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iPod Lap Timer

The file format for the iPod (fifth generation/video, nano) stopwatch.

Download iPod Lap Timer (source code!)

iPod Lap Timer Release 1

This is not useful unless you are a Mac OS X developer.
Works on Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger" or higher. Compilation requires Xcode 2.4 or higher.
PowerPC and Intel ("Universal"). Objective-C/Cocoa. (Revised) BSD license.
Released 04 May 2006.


If you're looking for an application that will keep track of this data for you, try 2ndLap Lite. This is merely a study of the format that works behind the scenes to store the information, and a small sample implementation of an app that will read this information.

Reading the iPod's stopwatch lap times

Starting with the iPod nano, every new iPod model (including the 5G iPod, aka "iPod with video") has an Extra called Stopwatch, using which you can take time, including lap times. The info is saved on the iPod's hard drive for later viewing.

This format has been documented, and iPod Lap Timer is a sample implementation of a parser. The sample implementation will only run on Mac OS X, but ports to Windows, distributions of Linux or *BSD and other OSes are welcome and encouraged.