing a rather creepy-looking mustache, gadget blogger and ex-Wired.com writer John Brownlee likes to tinker. This morning he sent over some pictures of his latest, a $1 keychain for the iPod Shuffle.
Brownlee chose the previous (and many say superior) generation Shuffle with the clip and buttons, but it would work with any tiny MP3 player that has a jack socket. All you do is take an old pair of headphones (Brownlee bought a pair of junky earbuds from his local Berlin dime – or Euro cent – store), chop off the jack, leaving a big enough length of cable to tie a secure knot and affix it to a keyring. In the picture above, you see the keychain jack disconnected and set behind the iPod. Of course, you’ll need to keep a working pair of headphones for actual listening, and you won’t be able to leave the player on the keychain while you’re doing it (but then, that’s what the Shuffle’s clip is for).
Brownlee went one step further, and after trimming the excess cable he took a break from his pipe-smoking and used the lighter to melt the knot, sealing the connection permanently in plastic. It’s certainly not the prettiest hack, but it is undeniably ingenious, and a great way to keep the Shuffle and your keychain together in your pocket. We’re a little worried about scratches to the anodized aluminum body of the iPod, but as there is no screen, this would be purely a cosmetic problem.
UPDATE: Brownlee informs me that the Apple ‘buds wrapped around the iPod provide ample protection against scratches, and that the Shuffle’s jack socket is a very snug fit: “After a week, it hasn’t popped off once” he tells us.
We’re also happy that the picture includes Brownlee’s rather excellent Snowy-in-a-spacesuit figurine, the companion of which (Tin Tin in detective overcoat) apparently resides on his better-half’s keyring.
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