Fixing iPod Volume Icons
Another thing I was able to do this weekend was to hand deliver my Mom’s shiny new green iPod mini (I heard a rumor that they were in stock at Valley Fair, and I lucked into getting a few). I was really looking forward to showing her how the little iPod mini icon on the desktop actually matches the iPod’s color (she’s a big fan of little details like that), so you can imagine my dismay when, after attaching the iPod, its icon on the desktop was a boringly rendered, “generic” iPod icon.
I thought about wiping the iPod and reinstalling its software using the updater, but by the time I noticed the problem I had already loaded it with music and didn’t feel like doing it again. Fortunately, it occurred to me that the various iPod volume icons were probably contained within the iPod Software Updater package (under /Applications/Utilities). A quick look inside the package (right click on the file and select “Show Package Contents,” then navigate to Contents/Resources/Updates) reveals a group of icon files named DeviceIcon-1.icns (scroll wheel iPod), DeviceIcon-2.icns (dock connector iPod), DeviceIcon-3-QKJ.icns (green iPod mini), and so on. I simply opened the terminal, then typed something like the following:
cp /Applications/Utilities/iPod\ Software\ Updater/iPod\ Updater\ 2004-04-28/Contents/Resources/Updates/DeviceIcon-3-QKJ.icns /Volumes/Katie\ Andersen's\ Mini/.VolumeIcon.icns
After unmounting and remounting the iPod, it had the correct icon in the Finder.
Just thought I’d feed that to Google in case anyone else encounters the same annoyance.