Transcription
This is my dedicated music player, an old-school iPod. It has a super minimalistic interface, no distractions, no subscription fees, and no feeds. I use it every day to listen to Lo-fi beats when I'm working, Eminem when I'm running or working out, and everything else throughout the day.
Compared to just using my phone, there are no notifications, no software updates to any music app, and no connectivity issues. All the songs are downloaded locally, which means no streaming service can suddenly remove the song that I really like. It helps me leave the phone at home more often, which is a habit I've come to appreciate. For example, it's really nice to go for a walk with this because I can really focus on whatever it is I'm listening to. I can listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and it even has some space for some videos. I have a few of my favorite talks on here that I listen to occasionally.
Recently, I've started to appreciate single-use devices a lot, and in a way, I feel like it makes my life a lot simpler and makes me more intentional with my device usage. As someone who really values digital minimalism and reducing distractions, this is something that I found to be a surprising addition to my life. I use it in my car, when I go for a run or walk, or just anytime throughout the day. I use an iPod Classic at my desk, docked for music. I've set it to play a playlist at a certain time, and I usually use my iPod Nano when I go out.
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So, about a year ago, I started thinking about how music used to be consumed, and it used to be sort of this really special thing where people would come together. Sometimes you would see people line up in front of a record store the night before just for the release of an album. And thinking back, I used to do something similar, like back in high school, I used to wait until the release of an album and download them onto my MP3 player to listen to them at school. But over time, as I switched to streaming services, I felt like I sort of lost that appreciation for music as an art form. And so I thought about how I could sort of recreate that magic with music, and the iPod is sort of my solution to that. And as someone who's been playing guitar for about 10 years now, it's actually to help me appreciate music even more.
Over the past year, I've been using an iPod as my primary listening device, and I've noticed a few benefits, which is what I wanted to talk about in this video.
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If you've seen some of the other videos on my channel, then you know that reducing distractions is something that's really important to me. And even though I've modified my phone to be really minimal, one thing that always sort of bothered me was how music apps would always have these updates to make the app more enticing to use. Like every time I opened the Spotify app, I would be bombarded with a ton of different options, like different audiobooks, podcasts, and new music to listen to. So there would be times where I'd be at the gym, and it would just really distract me because I would be trying to find the best thing to listen to.
The beauty of an iPod is that because it's not connected to the internet, I can only listen to the things that I had intended to listen to. Using an iPod at the gym or studying also has helped me stay more focused. There's no endless scrolling to find something to listen to. It's all already there with nothing to take me out of the zone. I feel like using an iPod has really helped me with cutting distractions.
I also noticed how recently Spotify implemented an update where they had a TikTok-style feed where you could scroll through different snippets of songs to find new content to listen to. And that's when I realized that even music streaming platforms were sort of like these social media companies trying to buy for your attention and make you use the app as much as possible.
I also really dislike paying subscription fees, and using an iPod helped me to actually own my music and not have to rely on Spotify or Apple Music. There would be a lot of times where I would find a song I really like, and it would end up getting removed from the platform, and there would be no way for me to listen to it on my phone. So the benefit of downloading the music onto your device is that nobody can take it away from you.
Surprisingly, there's also a pretty big community of people who are starting to use iPods again, specifically the iPod Classic. Like you can easily get an iPod Classic that's modified with a haptic engine, nearly 2 terabytes of storage, and a higher quality DAC. Initially, I got the iPod Classic, which I think has the best design, but a couple months ago, I got the iPod Nano, which is my favorite iPod. Even though it only has 16 gigs, like the max size only has 16 gigs, I actually think that's a benefit because it forces me to be more intentional about the music and podcasts that I want on here.
The three things I really like about the iPod Nano are: first, it has Bluetooth. So not only can you connect it to wired headphones, you can also connect it to AirPods and any other modern headphone, whereas this one you cannot. The second is battery life. So I only need to charge this maybe once a week, or even less if I'm not using Bluetooth, which is really nice because I don't even think about it. And the third reason is the form factor. So I think this has one of the best designs and portability. Recently, I ran my first marathon, and the entire time I just carried this versus my friend who had to hold his phone and run the whole time, and I, it's faster than by like 20 minutes because of how nice this is.
A lot of times when I go out for a run or workout, I don't bring my phone at all. I just bring this and I listen to music that way. If you're thinking about trying something like this, I will say you don't have to use an iPod. Back in college, I used a $20 MP3 player to listen to Japanese music and podcasts, which worked perfectly fine. Nowadays, I usually get song recommendations from friends, which I feel like is also a way to help me connect with people better. It's also a great conversation starter because I can just hand it over to a friend and have them check out my music collection or listen to some songs.
That's pretty much it. Let me know in the comments if you try something like this. This is also my new setup for my office, um, for the business that I'm working on with my co-founder in the back.
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