MP3 players and retro audio tech has experienced a resurgence in recent years, with brands such as We Are Rewind making cassette players. I, myself, am no stranger to the popularity of MP3 players. The early years of my life were spent with a Sony Discman, one I was obsessed with, and I'd spend days burning CDs.
As I grew older, Apple's iPods, came into existence, and boy were they fantastic. I went from having an iPod Shuffle to an iPod nano — and the last iPod I owned was an iPod touch 6th Gen. My parents gifted me a space gray iPod touch for my 18th birthday, and it was my old means of listening to music when I was in boarding school and we weren't allowed any phones or laptops or any other tech — and I adored my iPod.
So, when I went home to India a few weeks back, my dad brought out a box which contained our old compact point-and-shoot cameras, my iPod Nano (which I, sadly, couldn't bring back to life) in a brown flip-up leather case, and my iPod Touch — and I couldn't contain my excitement. I knew I had to bring it back with me, and so I did, and I decided to go a week without using my smartphone to listen to my favorite tunes. The result? I really enjoyed it, and it made me yearn for much simpler days.
What I like
I love the nostalgia of it all
When I first held my iPod Touch after about a decade, all the memories came flooding back. Having to replace the Lightning cable a few times because it kept breaking. The 8MP rear camera I took numerous photos of flowers and leaves on. The satisfying click sound of the home button (it doesn't beat the clickwheel on old iPods though). And that lovely, clickity clackity typing sound — I really wish my Google Pixel 7 Pro sounded like that.
What also felt nostalgic was going through my music library and seeing all the songs I'd added to my iPod Touch way back when. Many artists on my iPod Touch still show up in my Spotify Wrapped every year, such as Linkin Park, Twenty One Pilots, Poets of the Fall, Pink Floyd, Alt-J, among others. But I discovered some long-forgotten gems too. It had escaped me just how much I liked listening to The Veronicas, Cigarettes After Sex, and Flipsyde, to name a few.
But imagine my surprise when I saw Taylor Swift on there (an artist I try to avoid at all costs). And then I remembered. In my dorm at boarding school, I was one of the only people who had an iPod Touch, and my dormmates would borrow my iPod Touch when I wasn't using it. I remember getting requests from them to download their favorite artists on to my iPod when I got the chance during our school vacations. It got a chuckle out of me, to be fair (and then I promptly deleted her album off my iPod).
There are no distractions, only music
I'm not opposed to using smartphones to listen to music. I've done it for years now and I've never once felt like I needed to complain about it... until recently. I use streaming services to listen to music on my commute to and from work, in my downtime, and whenever else I can. But because said streaming service (Spotify and Qobuz, to be precise) is on my phone, I tend to get distracted. A lot. I'll put on a playlist and doom-scroll through Reddit, Instagram, what-have-you.
And I don't like that. When I've just woken up and hopped on to a bus, my brain feels heavily overstimulated by the time I get to work. There are hundred thoughts going through my head, related to something I read on the internet, and it massively affects my mood and productivity. But ever since I've started using my iPod Touch instead of my Google Pixel 7 Pro, I've felt better.
I don't have any games on my iPod touch. No internet access. No social media apps. Nothing. All I have is the Apple Music app, and it's helped me live in the present and actually enjoy my favorite tracks and artists. I've consciously made an effort to not reach for my phone in my pocket, and I'm better off this way.
Limited storage = Careful consideration
Streaming services give us instant access to millions of songs and artists, which can be a blessing and a curse. What feels like a curse, though, is the constant bombardment of ads and "AI-powered features" which many streaming apps seem to peddle, and I strongly dislike that. I feel like I'm always getting distracted by, say, an ad for a podcast. Which I inevitably click on because it features my favorite actor or whatnot. Which means I abandon the song I was listening to.
Uninterrupted and unlimited access can be a problem, in my opinion. The good thing about my iPod touch is that it doesn't have any of that. Because you're limited to the device's internal storage (mine is capped at 64GB), you have to really think about what you put on there — and I love that. Carefully considering the songs and artists I wanted on my iPod touch made me realize that I didn't actually care for many of the ones I listened to on Spotify.
So, I hooked up my iPod touch to my MacBook and prayed that I could still transfer music using Apple Music — and it worked! All I had to do after that was download MP3 files so I used a combination of converting YouTube links to MP3 using a third-party website for songs I couldn't find on Apple Music, and spending some money on songs I could. Not only did it give me a sense of ownership (which streaming services don't), I felt like I appreciated the artists I put on my iPod touch even more than I originally did.
What I don't like
I will preface this section by saying that these drawbacks of using an iPod Touch aren't necessarily the device's fault, but it's aging hardware and lack of software updates that make it a slight pain.
No new updates = Security risk
You know how your smartphone gets updated every couple weeks? My Google Pixel 7 Pro prompts me to update its security firmware every now and then, and I'm sure your phone does too. These updates, basically, negate security risks, keeping hackers at bay, especially when you're browsing the internet. Because Apple doesn't manufacturer iPods any longer (R.I.P.), iPods don't get any security updates, so my iPod Touch is stuck on iOS 9.3.5. That's old.
My iPod Touch has Wi-Fi built-in so I can browse the internet whenever I like, but do I do it? No, because there's a fear in the back of my head that my device is wide open to hackers and malware, and that I'm at risk of data theft and exploitation (which would have otherwise been patched in a newer version). It might be silly but that's just how my brain is wired. I don't like being a sitting duck.
Battery life is no longer the best
One of the key things I look for when buying any new device (or testing one, as I do for a living) is the battery life. Can this phone or laptop or handheld console last me a good 12 hours, at least? Most modern devices can, and my iPod Touch isn't one of them. A quick Google search shows that, when new, the iPod Touch 6th Gen can provide up to 40 hours of audio playback. I can't speak to that but I do remember that when I was using my iPod Touch regularly, more than a decade ago, I went long periods of time between charges.
That is no longer the case. Aging hardware means I'm stuck with an irreplaceable battery that dies after a few hours — the longest I've gone recently without charging my iPod Touch has been around five hours. Honestly, that doesn't sound too bad in the grand scheme of things, but I've noticed that my iPod Touch gets laggy when it dips under 20%, which hampers the user experience.
Looking ahead...
I don't know how much life my iPod touch has left in it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't turn back on one of these days. But until that day comes, I'll continue using it to listen to my carefully curated playlists and library. So far, it has been a wonderful experience not having to rely on my smartphone for music. That sense of nostalgia coupled with its simplicity make the iPod touch a winner in my books.
My iPod touch is more than a decade old. It is beaten, bruised and battered, sports many scratches, and it has endured many falls and tumbles over the years, but it still works — and it works well. In a way, it's a metaphor for how I've grown and changed since I first unboxed it, and it has affirmed something positive in me that I did not know I needed.
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