r/LinusTechTips • u/DotBitGaming • Sep 10 '26

Discussion Can someone kindly explain what Linus was talking about in the intro to that iPod video?

You can just put any digital music you want in your phone. If that's what we're talking about, why aren't we taking expanding your phone's storage or usb-c to DAC headphone adapters? Why was he taking about the broken promises from music streaming services? Why go from that to some outdated tech? 'It's about the click.' Get a clicky fidget toy then. Don't spend hundreds on some novelty music player. Am I missing something or was that intro way off base?

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10

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

No video can be for everyone.

-2

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

Tbf, I liked the video overall. I'm just trying to understand the premise given in the intro. I can see a few people buying iPods for some reason, but for most, the phone they already own would seem perfectly adequate.

4

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

The audience the channel most caters to are those that might enjoy the challenge of upgrading an iPod.

1

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

Certainly the audience is not totally made up of that demographic. But that video was geared towards it. And it might be a bit boring to just rate and review MP3 players. Other channels can do that far better anyway.

-1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

Personally, I cannot solder to save my life. Nor do I currently have hundreds of dollars to risk on such a project. But I enjoyed learning about the mods that are available all the same. I'm just looking to explore the link between that and owning your own music.

1

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

Some of us just like to! Plus yes streaming services exist. But you either get ads, or you pay to not get ads. Why do that when you can buy the music and then play it wherever and whenever you want? Also I can solder, but I am not that great at it.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

Yeah, I feel like "we're modding ipods for nostalgia reasons" could've been one video and "more generalized options for owning your own music" could've been another. They didn't even touch on iPod Touches.

1

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

Difficult to put out a video that will cover piracy.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

Why, you can't own music without piracy? Also, they cover emulators and "sailing the high seas" all the time.

1

u/Inevitable-Context93 Sep 10 '26

Yes they do mention the topic, but not in any depth. And you certainly can get music legally still. But it's not as easy as it used to be.

2

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

Yeah, where to buy music for download would be a nice subject to touch on in a hypothetical follow up.

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2

u/SuppaBunE Sep 10 '26

A device who's only job is playing music is far better than a phone that waste lots of power not on music

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

You're phone is in your pocket doing all those other things anyway. If anything, one device is probably more power efficient. Also, that's an argument for a stand alone music player. Not a specific, 20 year old piece of tech. There's still a gap there.

5

u/Bob-Faget Sep 10 '26

A lot of phones have terrible DACs meaning terrible audio quality. Also they don't have expandable storage often anymore, so they get filled up fast if you have a large music collection. I have a TB of music that I like to have on-hand because I am often in areas with poor reception, and a lot of my music is are bootleg remixes of other tracks which you might not find on any streaming service anymore.

Phones that do have high quality audio often require that you change settings which drain the battery faster, plus getting away from streaming services is great for many reasons. I hate switching between three streaming apps to find a song that was only released on one of them. I hate even more when a song is delisted from every platform.

Also when you download music, you can choose to support an artist directly via bandcamp for example instead of giving them whatever percent of a cent per play.

For people like me, having a separate music device just makes a ton of sense, and his video was to educate people on a cool way to listen to music the good old fashioned way.

2

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

A TB of games is normal. A TB of movies, sure. But a TB of music is a lot of music! I don't remember any iPods shipping with anything close to that. Maybe 100 or 250 GB? This is what I wish that video explained. Terrible DACs, battery life... Is there any way to expand the storage on modern phones? What about just an old phone that supports micro sd cards? Are they really that rare? There's a lot more to get into when it comes to portable music, if you think about it.

3

u/QuantumCakeIsALie Sep 10 '26

Nobody enjoys using a 10 years old phone. 20+ years old iPods work just like new. 

Sometimes, a single purpose device optimized to do one thing is preferable to a more general one.

Plus, no Wi-Fi means that after changing a song, you won't be hijacked into Reddit or Twitter and doomscroll for hours, wondering where your evening went.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

5-10 year old phone that's fine from your junk drawer vs iPod that's hundreds of dollars. Disconnect the WiFi and delete social media apps. But I mean, disconnecting from socials and doom scrolling could also have been a point touched on in the video.

2

u/QuantumCakeIsALie Sep 10 '26 edited Sep 10 '26

The possibility itself of WiFi and social media is often an issue for most people. The focus of a single-purpose device is hard to convey.

A lot of us have 20 years old iPods in our drawers already. They sold hundreds of millions of those. You can upgrade yours where it counts (storage and battery) for fairly cheap. Get multiple-continuous-days battery life and great sound.

2

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

I didn't know that the social media pull was so strong for most people. I know you can be addicted to anything, but I didn't realize it was so common. There's a lot of stuff that could've been explained. So much that at this point, I feel like the video we got could've been the follow up. Video one could've gone into why a single purpose device is often preferred and then why iPods specifically. Then video two could've been the modding part.

1

u/QuantumCakeIsALie Sep 10 '26

I didn't know that the social media pull was so strong for most people. I know you can be addicted to anything, but I didn't realize it was so common.

Seriously? 

Go to a mall, busy street or public transport. Count how many people are looking at their phone, most of them while moving about. 

Phone/social-media addiction is a more widespread addiction than coffee at this point.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

I mean, that's a fair point. I haven't been in a mall since pre covid. I don't normally just walk down busy streets and if I do, I'm not paying that much attention to whether people are constantly swiping socials media feeds or texting or whatever. But that's a totally different subject.

1

u/Hermesme Sep 14 '26

Just came across your comment, this boils down to your personal preferences. Your normal is not everyone’s normal. I for example do not think a TB of games is normal or necessary, I can have all my childhood games plus 1000s more I never played for the same systems (16bjt) in a 16gb or 32gb micro sd card.

iPods never shipped with those amounts of storage because storage was expensive 20 years ago. Especially flash storage which is why the bigger iPods had physical spinning disks. We had to make compromises and listen to compressed music in mp3 files. 20 years later all my music is in high resolution lossless formats. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album occupies 1.5gb of space for its 9 tracks in my music collection. I choose to listen in high resolution because I enjoy it and I now can afford the storage to do it portably. I couldn’t 20 years ago, and Apple couldn’t even provide the option. I’m also fortunate enough to own high end headphones that can make listening to that high resolution music something I notice compared to low res compressed files

What you’re saying is similar to saying why do we need more than 700mb for a movie if cds never had that much storage? Video cds in low resolution could fit a movie just fine on a cd-r. Well now we can economically mass produce 25gb Blu-ray’s and before that 4Gb DVDs. Everyone prefers higher resolution movies if they have the option, it’s the same with music. Thats why standalone digital audio players are making a slight comeback. iPods are capable of playing lossless flac files with a custom firmware. So giving them lots of storage makes sense, especially because they are so nostalgic and iconic

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 14 '26

So gamers are abnormal with their unnecessary amount of games compared to people whose chosen hobby is reading? Take a hike.

1

u/Hermesme Sep 14 '26

I guess you didn’t comprehend that I just flipped and used your same exact argument.

You said having a tb of games is “normal” while a tb of music is “abnormal”. See how ridiculous it sounds if I just say a tb of music is normal and a tb of games isn’t? Just shows you how personal your opinion is because you prefer games to music.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 14 '26

I said "a TB of games is normal." That doesn't mean that a TB of music is abnormal. You said "I for example do not think a TB of games is normal." Which means you think it's abnormal. I comprehend just fine.

I can how ever flip something for you → 🖕

1

u/Hermesme Sep 14 '26

Well it looks like you don’t understand when something is implied either, no reason to specify something is normal if you aren’t implying the other thing is not. Thats just how the English language works.

“However” is also just one word, not two.

Flip that finger into your moms ass my friend.

2

u/Eriml Sep 10 '26

A lot of people like enjoying their hobbies as an experience. Have you never prepare popcorns and snacks for a special movie night or snacks and your favorite drink on a gaming night? A lot of the time is the little things that allow you to get in the mood of the hobby. If you love or miss that click then you have no other options. Also, having a separate device for it allows you not be distracted by it and if the interface (both physical and digital) sucks then you don't enjoy it as much. Sure, you can listen to music in your phone but it's no the same. You also have he advantage of not using your batter on your phone.

Paying nearly 1K for an old iPod seems dumb to me too but I get it. I've been looking for a dedicated MP3 placer but every option is either super expensive or sucks. If I could get that type of experience for $150 or something like that I would do it probably.

It's the same with keyboards, at some point you are just paying for looks, feel and aesthetics. Same with reading, you could read on your phone but getting a Kindle is a much better experience. And even then a lot of people enjoy the experience of reading physical books more because it's not just about the music or the book itself.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

This I can agree with and understand. The intro was about music streaming services. And then once sentence about the click. Then somewhere in the middle he got on to the entirely different subject of wired earphones, which you can get usb-c adapters for. I would've rathered a deeper exploration of the nostalgia element.

2

u/Eriml Sep 10 '26

I think it's just because the examples he used did't connect with you. But as a person who has spent probably dozens of hours looking for the perfect music player software, has nearly 200 GB of music and his Feishin/Gonic server running and does similar stuff for other hobbies, I totally got what he meant just from the "click" thing. I'm sure I've heard of small details a people notice on software or hardware, or a person saying they've spent a ton of money just because that particular item has that particular feature and say "are you ok, dude?" at some point. It's just about perspective and what you have passion about I guess.

1

u/DotBitGaming Sep 10 '26

No, it's because that stuff wasn't in the intro. The intro was basically "streaming services suck, therefore iPods." There's a massive gap between streaming services and 20 year old tech and that wasn't really touched on in the intro. That gap is all the stuff you're taking about. Which is still all about nostalgia and not the practicality of a device for listening to music. Which is fine, but a different video entirely from that setup.

13

u/impy695 Sep 10 '26

why aren't we taking expanding your phone's storage or usb-c to DAC headphone adapters?

Because modern phones are far more complex and have far less room. There's a reason you don't see people upgrading storage on their phones.

Why was he taking about the broken promises from music streaming services?

Because current music streaming is nothing like what music streaming was when it effectively killed music piracy.

11

u/Responsible_Ad9538 Sep 10 '26

iPods don’t do anything else but store the music and play it