This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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
You actually don't need iTunes for syncing an iPod. There are many alternatives that can sync to an iPod now. Only firmware reinstalls require it.
Still easier to just copy/paste.
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.
But you know, for others dealing with a server IS a pain in the ass. Copying audio files and making some updates from time to time is way simpler for other people.
You forgot the part where they have to use iTunes.
If you install the great Rockbox, you no longer need iTunes. Fantastic software, not so difficult to install.
www.rockbox.org for those who don't know.
I've got my own server but I wanted to give this a try for fun anyway. iTunes seems to have no problem using a library that lives on a local server and syncing it to an iPod. I'm guessing you need a windows computer or mac to run iTunes though, it's been over a decade since I last tried to get it to work on a Linux machine
And Itunes on windows is just a marvel of shitty design. I hate itunes so much.
On a mac I dislike it as well, but itunes on windows is just awful.
In any case, how is the syncing? does it seem slow or fast by todays standards? I cant recall what the connectors were on the ipods back in the day.
I'm not sure. I was testing out my old iPod so I only put 10 songs on just to see if it worked with the fresh battery and SD card storage I installed. Apparently I cooked the motherboard in such a way that the audio doesn't work. It's a somewhat common problem according to the internet.
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
Can you recommend it specifically?
Oh sure, im using a FIIO jm21 with a pair of wired IEMs called Salnotes 7hz zero
The DAP (and 1tb microsd) were expensive, especially since the jm21 was just released, but the IEMs were $35 CAD because im listening a lot at work and the headphones are likely to get wrecked.
That said the audio quality is still great
Can also recommend the JM21. I just wish the battery life was better.
Same, definitely a weaker side of the device. I leave bluetooth and wifi off (never turned on either) and I can get a couple days from it that way
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".
You’re not considering the iPod DAC which is higher quality than most cellphone DACs. Also, thinking 40GB fits 10 FLAC albums is stupid. This isn’t correct even for uncompressed WAV files.
I can’t imagine putting this much effort into complaining about someone using their media player of choice. People like vinyl and even cassettes because they’re a different experience, do you write up paragraphs about that too?
Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine, DACs don't/shouldn't affect sound quality, they are just chips that convert a digital signal into the correct analog signal and even dirt cheap ones can do that far better than human hearing is capable of discerning. It is the amp circuit that can have different audio qualities depending on how well or poorly it is implemented.
it's Nostalgia bait. I don't know why this is suddenly a new trend online. Like the articles recently that for whatever reason are about how great Zip disks were. no...they weren't. no...you weren't there.
Next thing you know there's going to be articles about how great a 28.8 dial modem was or digital cameras that used floppy disks were peak for storage. No Julia, they weren't.
I recently got into vinyl, and what I found was that convenience is antithetical to my music listening experience. The less I have to think about the process of turning on music, the less I think about the music at all, leaving me without any real memories about it. The more deliberate I have to be about my music, the better.
Like, yeah, I can listen to a full album on a streaming site, but I don't. It just doesn't happen, and I can't get myself to change, so I change the medium instead. Might not be the solution for everyone, but I can understand how having a dedicated box for music on the go would be preferable, not just in spite of the inconvenience, but because of it.
This fits my experience as well. Lately I've been listening to music as a main activity, not as background noise. I use my laptop, an external DAC and a pair or nice open back headphones. The whole setup keeps me tied to my couch, I can't go wandering around and doing other stuff, I don't keep my phone in reach, I just lay and listen. I'd say good music deserves the foreground.
This sounds like blizzard "dont you guys have phones" ngl
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.
The iPod was revolutionary, sure. But I wouldn’t go back to it. I selfhost my music and I’m happy with that.
I use an old MP3 player I got for 5 bucks at a clearance sale and some headbuds from the dollar store. Converted all of my old records, tapes, and CD's to mp3's. Any new music I add comes from the public library on CD, and then converted to MP3 when I get home. I also use "youtube" to discover new (old) music, so I know what to get from the library. I also grab a CD I've never heard of, from time to time, hoping to trip and stumble onto something great.
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.
Right? "Android authority" but hasnt fine tuned their notifications to not interrupt their music?
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.
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.
Flac would be a waste of the limited storage on an IPhone that doesn't even have the ability to play such high fidelity audio. You are limited to what? Bluetooth or the crappy DAC in the USB-C port with an adapter?
I always kept flac as an archival format, and transcoded when transferring to any device into the best format for that device.
The only Apple product I ever had was a 5th gen iPod. I remember having to "sync" it to my iTunes library. The concept of syncing was alien to me at the time, it seemed unnecessarily complicated (and it was!). Of course, I didn't put up with that crap for long so I installed Rockbox on it. That let me copy files directly. It supported .flac and a whole lot of other formats and it ran DOOM and a Gameboy emulator.
Yeah, I remember hating the syncing. Just fucking let me select the files and drag it over! Then every software company decided that they needed to idiot proof every fucking thing to the same extent over the next 20 years. I fucking hate Apple's devs for that.
I prefer hosting navidrome and using Nautilus on my modern iphone while still enjoying some technology, also because mp3<FLAC
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.
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. It's nice that they want to talk about solutions for people who want to get away from their phone I guess, but a 20-year-old device is not the solution for most people.
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.
