About 4 years in the past, Angeline Richard opened Apple Music, hoping to take heed to the Weeknd’s cowl of Drake’s “Belief Points.”
“This music just isn’t at the moment accessible in your nation or area,” a pop-up learn.
Richard, 25, continued discovering that different songs she cherished or had added to her playlists have been not accessible on the app. Upset with the disappearing songs and ever-increasing costs of streaming providers, she set a aim for this yr: “To get off as many streaming providers as attainable, simply so I can personal the issues that I take heed to, that I learn, that I watch.”
So in January, Richard purchased a silver, third-generation iPod Nano from eBay for about $40. She instantly added Deftones’ 2000 album, “White Pony,” to her iPod and has downloaded 10 extra CDs to the gadget since. The method of including music to her iPod, she stated, has been “so enjoyable” and “like somewhat meditation.”
Over the previous month, Richard has discovered one other upside to her iPod.
“If I’m on my cellphone, I’m listening to music, then I get a notification, I click on on that notification, and I hold going into totally different apps,” stated Richard, a content material creator in Raleigh, North Carolina. The iPod “simply grounds me, and it feels handy to be in a single place at one time, as a substitute of in all places without delay.”
The iPod, launched almost 25 years in the past and discontinued in 2022, is discovering new followers amongst individuals who could not have even been born when it was first launched. Like digital cameras and different know-how that outlined the early 2000s, it has benefited from younger music listeners’ nostalgia for a time after they have been infants or toddlers, and when lives have been — by right now’s requirements — extra analog.
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That has given the gadget a brand new lease in popular culture. Final yr, for instance, TikTok star turned pop musician Addison Rae promoted her new single, “Headphones On,” by way of movies displaying off a silver third-generation iPod Nano and providing followers a possibility to win that iPod.
In an interview with GQ revealed in April, rapper Nettspend included his iPod Nano within the 10 issues he couldn’t dwell with out. His playlist for the apocalypse, he stated, included hip-hop group Babyfather, rapper Yung Lean, Willie Nelson and “perhaps Mazzy Star.”
Final yr, searches for “ipod” on eBay grew greater than 8% from 2024, and the variety of listings for some variations of the gadget elevated about 30%, in keeping with knowledge from eBay. In 2025, some generations of the iPod offered at a mean value 60% increased than in 2023, with some sellers asking for almost $600 for a refurbished iPod.
Apple launched the iPod, a digital music participant that finally upended client electronics and the music business, in 2001. Its predecessors may retailer just a few dozen songs; the primary iPod, which had a metal body, a white face and a tactile wheel, may retailer 1,000 songs. It price $399.
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Over the subsequent twenty years, Apple launched greater than 20 variations of the iPod, with some able to storing tens of hundreds of songs and others costing as little as $49. The corporate finally pulled again on the gadget because it targeted on the iPhone. As of 2022, the iPod’s closing yr, Apple had offered an estimated 450 million.
Apple declined to remark.
The resurgence of the iPod is an indication that “individuals need digital that’s not related, however not essentially analog,” stated Tony Fadell, a former Apple govt who helped create the iPod. If the selection is “1,000 songs in my pocket, or limitless songs in my pocket and 1,000 notifications each hour,” individuals don’t need the latter, he added.
“Apple ought to simply deliver them again — not the identical means,” Fadell stated. “I might do it in another way. I might make it fashionable for the trendy age.”
Fadell stated he had made a number of designs for the way an iPod may look or work in 2026. He declined to share extra particulars however stated, “You wouldn’t have the connection until you actually needed it.”
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Some younger individuals need to disconnect. In a 2023 survey, 38% of U.S. youngsters stated they spent an excessive amount of time on their smartphone, and 36% stated that they had in the reduction of on their smartphone use, in keeping with the Pew Analysis Heart.
“We’ve so many gadgets that do every part,” Elizabeth Hernandez, 22, stated. “Lots of the time, that will get overwhelming.”
However the iPod is “one factor that has one goal,” Hernandez stated. She has a pink fourth-generation iPod Nano for her favourite songs in the meanwhile and a silver seventh-generation iPod Basic that she downloaded all of her CDs onto. Now when she discovers new artists, like pop band After, she listens to their albums in full, moderately than skipping from music to music.
“I really feel much more targeted, much more plugged into what I’m doing,” stated Hernandez, a senior at Japanese Washington College in Spokane. “I’m disconnected from social media, however I really feel extra related with myself,” she added.
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Different younger individuals have been interested in the aesthetics of the iPod. Maxime Irlinger, a first-year college pupil in Montpellier, France, has about 20,000 followers on TikTok and was supplied a present final yr from Rakufun, a Japanese buying app. He hadn’t recognized that Apple made iPods with each clips and contact screens, however then he selected the sixth-generation iPod Nano.
“I discover this contemporary regardless that it’s actually previous,” Irlinger, 18, stated. “I knew it, however I didn’t comprehend it was that cool,” he added.
A video through which Irlinger clips his blue iPod onto his denims, then reveals it displaying the covers of albums by Charli XCX, Björk and pop singer beabadoobee, is essentially the most seen on his account. However past being “a spicy contact on your outfit,” Irlinger stated, the iPod is “a brand new approach to expertise music” so “we don’t rely upon algorithms.”
Natalie Gamez, 26, purchased her blue 5.5-generation iPod Basic about 4 years in the past. Pictures and movies of different individuals utilizing the gadget impressed the acquisition, in addition to her need to make use of streaming providers much less.
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The time away from her cellphone — and with music by Beyoncé, Boyz II Males and artists she had cherished in highschool however forgotten about — helped her psychological well being and was like “therapeutic your internal baby,” Gamez stated.
“Rising up, we’d take heed to music, both on CD gamers or different MP3 gamers,” stated Gamez, an authorized nursing assistant in Lakeland, Florida. “It actually helped for escapism. I really feel like telephones usually are not that anymore, with every part happening, with notifications, with social media. I really feel just like the iPods give us that again.”
So she gave her siblings, Emily, 13, and Clay, 15, iPods to cut back their display screen time, too. Emily’s inexperienced third-generation iPod Nano was a success in school after her district banned telephones. She confirmed it to her mates, who have been wowed by the power to take heed to all of their music on the gadget. Final yr, three of her mates got iPods for his or her birthdays or Christmas.
Emily stated she preferred her iPod greater than her cellphone. Her purpose was easy: “It’s similar to, it’s older, and it’s not one thing new. It’s totally different.”