iPod - back to the future!

Yup - I’ve been using an iPod Classic again and loving it!

The iPod was where it all started for me…and quite possibly for you, too.

My very first Apple device was an iPod Classic. At the time, it felt like a glimpse into the future. We could carry our music with us everywhere, play it anywhere, and, with a few cables, even listen to it in the car.

We could add photos, contacts, and podcasts to it. And all this was on a device that seemed improbably small and compact. It was the stuff of voodoo - how could this possibly be?

It was a love affair for sure.

Seeing folks with the ubiquitous white cable trailing down into their pockets immediately set them apart as belonging to the iPod gang. Looking back, it was probably the start of Apple becoming mainstream. I seem to recall that Macs were still used only by the elite few designers, creatives and musicians, while the iPod was for everyone.

If the iPod were a car, it would probably be a VW Beetle!

It crossed age barriers, and it wasn’t unusual to have a few iPods in your collection - a Classic, the Nano, a Shuffle for the gym and the Touch, which, as it turned out, was essentially the precursor to the iPhone.

Proof of how popular they were was that my first iPod Classic got stolen almost as soon as I’d bought it! I replaced it with a Touch and used that until I got my first iPhone.

As it transpires, it was the iPhone that turned out to be the ruination of the pure music listening experience, and it’s the desire for that experience that has led me back to the iPod.

Back to the future with an iPod

When I make time to listen to music, I want to do just that! I want to listen to music.

I don’t want white, background noise!

One of the problems with listening to music on an iPhone is that it’s ruined by the constant barrage of notifications and the constant temptation to doom scroll. I’ve been on a crusade recently to turn off as many notifications and distractions as I can, but it’s virtually impossible to be totally free of them.

It can be simply an iMessage, a WhatsApp or someone in the family sets a reminder on the shopping list - whatever it is, they take you away from just enjoying the purity of the music.

They break that magical moment of it just being lost in the music.

And that is where the iPod wins out! With an iPod, you get to escape. You get to step out of the digital bubble we all find ourselves in, and it’s pure bliss!

Initially, it takes some getting used to, as the silence seems deafening, but once you start to make the break, you quickly realise what you’ve been missing all these years.

For me, the break started when I took off my Apple Watch and went back to an analogue watch for the first time in years. The watch had really started to nark me! Although there were some useful notifications, such as when it was time to stand, on the whole, it began to feel way too intrusive.

It felt as if I was being watched and monitored every single moment of the day & night. Yes, I know that’s the point of wearing it, but it just felt too much for me by the end.

It would give me scores for my sleep, for stand goals and even for moving! Although I now have no idea of how many steps I’m doing every day, I don’t care. I’m savvy enough to know when I’ve walked enough and when I haven’t.

Enough was enough, and I can tell you it feels amazing not to constantly have a barrage of messages staring at me from my wrist all day long.

The only concession I’ve had to make is to turn on the ringer on my phone (which is set to the very lowest setting) as the watch no longer alerts me.

Trust me, it’s a small price to pay - particularly as I hardly get any calls now.

iPod Classic - hello again!

That move quickly brought me to rethink my use of the iPhone and how I could free myself from those constant distractions.

Way back in 2007, when the iPhone was launched, there was no possible way we could’ve predicted how central it was about to become to our lives. I know we are too far down the line now to be completely free of the phone, but we can at least try to get back to being in charge of it rather than the other way around.

So recently, I bought an 80GB iPod Classic from a friend who was selling it. The nostalgic charm of it was instant, but life with an iPod goes deeper than that. Using it is a statement that I want to be alone with my music and my thoughts.

The iPod gives me back some me time!

Listen to the music

I’m not saying that I’m some great audiophile, but I think I have a slightly above-average love of good audio. Put it this way, poor speakers and audio immediately jump out at me, and I find it pretty grating, I can tell you.

In theory, the audio quality and listening experience on an iPod classic should be about as good as you can get. The music on my iPod is ripped directly from CD’s, which has next to no compression. I’m listening to the music the way the artist and audio engineers had intended for it to be heard - and distraction-free too, don’t forget!

I would add my vinyl rips (which are ripped as 44.1KHz WAV files) to the iPod too if there were a simpler way of adding those tracks to my collection (more on that later), but listening to uncompressed audio again is sorefreshing that I just can’t begin to describe it to you.

Music before the loudness wars was ever a thing. It’s quite literally beautiful music to my ears.

But the iPod experience has sadly been affected since those early days because of Apple Music and the way it’sdeveloped over the years.

Early on, you could rip a CD to iTunes, connect your iPod, and that was that. Now, though, because of iTunes Match, which runs quietly in the background either as a standalone app or as part of your Apple Music subscription, things are not so simple.

I have loads of rare CDs that I’ve ripped over the years that have now also become available on Apple Music. Of course, we can now stream and listen anywhere at any time because of iTunes Match. If the algorithm detects one of my CD tracks, it will replace it with the Apple Music variant.

Tracks that Apple Music matches are saved as HLS files, which are not compatible with an iPod. Trust me, I’ve spent many nerdy hours looking into this, and it can’t be overcome.

Well, that’s not strictly true. I could import my CD tracks and alter them in some way - the title, for instance, and then I could save them. But in reality, that would mean I’m duplicating my music collection for no real reason.

Even for me, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

So for now, I go and find a CD of mine, check if it’s available on Apple Music, and if it isn’t, then I download it onto the Mac and sync the iPod. Trust me, I still have plenty of music to listen to, but it’s bloody annoying nonetheless.

I mentioned that I would add my vinyl to the iPod a moment ago, but again, that would involve me bringing all those tracks into Apple Music. I tend to listen to my vinyl rips via my NAS - I’m doing that right now as I write. I’d hoped that I might be able to connect the iPod to the NAS and drag and drop it from there - but no joy.

Of course, this is an Apple product, which means, as old as it is, it is still locked to their way of working. When you buy into Apple, you have to play by its rules. I’m sure there will be some third-party apps that let you get around this problem, but I’ve never been a fan of those sorts of apps.

I started to use an iPod again because I wanted fewer complications and notifications. I want this to be a simple experience. And the listening side of an iPod life is heaven - absolute heaven, even if the syncing is now more of a chore, it feels worth it.

Wired headphones - the missing link

Of course, iPods way pre-dated Bluetooth and wireless headphones. On the iPod, all we have is that 3.5mm jack, and I’m all for it!

AirPods are good, don’t get me wrong, but no matter which ones you use, there are still compromises. Even though the AirPods Pro 3 are supposed to be the perfect fit, they still fall out. The ANC on them is brilliant, and they are probably about as good as a pair of Bluetooth buds can be, but…

My AirPods Max are a great set of headphones, but they are not the most comfortable for long periods of listening and that ANC pressure builds up over time, too.

Although my fix may be overkill, I’m a card-carrying nerd, so it’ll be no surprise to you to learn that I use a pair of Beyerdynamic studio-grade headphones, which are the perfect partner for the iPod.

Not only are they comfortable, but they also deliver me flat response audio. I can hear every breath, every shimmer of decay from the cymbals and every single whisper from the studio recording session. In regard to listening to music on the go, I think this set-up is about as good as it gets!

Happy doesn’t start to describe how good listening to music on my iPod classic makes me feel. Listening to music has again become a moment of musical theatre.

The iTunes Match legacy

You’re probably like me and have all kinds of Apple subscriptions running.

Even though I’ve tried to simplify my Apple subscriptions when I started to use Apple One, there are still fragments that baffle me.

I get monthly bills for 99 pence, which I think is for family members’ extra iCloud storage - although I’m not sure! I get invoiced each month for Apple Care for one of my iPhones, which is fine - I get why that is, but then there’s iTunes Match, which I get billed around £25 for annually.

It’s all very confusing, isn’t it, particularly the iTunes Match bit. I’ve done some reading, and I think I’m safe to cancel this now…as long as I remain an Apple Music subscriber, which we know is a given.

iTunes Match is all part and parcel of Apple Music now, so when that renewal comes around, I can finally save myself a few quid!

Isn’t it nice of Apple to make that clear, though!

Simpler times

The only frustrations I have with using the iPod have nothing to do with the iPod.

The iPod was from a simpler, cleaner time, where algorithms weren’t at the beating heart of everything we do.

Because of iTunes Match and the way Apple Music works, unless I want to go through the hassles I’ve described earlier, the music on my iPod will always be limited - and that’s a shame.

The matching idea is brilliant for saving storage on your iPhone or Mac, and dead convenient, but it’s muddied the waters over who owns the music you’re listening to.

That can of worms is a story all of its own, though.

I’d forgotten what it was like to listen to music the way it was intended to be heard. With life so full of distractions, detaching myself from it all for 45 minutes is the tonic for which I’ve been searching.

The iPod with good wired headphones is a moment of quiet musical enhanced stillness in a world of loud distractions.

Happiness is an iPod!

Originally published at https://talkingtechandaudio.com on May 13, 2026.