Anyone still able to use iPods? (Classics, Shuffles, Nanos, etc)

Factual Questions
1

I don’t believe in throwing away good technology that still works . . . Case in point, I have a 2005-era iPod Shuffle that still plays music, fitting into my pocket perfectly on my runs. I also have a 2006 iPod Classic, with 6000+ songs on there, USB’d into the truck console, for a li’l Led zeppelin on the morning commute. Both worked fine, and I had been updating playlists (albeit w/some hardware settings ‘tweaks’ for awhile until around last November.

Since then, the Apple iPods are no longer recognized by iTunes, and no matter how many times I follow instructions from Apple (sample), follow homespun advice (sample), remove Bonjour, change USB or Device settings, download or install iTunes, etc. . . something has happened that I can no longer get these devices to work in my Win 10 enviironment. So:

  1. Do you have an iPod device that still works?
  2. Are you able to update/change playlists on it it?
  3. How do you do it?
  4. If not, have you used third party software to keep it alive and functional?

Apple makes good stuff–for some of this hardware to last twenty-plus years to all of a sudden become useless seems a serious waste . . .

Running in the morning to the same playlist for the past 12 months is annoying. “I can only listen to the same AC/DC track so many times!” is a phrase that should not be in my lexicon.

Tripler
Please help me spice up my cardio with my good, stalwart tech.

2

I use one in my car and occasionally if running.

3

I’ve been wrenching on bikes in the garage lately. My iPod (Gen 3) Nano sits in one of these and sounds awesome:

I’ve changed nothing on the songlist since the iPod was basically new, and I like it that way :wink:

4

I had a really early iPod which finally just crapped out some years ago. I still have my 2010 iPad. It still works, but I have no use for it. I used to use it for the GPS capability, but my phone does all that, so it’s been sitting on a shelf, battery dead, for a few years now. I’m not sure what to do with it.

5

Take it to Best Buy for their free electronics recycling. It can no longer download software updates that enable it to do anything. I have one of those paperweighs myself, in my case a very early iPad.

6

By “still works” I guess you mean more than is able to play the sound files that are already on it. You also mean is able to load new files (and delete existing files). Just to be clear.

I think my old iPod is still able to play sound files that are already on it. I haven’t been interested in changing any of those since I loaded it with the huge number of songs that I had had on CD and had since extracted into computer files. I was just considering moving it into my workshop so I could listen to that music down there. As for the other part, I’ll take your word for it.

I also haven’t tried playing the same files that are still on my hard drive. I wonder if that still works.

7

So it has no value as an antique, I’m guessing. 2010 was the first year of issue for the iPad.

8

I have a couple of iPod classics that still work. The main one is used regularly with a couple of players, one of which I take outdoors to blast music when working in the garden. The players were obtained in the past year or so from eBay sellers after my old one stopped working - apparently no new players accepting iPods are being made anymore. Another recent thread mentioned that used, functional players are still sold at secondhand outlets like Goodwill.

I haven’t tried to add to the iPods on my Mac using the iTunes library in a long time, so don’t know if the system is still functional.