Breaking news: A journalist just discovered that the thing he stopped using while still functioning normally still functions after a lng time left in a drawer.
Actually not that common for battery powered devices
People tend to exaggerate how much batteries degrade. Low power devices tend to work reasonably well even on degraded batteries.
Well, my PSP had its battery inflate. I had replaced that battery a few years ago, used it a bit, then forgot about it. Recently found that the new battery is in oopsie state too.
It's not just degradation.
And PSP is still a fine device. Actually amazingly useful, it's the missing branch of evolution that should have been chosen instead of smartphones. No touchscreen, but convenient controls. If it only had a SIM port. There even was a Skype client.
A general purpose device and not a gaming one, like PSP, would be very good. Instead of that proprietary optical drive - additional ports and memory card slots, perhaps even a section with an interface for some extension chips. A similar set of buttons - except perhaps a retractable (or attachable via some interface) QWERTY keyboard would be useful.
The UI and UX of the OS were very cool. OK, I was using it for listening to music and reading books.
Well, my PSP had its battery inflate. I had replaced that battery a few years ago, used it a bit, then forgot about it. Recently found that the new battery is in oopsie state too.
That's sad :(
Did you store it in a too hot place or leave it with zero charge for too long? I only had a few devices with inflated battery so far, and I scrape a lot of. My stuff and the stuff I get from people tend to be in a relatively good shape even after staying unused for some years. E-readers are the champions of battery preservation. I got one from a friend that was forgotten for more than 10 years, and it works well. He said that the battery originally lasted more than a week. Now it's lasting only about 3 days, which is a huge difference, but not enough to make it unusable.
or leave it with zero charge for too long
That.
Honestly: "Journalist discovers Apple product still functions properly after 10 years" sounds like a headline to me.
Not to brag, but this is my mp3 in 2026:
It plays wonderfully. But only works with Windows XP for transfers...
My wife still blames me for advising her to buy this instead of an ipod. It wasn't as easy to use inho. It was drag and drop in file management and didn't require software, but.... ok?
I've used both, and highly prefer this over any of the ipods of the generation. This is partly because of the drag and drop, but mostly because it didn't gaf whether the mp3 came from itunes or ripped with Audio Grabber. Ipods all cared, and I had to trick them into playing Audio Grabber files by encoding them to m4a. Absolutely bonkers.
I had a red Sony Walkman E395 when i was in middle school. Not the most high-end player but it was good and I'm still mad it got stolen.
I still have a functioning iTouch but Apple sucks and the older iTouch isn't able to do the neat tricks.
I was so sad when mine died. It only lasted 5 or so years.
And the battery didn't bulge a few hours after a full charge?
Doubt it.
And the battery is an absolute nightmare to replace on any of the Nanos...
I find the nano to be the easiest. The itouch is the hardest
Apple products are great. The Apple ecosystem, not so much. If you're into FOSS computing and FOSS media formats, you're not going to have a good time.
Is all your music in opus?
mine is in flac
I charged up my gen 2 shuffle very recently as well, but got the spicy pillow treatment instead. RIP to a real one!
I wonder if apple still provides battery replacement for it.
Eh, I’m over it. It was cool to see it again, but it really did not play nice with modern Macs.
CONGRATULATIONS YOU JUST WON A FREE IPOD NANO!
Offline media player
Works exactly as intended
I am John's complete lack of surprise
Jealous yours works. The battery on my 1st gen 2gb bloated and killed the screen. But apparently there was a recall on them years before, so I sent it in to apple and they sent me a 7th gen 16gb, which I still use. At the time it just felt like an upgrade, but now I kind of wish I just fixed the 1st gen
They're great devices.
Recently, my partner's 18yo nephew asked her if she had any iPods (she doesn't). I took a photo of the eight or so different models that I still have in storage and sent it to him just to gloat. I'm a monster.
"Hey nephew, look, I know you really wanted an iPod and I gloated about all my iPods and I realise that was childish and honestly I think it's great that you're interested in actually owning your media so, look here, I got you a Zune fuck you."
I miss my Zune. Best music player ever.
My wife's still works to this day. Amazing UI
Your wife do any squirting? Runs away
Recently resurrected a nano; it’s 20 years old. Works fine, but I haven’t done the music transfer yet.
My full size iPod though won’t boot. Just clicks and reboots constantly. I think the hard drive is toast.
Replace it with flash, bonus battery life too.
I still use my iPod mini plugged into a music centre of the same vintage. I don't update it though, its lovely having my 2004-5 music capsule.
The iPod is probably the single greatest thing Apple has ever made. I have an old iPod that still works great. The battery needs to be replaced. It's the best music player I have.
Creative MuVo TX FM gang
I just bought an Innioasia Y1, which is an iPod classic clone for $50.
Put an unofficial Rockbox port on it and installed a 512gb micro SD card. Ignoring the mediocre DAC and comparatively unresponsive click wheel it's pretty good. I finally have my entire music library with me again and look at my phone less often (both of which were goals of getting an mp3 player again).
I was big into mp3 players 15-20 years ago and used Rockbox on all of them so this is really nice especially at the price point.
PS: They are working on a Y2 that improves upon a lot of things. The Y1 was marketed as a kids device but is awesome with Rockbox on it and went viral the past few months.
I bought one of those used for my daughter a couple of years ago. It was quite the hassle to replace the apple firmware win with rockbox, but it's been working well since then. It's copy and paste mp3s now instead of using apples spying bloatware just to get a few files onto the device. The battery is not great but still lasts a couple of hours after 15(?) years.
I was thinking about doing this, getting a storage constrained, apple constrained, obsolete piece of hardware, to do what the phone I already carry does better.
Oh, wait!
Still don't understand why people don't just use your "phone"?
IDK why you feel that way. But I don't know you inside and out, like Google or Apple does.
Oh, they don't. And even if they did, carrying a second device wouldn't stop them.
When I go on runs I don't want to be carrying a phone.
I barely feel the weight of my phone when running but alternatively my watch (Garmin) has an offline music player.
But...you want to be carrying a music device? What's the difference?
Its lighter and the size of an ipod nano. And I don't care if it is dropped or breaks and there's nothing important on it.
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