GQ told me that
Now Is a Great Time to Go Back to an Old iPod and I believed them, so I bought one.
This is a 7th-gen iPod Classic fitted with a custom board and 256GB flash storage. I got it from PiratePTiPods on Etsy.
I admit it was a bit of an impulse buy, but after a week of use I’m glad I have it. I’ve loaded it with a bunch of my favorite songs, and have not yet run out of things to listen to.
Loading songs onto it hasn’t been my favorite pastime. I use Roon rather than Apple Music so I had to fire up Music and drag-and-drop songs into the app, then tell the iPod to sync.
On the other hand, it’s wonderful to use. I really like being able to just reach over and play/pause/skip or change the volume without looking up from whatever I’m doing. Touch screens are no match for that click wheel when it comes to actually controlling music. And of course not having the device send me notifications every two minutes is nice, too.
Wired headphones are required, but this is preferable because I own pretty good ones. The best part is that they don’t have to pair or charge. Also, unlike every pair of AirPods I’ve owned, they always work.
This may be just a fun bit of nostalgia, but it’s a nice-sounding, pleasurable, fun to use bit of nostalgia.
