# I tried (and failed) to ditch Spotify for an iPod ## Метаданные - **Канал:** Wolfgang's Channel - **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOad4ncEJkc ## Содержание ### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOad4ncEJkc) Segment 1 (00:00 - 05:00) Okay, I admit that for most of you guys, this video probably came completely out of the blue. Aren’t you the power efficient homelab guy? Why are you making a video about an old iPod? But the long time viewers among you will remember that one of the first videos on this channel was about upgrading an old iPod Classic with a bigger battery and a transparent case And no, the video is not that old, it’s just that I was about 10 years late to the frosted tips trend. 7 years later and I think it’s time for yet another iPod video. This is an iPod that, at a first glance, doesn’t look all that diferent from the iPod that was featured in my old video, however, once you start looking closely… it becomes very apparent that this iPod is built different. It’s got USB-C, wireless charging, 256 gigabytes of solid state storage, and even supports wireless audio. So in this video, we’re gonna talk about why you would want to use an iPod in the age of smartphones and music streaming, we’re gonna install custom open source firmware on this thing and use it to play Doom, I’m also gonna talk a little bit about my experience of using this iPod to try and beat my phone addiction, and of course, in the best tradition, we’re also gonna take this thing apart and mod it even further… or try to, at least. But you know what doesn’t require any further tinkering and complicated tech voodoo? Your Wordpress-based website, as long you host it with today’s sponsor, Kinsta. Kinsta provides reliable, fast and secure managed hosting for Wordpress with 24/7 support. managing a website for your business can be overwhelming and even frustrating at times, performance issues, security vulnerabilities, DDoS attacks unhelpful hoster suport, and many other issues – which you have to navigate on your own. Kinsta solves these problems for you, by providing blazing fast performance with edge caching and early hints, 37 data centers and 300+ CDN locations enterprise level firewall and DDoS-protection, as well as up to 99. 99% SLA-backed uptime guarantee and SOC2. And if you ever need help with your website? you can talk to real human WordPress Experts 24/7, not an AI chatbot reading from scripts. Kinsta’s control panel is also super easy to manage, even if you’re not a computer guru. So if your Wordpress website is a constant source of frustration and issues, move it to Kinsta today and see that running a website can actually be enjoyable They’ll also take care of migrating your website from your old hoster No tech expertise required. You can get your first month for free, and Kinsta also gives you a 30-day money back guarantee In case you’re not convinced. Visit the link in the description or scan this QR code to get started So thank you Kinsta, for sponsoring today’s video, and now, let’s talk about his iPod! So unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably seen one of these videos in your recommendation feed. ”Using an iPod in 2025” “This saved my relationship with music” “Why Are People Buying iPods Again” and many others. So, why *are* people buying iPods again? well, some people would say that it’s just pure nostalgia. We tend to look at the past through rosy glasses, and for us as geeks, what we’re mostly nostalgic about is gadgets. if you look at a comment section under any video about an old phone, MP3 player or a game console, you’ll see a massive number of people who get very emotional about seemingly just a piece of plastic, even going as far as saying that certain UI sounds or ringtones bring tears to their eyes. Are you guys okay? For them, this isn’t just an old piece of tech, but a relic from a different, better time. where they were younger, the future was brighter and the world was simpler. Maybe I’ve fallen for the nostalgia as well, but for me, especially in the modern times, with political unrest, war, climate crises, AI, the enshitification and corporatization of the Internet, the rise of big tech and surveillance capitalism, When you see a device from 20 years ago, it does make you remember times where things were… different. So I do understand the sentiment. But for some people, it’s not just nostalgia. On the surface, using an iPod today is impractical, archaic even. The way we listen to music has changed dramatically since this thing came out. People no longer rip CDs or have an MP3 collection on their hard drives, These days, you can pay 10 euros a month and have access to pretty much every song you would ever want to listen to right on your smartphone. So why limit yourself to an offline device that can only store a limited number of songs? Well, for some people, the convenience and ease of consuming music has kind of cheapened the experience. Music is no longer limited to a finite number of albums that you own, where every time you decided to buy or download an album, it was an intentional choice… but instead, you have millions of albums at your fingertips, which in turn results in oversaturation and paralysis by analysis, It’s similar to people who have huge Steam libraries and yet don’t feel like playing any single game – even though back when they were kids and only had three or four games, they played the hell out of them, and always discovered something new. There’s also the fact that even though you do have access to millions of songs ### [5:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOad4ncEJkc&t=300s) Segment 2 (05:00 - 10:00) you don’t actually own any of them. Music being removed from Spotify (either by artists themselves or by Spotify) is something that happens very often. And a thing I’ve personally been bitten by multiple times is an artist replacing one of their songs with an ‘improved’ or ‘remastered’ version which actually sounds worse. As our collective attention span shortens, it also affects the music itself – there are studies that show that songs, on average, are becoming shorter, with artists trying to capture your attention in the first few seconds. And of course, we can’t forget about Spotify’s obsession with AI. Be that creating hundreds of fake AI artists under the internal initiative called “Perfect Fit Content”, and then sneakily inserting them into their curated playlists, or Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek investing millions into the AI military drone technology. Now of course, Spotify is not the only music streaming platform, and there are definitely alternatives that actually pay the artists fairly, and don’t try to replace them with AI to line their pockets. but the convenience and ‘fast food’-ification of music in general, is definitely one factor that’s driving a rising interest in physical media, as well as alternative DRM-free digital media. Finally, for some people, having a separate device for listening to music and podcasts is a way to quit their phone addiction. Sure, our phones can already play music and do much more, but this “much more” often involves social media, doomscrolling, short form content, and tons of distractions. So these days, you definitely see more and more people abandoning the convenience of a smartphone, and coming back to different devices with their own dedicated functions, like an iPod for music, a small digital camera for pictures, and a feature phone or a dumbphone for SMS and calls. Now, as for why I personally want to try using an iPod? Well, I guess it’s a combination of all three factors: a nostalgia for simpler times becoming more deliberate in the way I listen to music reducing my dependency on big tech platforms and trying to quit my smartphone addiction My plan is to use my Apple Watch as a sort of a dumbphone, since it can be used to make calls and type short messages, leave my iPhone at home, and replace it with this iPod Classic Now, there’s no denying that a lot has changed since this iPod came out. the 30-pin connector is pretty much dead. hard drives have been replaced with solid state for everything but bulk storage, a lot of people, including me, use wireless earphones to listen to music, and iTunes on Mac is not really a thing anymore. with iPod support pretty much non-existent in modern macOS. Classic Connect 2 is aiming to solve most of these issues. their mod includes support for Bluetooth audio, Qi-based wireless charging, a USB-C port and support for SD-card based storage. Classic Connect 2 is compatible with iPod Video, or 5th gen, as well as 5. 5th, 6th and 7th gen iPod classic models. The mod is also solderless, which means that you don’t need to solder anything to your iPod’s mainboard. that is, unless you also want to use the USB-C port for data transfer More on that later. The entire mod kit, sans the iPod and the storage adapter, is being sold for 130€ at the time of filming this video. moonlit. market also sells a version with the storage adapter for 154€. But in both cases, you’ll have to source your own SD cards. Now, is that a lot? Well, compared to some other products on the market, you definitely get more bang for your buck. You might be able to do it a bit cheaper if you go full DIY, but the main selling points of this mod are convenience and ease of installation. Now, [moonlit. market](http://moonlit. market) sent me an entire iPod with the mod already pre-installed, so I didn’t even have to install it myself. But the first thing I noticed when taking it out of the box is how light it is. it ditches the miniature hard drive for SD cards, and it also replaces the iconic metal back with a plastic rear cover. yes, i know, the metal rear panel was pretty much the distinctive feature of iPods but it also got covered in scratches in the first 5 minutes of use. So I can’t say that I’ll miss it much. Overall, i think the new design looks pretty clean, and it also makes it way easier to take the iPod apart, which i’ll show you later on in the video. Now you might ask, with almost every part of this iPod replaced, what’s even iPod about this thing anymore? And well, this unit still has the original iPod motherboard and still runs the iPod software, which I’m going to get rid of and replace with a custom open source firmware called Rockbox. Why? well, the original Apple firmware is fairly limited. it only supports a certain subset of codecs, with formats like FLAC absent from the list, and you also can’t copy music on it from your computer, just like you would do on any regular MP3 player of that era. And with iPod support being removed or reduced in modern operating systems, this factor is only going to become more limiting with time. Luckily, there exists an aftermarket open-source firmware called Rockbox. which basically lets you jailbreak your iPod. Installing Rockbox is a process that hasn’t changed all that much in a decade. You plug your iPod into your PC, choose your iPod model from a list of supported devices, and then follow the instructions on the screen and watch as hackery looking text appears on your iPod. ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOad4ncEJkc&t=600s) Segment 3 (10:00 - 15:00) And once that’s done, voila! your iPod is now free! So what does Rockbox do? Well, first, it allows you plug in your iPod into any computer, and just put your music files on it, like any other music player. I know, this concept might not seem that crazy if you’re not an Apple user, but for us iSheep – this is revolutionary. It also lets you play back FLAC files, so if you’re a fan of lossless, you won’t have to convert your music to the Apple-specific ALAC codec. Rockbox also includes a few custom apps and games, you can even play Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D. And it also features a boatload of themes, so you can customize your iPod’s interface to your heart’s content. Now, as for my choice of theme, the 2018 me went with an edgy DOS-looking theme. The 2025 me is a very boring person with a normal hairstyle, so I just went with a theme called iRB Classic It kind of mimics the stock iPod UI, with a somewhat modern twist. It also supports cyrillic and even shows a lossless icon when you’re playing a FLAC. Now it’s not a perfect replica – the fonts for instance don’t look as good, but it’s good enough. So now that we’ve installed Rockbox, we’re ready to listen to some music. Now, the way you get your music – is entirely up to you. You can download the music from your favorite artists directly from BandCamp, you can buy digital releases, you can buy and rip CDs, or you can use methods that I’m not supposed to be talking about on YouTube. In any case, once I got my music onto the iPod, the first thing that I wanted to try out was Bluetooth audio. Now, obviously, there’s no support for Bluetooth in Rockbox, or in the stock iPod firmware – so you can’t like, go to settings, and pair a new device. The bluetooth module basically resides on this daughterboard, and there’s one single button to manage stuff like pairing, connecting and disconnecting audio devices. you long press the button on top of the iPod to turn on the bluetooth module and then you double press to enter the pairing mode. now the product page for Classic Connect 2 mentions that the AirPods Pro 2 aren’t officially supported by the mod. And unfortunately, that’s exactly what I normally use to listen to music. Now, for some people, they work just fine, and for others, especially in dense urban environments, the sound cuts off and the connection is unstable. Bluetooth media controls, such as switching to the next track, or toggling play/pause, also don’t work with this mod. and same goes for the playback being automaically paused when you take one AirPod out of your ear. The only thing that did work for me was volume control, which is in line with what moonlit. market says on their website. As for Bluetooth codecs, Classic Connect 2 supports Apt-X, Apt-X HD, Aptx-AD and Aptx-LL unfortunately, the Airpods only support AAC so you’re basically stuck with the SBC codec. That’s not a unique problem of this mod kit though, since Airpods Pro 2 are known to have issues with non-Apple devices. Now obviously, this iPod still has the good old 3. 5 mil jack, so you can still use regular wired headphones with it as well. and seeing the overlap between the audiophile crowd and people who use weird antique gadgets to listen to music, a lot of people probably will. As for the 30-pin connector – it is also fully functioning, so if you have any accessories kicking around, like a docking station you can still use that with your iPod. There’s also a USB-C port at the top of the device, but as I already mentioned, out of the box, it can only be used for charging. and here’s why. Classic Connect 2, at the time, is only sold as a mod kit, you can’t buy a complete iPod with the mod pre-installed. In order to make installation easy, moonlit market made the mod solderless. Which means that you don’t need to solder anything to the iPod’s main board. you just plug a few ribbon cables in, and that’s it. However, if you do want to use the USB-C port for data transfer, you’ll have to solder three wires between the mod board and the main board of the iPod. moonlit. market provides a guide on which wires need to be soldered where, so I decided to take a crack at it. And… yeah, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it… unless you have experience with microsoldering, this job is pretty much impossible. Now, taking this particular iPod Classic apart is not that hard. I’ve seen some people online saying that this mod makes the iPod unrepairable, because it permanently glues it shut, but that’s not quite correct. The adhesive that’s used to keep the two parts together is more like silicone, and it gets a lot easier to remove once you heat the iPod up. after that, you basically just wedge a plastic spudger between the 30-pin port and the body of the iPod, and pry it gently, but firmly. After some time, you should be able to get enough of a gap between the front and the rear panels, and be able to slice through the adhesive with a plastic pick. So yeah, unlike the stock iPod with the metal back, this one does not require 50 prying tools and years of therapy. Inside, you can see the moonlit. market daughterboard, a battery, a wireless charging module, and a storage unit that consists of two SD card slots I’m not gonna show you the entire process of taking the iPod apart, because there’s already a pretty good guide on that by iFixit. ### [15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOad4ncEJkc&t=900s) Segment 4 (15:00 - 18:00) So let’s skip to where we have freed motherboard from the chassis. So here we have the motherboard, and these are the two pins that we have solder the wires to. Yes, that is tiny. A microscope or a magnifying glass are pretty much a requirement for this job. Another thing to consider is that whatever wire you have at home it’s probably not gonna be thin enough. you need 34 or 36 AWG wire, basically the thinnest you can get your hands on. I decided to do a test run first using a spare iPod Classic motherboard that I had kicking around. And after fiddling with this for multiple hours, I ultimately gave up and decided that maybe carrying a 30-pin cable around is not that bad. You can still charge your iPod with USB-C, or with wireless charging. and personally, that’s good enough for me. I’m also not good at soldering, so maybe if you are, this might be a walk in a park for you. Personally, I was happy that I at least managed to put the iPod back together without breaking anything. I wan’t super confident though, so i decided to test if everything’s working correctly before reassembling. You’ll also want to reapply the adhesive. There is a small tube of glue that moonlit. market includes with their mod kits, and i basically used a large tube of the same stuff. Finally, the adhesive has to cure for 48 hours before use, so we need to make sure to apply pressure on the iPod while it’s curing. I used a combination of a clamp and some rubber bands. So after some time using this iPod, did it help me quit Spotify and become less addicted to my phone? No. One big factor that keeps me from leaving Spotify is discoverability. Back in the pre-streaming days, discovering new music was always a challenge. and when I got Spotify and found the Discover Weekly playlist it was like a revelation to me. That was 10 years ago though, and nowadays, Spotify’s recommendation system somehow got way worse. Still, the ability to quickly discover new music through playlists and “radios” is a huge part of how I find new music these days. And I’m not sure if I’m ready to abandon that entirely. as for battling my smartphone addiction… well, I might make a separate video on using an Apple Watch for “digital detox”, but the TL; DR is that I eventually had to use my phone when travelling, for things like booking a hotel, looking up train itineraries, and so on. And after my trip was over, I basically fell off the wagon, and started using my smartphone again. To be fair, neither of these things are the iPod’s fault. but mostly personal failings, like laziness and lack of discipline. but also, I don’t think I’m exactly the target audience for this iPod. I can imagine myself leaving Spotify and switching to something like Tidal, a service that supports lossless audio, does actually pay artists fairly and doesn’t try to replace real artists with AI Hell, I can even imagine myself abandonding commercial music streaming services entirely, and swithching to a self-hosted solution like Navidrome or Jellyfin, both of which have plenty of mobile and desktop clients too. it’s not as sexy and cool as using an iPod, but you also get to keep your creature comforts, like media controls on your earphones, and being able to add new music to your library on the go… while still giving the big tech streaming services a middle finger. At the same time, if you do have a big music library, and if you also enjoy listening to music completely offline, with no extra distractions, or maybe if you already have an iPod Classic kicking around that you want to add some modern features to this mod kit might be for you. So that’s gonna be it for this video, i hope you guys enjoyed it, and as usual, I would like to thank my Patrons --- *Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/23210*