iPod touch Can you revert to old firmware?

Uhh...yeah, you CAN downgrade to 1.1.4 or 1.1.5 if you WANT to, but I wouldn't go down that road if I wuz you.

It is true that people made "homemade" microphones for iPod Touch during the days of 1.x firmware, but you have to remember that these were also the days before the App Store. What that means is that there isn't very much software around that works with these old microphones. You would be stuck using 1.1.4/5 for as long as you were intent on using that microphone, and it also means that you couldn't run any App Store applications that support the microphone. So, that means no Fring and no Skype.

If Fring and Skype were your two major reasons for getting a microphone for your 1G Touch in the first place, you would be completely working against your own stated goals by downgrading the firmware. Fring and Skype both require at least 2.x firmware, and the current versions available for download from the App Store probably even require 3.x by this point.

Just cave in and either buy an iVoice III, which I can personally vouch for, or upgrade to a newer 2nd or 3rd generation iPod Touch. Unless you are just dead-set on experimenting, and have time and money to spare, you'll be saving yourself headaches and frustration by using an already-tested solution to your problem.

-- Nathan

netrate said:

thanks man, I appreciate the honesty.
I know I am going to have to get a mic, but I guess I am unsure how it all going to work - do I still need an earpiece with the mic? Am I still running headphones? Do the mic get recognized right away? What is a good price to get the Mcnally mic for?

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Some of the answers to your questions have already been hashed out in the threads that I linked you to over at ipodtouchfans, but to sum up: the mic gets recognized "right away" whenever an app that uses the microphone tries to use it (initializes it). In particular, the MacAlly microphone has a blue light inside the mic that shines through the grille, and it turns on whenever the mic is "active." So you should know pretty quickly whether it is working, even without trying to play back recordings of yourself...if it's working, that light will be shining.

You will need an earphone/headphones with the mic still, yes. The 1st gen Touch obviously has no speaker, and even if it did, like most systems with a speaker, unless they are properly engineered and have all the fancy features like noise-cancellation or auto-duplexing "speakerphone," you'd want to turn the speaker off and use headphones anyway unless you want to risk feedback and echoes and such.

There is also an odd quirk with the MacAlly in the iPod Touch where the mic won't work/turn on unless you actually have headphones plugged into the headphone jack on the Touch. I'm guessing this is because the MacAlly could technically be used with a 2nd or 3rd gen Touch, or even with an iPhone, all of which have speakers, and I bet the software is trying to prevent the situation I referred to earlier with feedback into the microphone from the speaker. So the firmware will actively prevent you from using the mic unless you have headphones plugged in.

Oh, and also: the headphone-jack-looking-thing on the bottom of the iVoice is NOT a place to plug in headphones or a speaker. It's a line input for, say, a different microphone, or another audio source that you want to record. Kind of a handy feature.

As far as a fair price goes, I want to say I paid $20? $25 maybe? for my used iVoice on eBay. Quite possible that they have come down in price since then. ...holy crap. I just checked. ~$40 was the lowest I could find currently. That's crazy. Too bad they are out of production, which is undoubtedly not helping to bring the resale value down in your favor. I'd be patient and keep looking...a cheaper used one is bound to show up sooner or later.

netrate said:

That says for touch 1st gen with firmware 2.2 and lower?!?!

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Uhh...the seller is wrong and possibly confused. The iVoice will not work with the iPod Touch unless the firmware is at a MINIMUM at 2.2. It isn't recognized if you are using firmware any older than that.

Hope this helps,

-- Nathan

Well, interestingly enough, I have recently run into some anecdotal evidence in the iPodTouchFans forums from people who claim something similar to, but not quite the same as, what you quoted in your last post. They say that it still works fine in 3.0, but that once you upgrade to 3.1, it stops working.

Although, to be more specific, the claim is that in 3.1, it will often work for a few seconds at a time before the iPod pops up a "This accessory is incompatible" box and cuts the microphone off. There were enough reports of this that I ran across that I believe it may very well be the case. So it seems like either an artificial restriction, or a mistake/bug. There was also some talk that suggested that the MacAlly iVoice Pro still works, and that the iVoice III does not, although I haven't found anything but the one post to back up this particular claim.

I actually haven't used the iVoice III with my old iPod Touch for a while (definitely not since 3.1 came out). I'll dig it out and test it. If what people say turns out to be true, I have an idea that I want to try which may work around the problem in 3.1.x. I'll post an update here once I have more concrete information.

-- Nathan