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.
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.
Not to brag, but this is my mp3 in 2026:

It plays wonderfully. But only works with Windows XP for transfers…
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Cries in Sansa Fuse that I dropped several times until it shattered, still worked, and then the pastic got all gooie
Amazing little devices. I stuck rockbox on mine, made it even better! I should dig that thing out and see if it still works.
I miss my Zune. Best music player ever.
My wife’s still works to this day. Amazing UI
Same
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.
Surprise surprise
Creative MuVo TX FM gang
Cowon D2 brigade
Rockbox supports modern codecs including Opus, so you can fit nearly 4 days of decent quality music on a 4GB iPod.
Weirdly I picked 2 up yesterday. 1st gen I think battery isn’t to bad, I’d almost forgotten the swish around the wheel.
Also go a gen5 but the battery was shagged! Plugged it in and it went pop.
If anyone like getting their hands dirty with tinkering, then you can get inspiration from Zac’s YouTube video about modernising an iPod.








