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Apple stopped selling the iPod roughly four years ago, but the device is seeing a quiet comeback in the secondhand market as people look for alternatives to smartphone-based listening. Reporting on “One Tech Tip” describes surging demand for used iPods, with interest coming not only from retro design but also from a desire for focused listening without algorithm-driven playlists.
Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, said the trend is linked to a desire to “mitigate the ease with which they can be distracted by smartphones,” including concerns tied to “mental health and well-being.” Wood also said that having a dedicated music device such as an iPod can help people “reduce your dependence on a smartphone” and avoid getting drawn into other activities—such as “doomscrolling through social media feeds”—when they only want to listen to music.
The report says the renewed demand has shown up on major marketplaces and refurbishers, including eBay. Wood said that “based on my discussions with people in the market, there has definitely been renewed interest in refurbished iPods.” At the same time, the tipster warned that some listings can be misleading: the article describes eBay as also hosting thousands of listings for “new iPods,” which it says come from China-based sellers, and it cites customer feedback complaints that buyers received used or refurbished devices in counterfeit packaging.
Other platforms have also offered many listings for used and refurbished iPods, including Facebook Marketplace, peer-to-peer reselling site Mercari and refurbished electronics platform Back Market. Back Market, which the report says operates in the U.S., Japan and more than a dozen European countries, said iPod sales last year jumped 48% from 2024.
The “One Tech Tip” guide also points to businesses dedicated to selling refurbished iPods and notes that iPods may still be found among family members’ electronics. It provides an example of a 16-year-old finding a grandmother’s silver iPod Nano “complete with original charging cable and white earphones” during a visit.
For readers trying to join the revival, the guide distinguishes between iPod models and what they need to function. It says there is not one single iPod style: it describes the original iPod released in 2001 with a scroll wheel, the sixth generation later branded the Classic, and smaller variants including the Mini and Nano. It also describes the Shuffle as having no screen and the Touch as running iOS with a glass touchscreen that supported mobile apps—“basically an iPhone without the phone.”
Reviving an older iPod can require basic hardware fixes, the report says. It advises that batteries may be dead and owners may need a charging cable; it notes that later iPod Touch generations used Apple’s Lightning cable, while other models require a 30-pin charging cable with a distinctive wide, flat plug, and that replacements are available from aftermarket manufacturers. If charging does not revive the device, the report says the battery might need replacing or other components such as an earphone jack or the display could be damaged.
The guide also advises on repairs and limits from Apple itself. It says Apple still repairs iPods, but only for the two final iPod Touch generations. It recommends sending devices to a repair service or fixing them independently, pointing readers to iFixit for step-by-step repair guides and noting that users would need to source spare parts themselves.
On software, the report warns iPod Touch owners about limitations. It says the most recent version of Apple’s operating system that will work on the seventh-generation iPod Touch—the last version ever sold—is iOS 15, while earlier models are limited to older versions. It says this issue does not apply to other iPod variants because they do not run iOS.
To add music, the report explains that owners typically need a computer to manage and sync content, using either Apple’s iTunes or other Apple software depending on the computer’s operating system. It says Windows users can use iTunes, and it describes steps for dragging digital music files into iTunes and dropping them into an iPod’s music library, as well as using “Add to Device” for music previously purchased in iTunes. For Mac users, it notes that Apple discontinued iTunes for macOS in 2019 and says Mac users instead use Apple Music to add and manage files.
The guide also describes what to expect for different iPod types when it comes to streaming. It says Apple Music subscribers “should be able to stream music on later generations of the iPod Touch,” but for other iPods it says users will be able to add and listen to music files “ripped from a CD” or purchased from a digital music platform.
Finally, the tipster highlights that some owners tinker with their devices. It says iPods are “pretty basic” because they are limited by onboard firmware, but it adds that iPod appeal includes easy hobbyist tinkering, attributing that point to Wood. The report describes a popular modification as replacing iPod firmware with open-source software such as RockBox, which it says can let users add features and more control than Apple provided at the time, including support for high-resolution lossless music files, options for music management without iTunes, and the ability to track listening to upload playlists to a platform such as Last.fm, according to Wood.