The iPod Challenge: Findings
It’s been just over eight months since I rebuilt my iPod, and two weeks since I committed to using it as my only source of music for one week. So I did. From Saturday to Saturday, that was it: no Spotify on my phone, no YouTube on my TV. If I wanted to listen to music, I grabbed my iPod. Would I continue to listen to the same stuff? Would I suddenly listen to twice as much music?
I expected this week would be a mixed bag. But it surprised me what I found easy, and which parts were most frustrating. I thought I’d share what happened here.
If you want to try your own version of the challenge, I finally wrote up a full guide on using an iPod in 2025 for paid members (for just $3/month, or $30/year), here. This is my first paid-only post. It's nearly 3000 words long, and covers finding an iPod, which iPod to choose, how to fix it up or upgrade it, software, workflow, and more. EOE, the shop I purchased all my parts from was kind enough to offer a coupon code, so definitely give them a look!
As a reminder, if you become a paid member of the Order of the Black Lotus, you get access to not only this, but a private feed of my photography, access to other members-only articles like Working a Scene and How To Do a Spec Shoot, and best of all, an exclusive one-of-one handwritten postcard from me in Tokyo to anywhere in the world. Hope you’ll consider joining.
So why did I do this challenge in the first place? Well, despite my extremely wide ranging taste in music, I realized that after going all-in on music streaming via Spotify, what I was actually listening to was growing increasingly narrow. I was continually blindsided by new releases from bands I like, and despite seeking out new releases, I would continually listen to whatever the algorithm surfaced for me.
I’m not anti-algorithm as a matter of course. I think YouTube’s algorithm is really pretty good at showing me videos and music I’m interested in, but Spotify strongly prefers showing you music you already like, probably to avoid alienating you with a more challenging new listen—or so it seems to me.
Also, iPods are just cool. While I’m often amazed at the power of my smartphone, I love a single-use (or at least, minimal) device like a portable game console, or an e-reader. There’s no distracting traps, no gambling psychology at play. iPods mostly do one thing, and they do it well; and a dash of nostalgia doesn’t hurt.
I’d had my own music library for years, and was quite proud of it. But I had a harddrive failure just after music streaming got big, and decided to just leave the rubble. Until now. Somehow, I’d held on to the first iPod I’d ever gotten—an iPod Classic 5th Generation, the iPod "Video"—and decided to fish it out of the closet. Looking online, I learned this was considered one of the easiest iPods to fix up, so I did, rebuilt a music library, and was off to the races. But even after doing all that work, I remained wishy-washy; and here we are today.
Now back to the challenge.
Before starting , I identified two difficulties that had held me back from going all-in on my iPod previously. Those were the incompatibility with bluetooth, and the lack of a speaker.
Part of what drew me to the iPod again was the 3.5mm headphone port, and the prospect of using a pair of wired earbuds. Audio technology, and earbuds especially, have gotten both so good and so cheap over the last handful of years, and I had been excited to wire up and listen to my music in the best fidelity I could. But let’s face it, wires are sometimes limiting. I didn’t want to run with heavy, wired earbuds. Nor did I want to go to the gym. If I’m out taking photos, the wire gets in the way of my camera strap. I decided to try and use the wired headphones whenever possible, but wanted to give myself a bit more flexibility.
For the speaker, I like to listen to music while cooking and showering. With both I need to keep the music player a bit out of the way, and tend to just toss my phone in the corner of either room.
I alleviated both of these issues with two small purchases: a bluetooth adapter dongle, and a tiny bluetooth speaker—both of these items together cost me about $30 USD (audio stuff is cheap now!)
Still, I had my doubts. Would I be able to listen to music where I wanted to? Would my week become silent?
The challenge kicked off on Saturday but... I ended up spending the whole day out with a friend, so my only music listening came in the shower.
Luckily, my new setup worked just fine, but not totally without hiccups. For one, syncing between the dongle and speaker is a little finicky, with usually one of the two needing to be put into pairing mode before it works. Additionally, between songs, the speaker gives a little error tone, as if it’s become disconnected, but then the next song plays as normal. (I tried adding crossfade, thinking it was the silence between songs, but no dice. For now, I’m just living with it.) Still, I consider this a success. At least I know it works!
On Sunday, I went to the gym. Finally, a real challenge. I’d added about 80% of my workout playlist to my iPod ahead of time, so I knew I’d have something to listen to. (This challenge is mostly about intentionality, but in the gym, I just want to focus on that). This was a big success. I was able to use the same earbuds I normally use, connected to my iPod instead of my phone. Lifting was no problem, and really didn’t provide an obstacle to my gym routine—but it didn’t really provide any benefit, either.
As I said, I don’t really care about finding new music in the gym. Here’s a place where I do want to listen to the same things again and again (though my playlist slowly grows). The audio quality was not noticeably better, and I doubt I’d care if it were. My workout logs are on my phone so I need to bring it anyways, and I already don’t get distracted by my phone while I’m there (it’s my biggest gym pet-peeve; I just want to do my work and head home as quickly as I can). So it works, but I didn’t really see the benefit.
After that, I synced my iPod in the morning, pulling in a couple of new albums I’d been meaning to listen to.
Monday was the first day I felt like I was lacking some music I wanted to listen to. I’ve mostly rebuilt my music library, but every once and a while, I’ll find some hole in it somewhere. Somehow, I’d neglected to add Mac DeMarco to my library, to my iPod, so while “Another One” was calling my name, I’d have to settle for something else. Mac might relate.
Still, the idea of wanting to find a specific song was a good step. Obviously, there’s plenty of times I search for and find the music I want via Spotify, but also plenty of times I just click on whatever colorful box is on the homepage. But you can’t really do that on an iPod; if you don’t know what you want to listen to, you’ve got to scroll through a list of artists until you find something that sounds good. And that’s what I did (though I added Mac DeMarco back again once I got a chance).
The other big issue I foresaw was running. I usually run with a phone in my pocket, and it doesn’t really bother me, so a smaller iPod shouldn’t be an issue, but I think of it as a bit more fragile of a device; largely plastic, not weather sealed, etc. Still, this too was no issue. I brought it to a group run, my first event with a run club, and while I didn’t use it for that run (you know, so I could talk to people?), I did use it as I ran home by myself. My running watch gave me all the necessary info as usual, and the iPod supplied the soundtrack.
So what were the results? On Saturday, I pulled all the data into Last.FM, and found: I listened to less music during the challenge than the week prior. Of course, this should be expected. There is more friction here, ever so slightly, so in situations I probably would’ve just put on lofi or something calming, I went without music. But I didn’t view any of those times as an inconvenience, or even really register them at all. More silence might be good.
Most interestingly, I listened to a wider range of artists over the past week than I had the week prior, which was the goal. You’ve got to choose what to listen to, and it often seemed just as easy for me to hit play on something I hadn’t heard before.
I didn’t end up cheating, unless you consider sending a link to a song on YouTube to a friend. That’s one full week without Spotify, without listening to music on YouTube. It showed me I could, and really it was easier than I expected it to be.
...But I still don’t expect to cancel my Spotify subscription. I learned I can get away without it, that I don’t need it, but there are still plenty of situations where it’s just as convenient to listen to music on my phone. (Though maybe I should try YouTube music, which is cheaper and has bonus features for YouTube, anyways.)
Still, going forward I’d like to keep it up better. I’m going to try and keep up to date on new releases, and keep syncing my iPod, hopefully making that the first place I reach for when I reach for music. I’ll probably leave the iPod at home when I hit the gym, though.
