It's really cute. I wonder if we'll see a significant market for plain MP3 players with the whole digital detox fad lining up with the nostalgia. There's already a lot of people buying refurb and bluetooth-modded modded ipod classics.
My friend's grade-school kid gets exuberantly excited by CRTs and VCRs, and I know a few Gen-Z's with record collections. Maybe there's truth to the Dennis Duffy joke on 30 Rock: "technology is cyclical" :)
I think I asked in HN last year if anything was happening in this space now that the click wheel patent expired. I ended up buying a $50 Chinese knockoff for one of my kids. It...feels like a $50 knockoff, haha.
Also for the troops. Have some friends that cannot bring devices that emit RF / BT on base or ships during certain operations and exercises.
It's extremely hard to find a new production MP3/FLAC player with upgradable storage that don't suck for one reason or another. Plenty of perfect new ones, but they will have onboard BT or Wifi still.
There's a bunch of options from Chinese companies as well as from more traditional companies (like Sony), but the majority run Android (some skinned to be "simple", some basically like the Android counterpart to an iPod Touch) and are built with super overspecced hardware which kinda defeats the point in my opinion.
Part of the appeal of the iPod is that it only had just as much hardware and software as it needed and was simple, which lends to its extreme mod potential that's fueling its continuing popularity today. A good modern iPod analogue needs to deliver on those fronts, too.
It's been happening, but just like all fads, especially nostalgia driven ones, it'll die soon. Every few years a new batch of people enter their higher earning years where they have more disposable income (mid to late 20s for some, early 30s for some, late 30s for others, etc) and nostalgia hits and they go crazy for a piece of their childhood or adolescence or their crazy 20s. If enough of said batch line up, you get a phenomena or a fad.
The sudden growth rate in sales derive some people to capitalize on it. Mostly either Chinese manufacturers or drop shippers though sometimes big names get swept up in the frenzy too. Then the market is flooded and it's not cool or unique anymore, or the target audience is saturated and then it's forgotten. I suspect something similar is happening now with screenless fitness trackers right now (even though I bought one because I hate smartwatches but want a fitness tracker)
It's especially funny seeing people who are into "MP3 players for digital detox" speak on podcasts or online. "I love that it's not a phone. I just wish it had <insert random ass app(s)> so I can take it on walks and leave my phone behind" then those random apps are different per person. It's really funny.
Similar thing with the screenless fitness trackers I mentioned. On every single review or discussion board for them, you will find people complaining that a screenless fitness tracker is, in fact, screenless and that they wish it just had a small screen for their important notifications or if it can answer calls or get phone notifications or connect to LTE.
Music listening has become so atomized and private, with the vast majority of people listening through earbuds and unaware of even what close friends are listening to. Under these modern circumstances, I don't think that any choice of product around music listening serves as a strong social signal any more, except perhaps among a few middle-aged men in a few countries.
Not entirely related to the topic, but there is also this weird thing where if you're not on your social network's choice of music streaming service you'd feel left out. I find it a bit amusing. My friend group are all on Spotify (which I assume most people are) and when someone shares a playlist they share a Spotify link. I selfhost my music, so I have my own scripts to extract the playlist and fetch the songs and add them to my server. But I suspect it would also be a problem for others who might be using a different service like Apple Music or something.
I know someone in my group who moved from Apple Music to Spotify because everyone else was using Spotify and she didn't wanna feel left out.
I also can't really share playlists with them, which is fine since I only listen to the same 1,700 tracks from the 90s or early 2000s anyway.
No problem! And for what it's worth, I don't particularly recommend the ones I have over the Shokz ones, or another brand. I like the ones I have and I have gotten a ton of use out of them, but I don't remember why I specifically got these. They are good, and I would be happy to get another pair if something happened to mine, but I recommend the product class rather than a particular product.
They're all in regards to design choices or why something is needed when it's not obvious. And such a level of polish in the interface isn't something you attain through prompting. Not AI.
I don't really know what to tell you but the comments are definitely Claude. The result is pretty good but AI was definitely involved in the creation of this.
There's not a way to give evidence for this kind of stuff but that's feeling it gave me too. I suspect a lot of superfluous stuff implemented in recent software is implemented by an agent. I haven't formed a concrete opinion on how I feel about it though.
The progress bar are vectors and not pixelated like they should be. A pretty obvious detail they should not have missed, but I understand how that could be harder to implement.
There appears to be different URLs for different territories. For anyone curious, I've fed a few of them into an agent and they are largely consistent.
Huh! Alright, that explains why this damned thing had so much music from my own Apple Music library yet was missing so much more! I’m mildly disappointed that it doesn’t just load a user’s Apple Music library.
Really is heartbreaking that the click wheel is such an incredible and satisfying user interface but technology has evolved such that we have no need for it anymore.
Its spiritual successor is the crown on the Apple Watch. I never swipe to scroll on the watch. It's way more fluid (and you get neat haptics) to twist the crown.
extremely ironic comment considering there has been a Renaissance of personal music players lately, including ones with click wheels. look on Amazon for all the Chinese made ones. there is absolutely still a desire, perhaps a growing one, for dedicated devices, as everyone grows wearier of phones
Also as phone bans start up in various schools there are often carveouts for mp3 players. A lot of summer camps too that have no-device policies allow non-internet-connected music players as well. The market both on the super low end and the high end is looking pretty strong. Hardest aspect, from my perspective, is gaining access to downloadable music when most consumption has moved to streaming.
I am not sure it is necessarily people growing wearier of phones. It is kind of a mix of gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up with and the proliferation of AI music. I have a hard time trusting random playlists on music services because I don't know if it is genuinely new music made by real people, or ai the platform is pushing so they can make more money. Either way I don't want to be part of that. I don't personally own one of these devices but my listening habits have changed quite a bit in the last year.
> gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up
Plenty of older Gen Z grew up with iPods - the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old, and it took the smartphone another ~5 years to fully kill off that whole product category.
yeah, I grew up on my dad’s old iPod and BlackBerry up until high school; a lot of people in my peer group also were exposed to “older” tech by way of parents, siblings, etc.
It's a modern iPod motherboard replacement that enables the device to have bluetooth, Wi-Fi, UI improvements, etc. Surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN
I got myself a couple. A Mechen M30 and a FiiO M21. First one is pretty low-end in terms of interface and firmware capabilities, but both sound superb, and being able to listen music without a connection to somewhere and not interrupted by notifications.
I personally never gave up standalone players. My MD is still alive and kicking for example, but I find myself reaching for them more and more for proper music listening.
My 2nd generation iPod stopped working last week. It had a spin wheel but its predecessor's actually spun.
The monochrome screen shows a folder icon with a warning sign. I haven't looked into it but I fear that something happened to the internal hard drive. It's one with spinning disks. It was truly a work of art, that device.
I’m sorry to hear that your iPod might be bricked. I haven’t worked on an iPod gen2 personally, but I repaired an iPod mini. The interface for the small hard drive in that is the same as compact flash, so it’s very easy to replace the storage with something more physically durable. Or at least it is easy to find the replacement part - I haven’t tried the whole process on your iPod.
The mechanical drive has probably failed. If you put the iPod in a freezer bag and get it very cold, it may spin up long enough for you to make a backup. But make sure it is in a freezer bag or something otherwise airtight or the condensation will brick it worse. The cold shrinks the metal enough to mitigate the initial friction of the drive spinning up.
From there, you can mod it to work from a micro SD card.
Honestly I'm amazed yours lasted this long. I had a fourth-gen 40GB iPod back in The Day and it was easily the least-reliable Apple product I ever owned due to that internal 1.8" HDD. Mine was replaced five times under AppleCare.
When that eventually ran out and it died again (in 2009 IIRC), I swapped in a CompactFlash card using a cheap adapter from DealExtreme. Once you do that or an SD card mod (more popular these days), have iTunes restore the partitioning scheme and OS and it'll be good to go.
The HDD connector usually unseats slightly and it stops working. Pop it open with a credit card and reseat it. A more dangerous way that sometimes gets it working again is to wait for it not to be spinning and give the edge a good smack against palm of your hand. This usually works to reset it the tiny bit it needs…
Same with a lot of things. A synchromesh gearbox comes to mind. There's definitely something bittersweet about technology becoming obsolete and redundant.
The haptic trackpads on a Steam Controller use the same circling motion to perform scroll wheel actions, and the haptic feedback is superb at selling the effect both audibly and from the feeling on your thumb.
We have evolved to iPhone dark pattern updating to suddenly starting Apple Music in my car bulldozing Spotify and me almost getting in a fucking car accident every time.
That's a "feature" of the vehicle's infotainment system. Some of the vehicles I've driven run Music the moment I connect my phone. Others are more respectful and wait for me to tell them to play something.
The aftermarket CarPlay adapter I installed in our Toyota is in the latter group. When I climb into the car, the CarPlay UI pops up on the vehicle's screen, ready for me to ask it to do something. Until I do, it does nothing other than show the homescreen with icons on it. A Ford I rented would fire up Music the second I plugged my phone in.
Hmmm, I’d have to see it. It’s basically the car saying “ooh you’re an MP3 player, play some music!”, and the phone is like, “oh, okay, you’re relaying your owner’s request so I’ll take your word for it”.
Not that I recall and I’m feeling too lazy to look at the moment. It’s really the car’s fault, though. It’s sending the “start playing MP3s” command, which the device is obeying.
My car plays "Africa" by toto every time I plug in the iphone to charge. It was a trifling inconvenience, then over years it became rage inducing, and now it's reached all the way back around to funny.
Mine was A-Punk by Vampire Weekend. Used to annoy me to no end, but it turned out it was a "feature" of the car stereo to just default to playing alphabetically. Buying a new car fixes that little issue. Easy!
I used to have a copy of the THX theater intro sound effect as the alphabetically first track in my library for this purpose. Not quite 60 seconds, but starts off quiet and served as a reminder to either choose a track or shut the music off.
It's not the phone deciding to do it, when the device connects the car is telling it to play. Check your infotainment settings to see if there's a way to turn it off.
Apple doesn't have an official way to prevent it, but I think you could do it with Shortcuts and an automation to pause music triggered by "When CarPlay is connected."
If it's tricky to get it to trigger at the exact time it starts playing, you could even do like:
- Store media volume to a variable
- Set media volume to 0
- Wait 3 seconds
- Stop playing
- Restore original media volume
Yep. My old Honda Fit did this way before CarPlay. I believe it’s a holdover from external mp3 devices using track numbers in their filenames.
It was always a stupid decision to start playing your music alphabetically, but it became a more stupid decision when music libraries were no longer carefully curated folders in the filesystem.
MP3 player interfaces which were originally integrated via CD changer interfaces that start from the first track of the first disc and play tracks and discs sequentially unless shuffle is enabled, which is a pefectly sensible default for a CD changer.
It is getting increasingly hard not to think of my Androids that has never done anything like this. It just continues on exactly the location in the last played song or whatever else I was playing. Audio book, radio podcast, movie, whatever. It just picks up from where I was.
My iPhone did the same (as your Android). I am not sure I like it either, because I tend to listen to very different styles of music in my headphones and in my car. Anyway, it’s actually the car that tells the phone to start playing when it is connected. I just disabled it. It’s not an iOS versus Android thing.
If there's anything I've learned from using my favorite tracks as a daily alarm: there is no music that I won't eventually start to hate :(
It's gotten to the point after 15 years that I've stopped trying, for fear of ruining even more good music.
I have noticed too that some people are more/less prone to this, which makes me wonder: is anyone completely immune? Are there people who, no matter how often they hear a song, will still love it?
Yes! "Aaron Burr, Sir" starts in Apple Music. "Hey, Siri shuffle liked songs on Spotify." Queue "Aaron Burr, Sir" again until I pick up my phone and tap Spotify. Make it stop.
Ipod seems pretty cool. I never owned one, kind of want to get a modded one or a newer knock off
It's extremely hard to find a new production MP3/FLAC player with upgradable storage that don't suck for one reason or another. Plenty of perfect new ones, but they will have onboard BT or Wifi still.
‘You can’t trust hardware’ is probably a more accurate statement.
https://certainthings.studio/sprout
Part of the appeal of the iPod is that it only had just as much hardware and software as it needed and was simple, which lends to its extreme mod potential that's fueling its continuing popularity today. A good modern iPod analogue needs to deliver on those fronts, too.
[1]https://www.rockbox.org/
The sudden growth rate in sales derive some people to capitalize on it. Mostly either Chinese manufacturers or drop shippers though sometimes big names get swept up in the frenzy too. Then the market is flooded and it's not cool or unique anymore, or the target audience is saturated and then it's forgotten. I suspect something similar is happening now with screenless fitness trackers right now (even though I bought one because I hate smartwatches but want a fitness tracker)
It's especially funny seeing people who are into "MP3 players for digital detox" speak on podcasts or online. "I love that it's not a phone. I just wish it had <insert random ass app(s)> so I can take it on walks and leave my phone behind" then those random apps are different per person. It's really funny.
Similar thing with the screenless fitness trackers I mentioned. On every single review or discussion board for them, you will find people complaining that a screenless fitness tracker is, in fact, screenless and that they wish it just had a small screen for their important notifications or if it can answer calls or get phone notifications or connect to LTE.
Music is cheaper than it's ever been for the consumer and segregation between genres or bands is non-existent on music streaming.
It's hard to socially signal when everyone can afford to stream and the search bar can show you Sabrina Carpenter just as easily as RYM or /mu/core.
However , you can socially signal if you spend money on an iPod, DAP, better headphones, physical media etc.
who am I socially signaling to if I have physical media in my basement? my wife?
I do think this take is lukewarm.
I know someone in my group who moved from Apple Music to Spotify because everyone else was using Spotify and she didn't wanna feel left out.
I also can't really share playlists with them, which is fine since I only listen to the same 1,700 tracks from the 90s or early 2000s anyway.
They're all in regards to design choices or why something is needed when it's not obvious. And such a level of polish in the interface isn't something you attain through prompting. Not AI.
Who the fuck cares.
Sad!
https://music.apple.com/includes/ipod/data/us/en-US.json
US 1,029 Songs 682 Artists 39 Unique tracks
GB 1,156 Songs 727 Artists 12 Unique tracks
FR 1,217 Songs 797 Artists 132 Unique tracks
DE 1,062 Songs 709 Artists 62 Unique tracks
ES 1,155 Songs 724 Artists 7 Unique tracks
Somehow, with all the world's music a tap away I listen to far fewer albums now. I loved preparing my mp3 players, like packing a bag for a trip.
Yt-dlp for the win
Plenty of older Gen Z grew up with iPods - the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old, and it took the smartphone another ~5 years to fully kill off that whole product category.
In America. My country, and 90% of the world, was noticeably behind, and "mp3 players" reigned.
It's a modern iPod motherboard replacement that enables the device to have bluetooth, Wi-Fi, UI improvements, etc. Surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN
I personally never gave up standalone players. My MD is still alive and kicking for example, but I find myself reaching for them more and more for proper music listening.
The monochrome screen shows a folder icon with a warning sign. I haven't looked into it but I fear that something happened to the internal hard drive. It's one with spinning disks. It was truly a work of art, that device.
From there, you can mod it to work from a micro SD card.
When that eventually ran out and it died again (in 2009 IIRC), I swapped in a CompactFlash card using a cheap adapter from DealExtreme. Once you do that or an SD card mod (more popular these days), have iTunes restore the partitioning scheme and OS and it'll be good to go.
The aftermarket CarPlay adapter I installed in our Toyota is in the latter group. When I climb into the car, the CarPlay UI pops up on the vehicle's screen, ready for me to ask it to do something. Until I do, it does nothing other than show the homescreen with icons on it. A Ford I rented would fire up Music the second I plugged my phone in.
Not sure if there's something for the apple equivalent.
And did you see Goldmund's $240k preamp? https://www.wired.com/story/goldmund-preamp-costs-more-than-...
Apple doesn't have an official way to prevent it, but I think you could do it with Shortcuts and an automation to pause music triggered by "When CarPlay is connected."
If it's tricky to get it to trigger at the exact time it starts playing, you could even do like:
It was always a stupid decision to start playing your music alphabetically, but it became a more stupid decision when music libraries were no longer carefully curated folders in the filesystem.
It's gotten to the point after 15 years that I've stopped trying, for fear of ruining even more good music.
I have noticed too that some people are more/less prone to this, which makes me wonder: is anyone completely immune? Are there people who, no matter how often they hear a song, will still love it?
It is 9 minutes of silence so that U2 album you never asked for doesn’t start playing at the most dangerous part of the journey.