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.
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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.
Honestly: "Journalist discovers Apple product still functions properly after 10 years" sounds like a headline to me.
Tbf, Apple recently released a security update to a severely OoS model.
I can only applaude that.
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
The regular iPods (non-classic) are the easiest IMO. No glue, no flipping over mainboards and no soldering. The iPod mini is actually the first modell I ever did a battery swap on and it would be just as easy, if it wasn't for the trim pieces that break way too easily.
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.
Rockbox runs on apple ipods. Best thing to do is always buying a device compatible with open source software if you plan to use it fir years on end.
Is all your music in opus?
mine is in flac
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.
Here's what I use. With the hard drive replaced with an SD card and a bigger battery it plays music for 75 hours straight. And with the FOSS RockBox firmware I can just drag my music on it.

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.
https://gnomad2.sourceforge.net/
Amarok or Rhythmbox will also work if you just setup the device as an mtp device.
Offline media player
Works exactly as intended
I am John's complete lack of surprise
CONGRATULATIONS YOU JUST WON A FREE IPOD NANO!
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.
Just gonna leave this here: https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-digital-m500
I charged up my gen 2 shuffle very recently as well, but got the spicy pillow treatment instead. RIP to a real one!
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.
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."
As an iPod owner, I wish I got a zune
In fairness I got a Zune and they were so much better than iPods. Not just in comparing specs, but the user interface: it felt like I was actually browsing a music library, while the iPod was like paging through a phone book. That extended to the desktop software as well.
The Zune is perfect.
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.
The clickwheel ribbon cable on my iPod mini broke a couple of weeks ago, so at the weekend a friend of me very kindly donated his own mini to me, so I'm back on my iPod bullshit.
iPod gang rise up.
Oh, and if you're using Linux, or don't want the hassle of installing iTunes, TunesReloaded seems to be a genuinely great tool.
I really should get around to refurbing the 5th and 7th gen Classics I have too. They're more versatile than the mini. But the mini is by far and away the easiest to flashmod.
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.
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
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.
Surprise surprise
I have a 3rd gen nano, it's used everyday. Battery is still fine. Now to charge up my Zune HD.