Technology

Just stop using random playlists of people and start playing albums. Works regardless of the platform, works on local and cloud stored music and makes you appreciate artists again.

And best of all, buy albums you listen to very often on Bandcamp

Yet, when I want to sit down and actually listen to an album, the phone is often the most frustrating tool in my pocket. Between the constant pings from Slack and the AI-generated discovery feeds that keep trying to shove viral tracks down my throat

Bruh, what? Just have the songs locally like on your iPod; you don't have to stream, and it's easier to put on your phone than your iPod. And what do Slack notifs have to do with this? Just turn it on DnD or whatever. In what universe are Slack notifs distracting you less than your phone while you listen on your iPod? If you give that little of a shit about them, you can turn them off.

I can leave for a week-long trip with my iPod and not have to think about bringing a charger along.

??? But you're already bringing a phone that needs to remain charged?? Playing audio doesn't drain the battery that hard, and phone batteries nowadays get enough charge that even an absent-minded dipshit like myself barely has to worry about it.

This author is either nostalgia-baiting for clicks or an absolute moron. Using an iPod might be a fun novelty; absolutely the fuck is it not "the best way to enjoy music". You're carrying around a separate, fairly large device just for music that probably even has worse audio quality; that's so unnecessarily cumbersome if I just want to listen to music.

They're using a ClickWheel with, at most, 40 GB of storage. That's like ~~ten~~ twenty FLAC albums. Is what I would say, except: "Since I replaced the original spinning hard drive with a microSD adapter, there are no moving parts and significantly less power draw. I am currently running 512GB of storage paired with a significantly larger battery that lasts weeks, not hours."

So they wait well into the article to tell the audience that they hardmodded their old iPod and that's why it's actually viable. What the actual fuck. Basically nobody is going to do that. Even with that hardmodding, the literal only advantage they have here, then, is the ClickWheel – because again, your phone should be charged and always on you in 2026. The ClickWheel is not that special to warrant hardmodding a 2006 iPod and using it separately for music.

Then they have a gargantuan segment whining about streaming as though local storage just doesn't exist on their phone. It's literally a non-issue. Right now I'm listening to a FLAC album I got off Bandcamp months ago. On my phone. Because I don't use streaming services. On my phone.

This piece of shit article could've been boiled down to "the haptic feedback on the ClickWheel was cool we should bring that back lol".

Between the constant pings from Slack and the AI-generated discovery feeds that keep trying to shove viral tracks down my throat, the simple act of listening has become a chore

Ya know what would make way more sense? Learning to manage the notifications on your phone. Not just while listening to music but, like, always.

If you don't need Slack notifs, put them on silent. And I can't imagine any reason you would need any notifications at all from Spotify, so just turn them off altogether.

Okay. I read a bit of the article. By a bit I mean I made it to the part where the iPod HDD and battery have been modded. This dude is leaving out half his side of the story.

You need to get MP3s for the iPod. Did the dude even try to put those same MP3s on their phone? Who knows. They spent a lot whinging about streaming apps and their enshittification, really funny. Local music apps are set up and forget affairs, I use Retro Music from F-Droid - zero enshittification, no subscription fees, and that version is free. The author can use it too.

I'm certainly no iPod modder, but I'm pretty sure you needed to install iTunes to get it to play literally anything. Android lets me play whatever from the SD card root, phone memory root, Download folder, or even if it's lost in my screenshot gallery for an absurd example.

Heck, you can't watch videos unless they're encoded/converted in a way that the Pod can play them. Any modern phone can play anything with the system video app or VLC or something.

Not a concern to me at all, but the pod doesn't have Bluetooth, so you're practically required to use something with the 3.5mm jack. A decent phone should have both.

If you don't want to receive a LinkedIn notification, turn off LinkedIn notifications. Android's notification system has matured tremendously, no app will send anything unless YOU have allowed it in the first place. Or turn on Do Not Disturb, which the author says they did, but I don't believe them. Bedtime Mode is an even stronger option, as it can hide your notifications. For the nuclear option, just turn off WiFi/mobile data - of course streaming apps will be unable to do anything in this case, but...... Local music players will keep trucking on.

TL;DR Just download and use a LOCAL music player you're comfy with and play the MP3s you already put on your iPod.

The iPod isn't something you're gonna hold constantly in your hands, like a classic handheld console where you can argue that you prefer playing GBA, PSP or Vita games on their original hardware, screen, buttons and all. You will most likely pocket it and only interact with it using your wired earphones. Your phone is still the best option here.

Congrats, I use a DAP instead so im not stuck in 2005 with a 5lb brick

My DAP takes microsd cards so I have 1tb of storage in there, it weighs like 100g and it doubles as a DAC for my pc

It also has physical buttons that I can press without taking it out of my pocket

Apple products are great. The Apple ecosystem is not. If you like FOSS, you're going to have a bad time.

Putting music on my iPhone sucks because iTunes won't recognize or transfer .FLAC format. File sharing on iPhone is really inconstant and buggy. And I need a whole 3rd party app to get the data moved. Or I can upload things to iCloud 5GB at a time.

Yeah, I have gigabytes of music on my phone and just keep it all locally and use VLC. Problem solved.

Since I don't have Google or Google Play services and only use open-source apps, I get very few notifications. And those I do get, I actually care about.

The iPod was revolutionary, sure. But I wouldn’t go back to it. I selfhost my music and I’m happy with that.

I couldn't imagine. What a pain in the ass. I run my own server and stream my own music, so having to copy to an ipod would suck. It always sucked. Can you just copy files over with linux? syncthing? anything convenient?

Hard pass. Your own server is streaming all your music to all your devices.

I see someone is late to the nostalgia-bait articles party... You know that dedicated music players are still a thing now? You don't have to always use a fucking iPod.

I do like iPods mind you but there are better modern alternatives if you want a daily driver.

this individual needs to download foobar2000 and learn to manage his notifications. rather than writing superfluous articles about his inability to operate his own device.

I'll stick with streaming from my Plex server/Plexamp. However, if you're going to go local just grab a super cheap usb MP3 player and just copy the music to it. No need for iTunes. Simple and quick.

https://www.amazon.ca/Bluetooth-Extension-Multifunctional-Inlcuding-Earphones/dp/B0DHRPF4X6

Interesting, but I'd have to say that I've been contempt just using an app that doesn't suck (musicolet). The comments about battery could hold a point to me if I were going on a week long trip, or something of the like, but anywhere that would happen for me is somewhere that I wouldn't be taking music/phone for distractions anyway.

I think the finer point I agree with is being able to just have a copy of your own music and play it without being belt-fed opinions or ads. Managing it is always a bit of a pain, but I've got a system that works for me, and MTP on android works better than trying to deal with iTunes in my books.

Use a retired phone with no apps other than your music and the players (New Pipe, Archive Tune, etc) you want. Give your old phones a 2nd life without having to purchase another thing. Connect via WiFi and have a ball.

For camping out of signal range or Halloween I still rock a SanDisk sansa with a rockbox rom.