iPod and iTunes Hacks

Dial a Phone with Your iPod

You can use your iPod to dial a touch-tone phone.

In the ’70s, there was a boy who could whistle a 2,600-cycle tone. He discovered that if he whistled this note into a phone, he could make long-distance calls for free. Someone else discovered that a toy whistle included with Cap’n Crunch cereal boxes also produced a 2,600-cycle tone. This tone was the same used by the post–live-operator phone company to access the system that controlled the network. This 2,600-cycle tone unlocked the ability to make free long-distance calls, and phreaking (etymology: a mashed remix of freak + phone + free) was born. Phreaking was one of the earliest forms of hacking. Two of the 1,337 early hackers and phreakers from the Homebrew Computer Club in California, infamous for building Blue Boxes, went by the handles Berkeley Blue and Oak Toebark. You are probably more familiar with them as Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer, Inc., the company that now manufactures that little white wonder, the iPod.

So, now we’re in the twenty-first century, and many of the tricks of the past no longer work. The system has changed somewhat, with more digital bits in the way that won’t be fooled by a Captain Crunch whistle. However, one of the pieces of equipment you can use for phone tricks is that sleek musical machine, the iPod. In a completely legal way, you can use ...