- Hey guys, this is Austin, and in front of me
is something just a little bit unusual.
These are iPods.
And no, not some relic from the mid-2000s.
These are iPods that you can go out and buy today.
But the question is, why?
To start with we have the iPod Touch,
and this is probably going to be the most familiar.
It is very much based on the iPhone,
just with less phone stuff.
But when we get to the iPod Nano,
things get a little bit more strange.
This guy came out in 2012, and really hasn't
been updated since.
So on the surface it looks like a tiny iPod Touch,
and in fact it does run some sort of
Frankenstein version of iOS.
But there's a lot stripped out of it.
However, nothing is more stripped down
than the iPod Shuffle.
The Shuffle hasn't been updated since 2010,
so we're still rocking a whopping four gigabytes of,
no, it's two.
It's two gigabytes, what?
I thought this was four.
This just seems like such a relic of a different time.
To be fair, at $50, the Shuffle is about
one of the cheapest Apple products that you can buy,
but it just seems so weird that this is still
on sale in 2017.
Inside we get the actual Shuffle itself, and you know what?
I don't think I've ever actually tried one of these.
I know I used to have the second gen, which was,
still the square guy, but it was a little bit bigger.
There we go.
See how cool I am?
I've two gigabytes of music on my shirt right now.
Start here.
Oh boy.
I'm sure these are gonna be some very useful instructions
on how to use my iPod Shuffle.
Download and install the latest version of iTunes.
Oh joy.
Whoa, what a minute, wait a minute.
Yo, these are the original, they didn't even have a name,
the original iPod headphones.
Wait, wait, wait.
It even has that iPod smell.
Yo, this is bringing me back right now.
That's crazy though, it's so old that they literally
haven't even updated it with EarPods,
which have been out for like, five years now.
(Austin laughs)
It's so weird that this is being sold today.
I mean, this is not the same Apple who makes the MacBook Pro
with no ports, and the iPhone with no headphone jack.
I mean, that's all they put on this.
They didn't even put anything else,
it's literally just a headphone jack.
Alright, alright, let's give it a fair shot,
let's give it a fair shot.
So, to connect it to the new MacBook I have to do this.
Into the MacBook because I don't even know,
I don't even know what I'm doing with my life right now.
Alright, so now comes the fun part of trying to remember
how to set up an iPod and iTunes, whoa hello.
Man this is, I haven't used iTunes in so long,
I've been using Spotify for all of my music.
I actually need to see what iTunes music I still have.
Oh no, there's Nickelback.
There's Seal.
Why is there Seal?
Yeah, we can, we can cut this part out, right?
They don't need to know I ever listened to Nickelback.
(music playing)
Wow this sounds terrible.
(Austin laughs)
No, no, no, no, okay.
So these might have been okay back in the iPod days,
these sound awful.
I forgot how bad these sound.
I feel like they were fine back in the day,
but even like new EarPods sound a lot better.
One of the real advantages of the Shuffle,
and I feel like the only reason why I could think
of someone actually buying it today, is the fact that,
especially if you're like working out or something.
Yeah, I get it, it's kinda cool, they've been making it
forever, but like, I really can't think of any reason why
you should buy one of these in 2017.
Moving all the way up to 2012, we have the iPod Nano.
Now, I gotta say the Nano has a little bit
of a sweet spot in my heart.
This is my very first iPod.
I remember back in the day it was so cool.
But now, I'm not so sure.
I will give them one thing, this thing is really tiny.
And unlike the Shuffle, which is tiny for not particularly
a great reason, this actually is sort of a full iPod.
I mean you got a touch screen, you got a weird home button,
there's a Lightning port, which is unbelievably modern
and not from 2010.
Yup, download iTunes, of course.
So, while this does have Bluetooth, it does not have Wi-Fi,
so you're still not going to be able to have any sort
of streaming music, or well, anything that doesn't feel like
it's not five years old.
Although we do have, that is actually not five years old,
our EarPods.
Are EarPods five years old?
This is more like it.
So while EarPods might not be the greatest-sounding
headphones in the world, honestly I actually don't mind
them, especially for when I'm working out and want something
that's a little bit smaller.
All this just brings me back so much.
Back when we actually had to plug in via USB cables,
and rip CDs.
And we are in.
This is straight up like old school iOS.
So we've got blue icons, we can swipe back.
We've actually got radio.
I mean, I'm not so sure how often the radio's gonna be
super helpful, but since this is the only form
of streaming music to your iPod, it actually works out
pretty well.
It's just a little crunchy.
The Nano is a really hard one for me to justify.
I mean, sure it's cool, it's this small,
and having the touch screen is nice, but man,
you've gotta be a very specific kind of person
who wants to spend $150 on something like this,
when you can get something like an iPhone or an iPod
for just a little bit more.
With the iPod Touch, we at least have something
that was made in 2015, and it actually has reasonable specs.
So we got the same A8 processor from the iPhone 6,
and as far as the actual design goes,
this is not that far off from modern iPhones.
You know, this design is actually still really nice.
So not only am I a big fan of that blue color,
but this is nice and thin and (gasp) shock, amazement,
it has a headphone jack.
But, once you actually fire this thing up, you should find
that it's still running a fully-updated version of iOS.
The best part about the iPod is that it runs the full
App Store, which means that pretty much any apps
that will run on the iPhone will run here.
Most importantly for me, as an iPod, I can use Spotify,
Apple Music, whatever I want.
(music playing)
Okay, so, while this does have a speaker the other
iPods lack, it's not exactly great.
But that's where the EarPods come in.
That sounds a lot better.
Still not a huge fan of the EarPods, but the nice thing
about the iPod Touch is that it actually has a reasonable
amp and DAC inside.
Nothing crazy, but if you wanna listen with some proper
headphones, so much better.
Not only is it nice to have Spotify on the iPod Touch,
but even if you're away from Wi-Fi, you can still
download the files locally.
The iPod Touch is a little bit of a weird one,
because on one hand it makes a lot more sense
than any of these other iPods, but on the other,
if you have a smartphone, there really is not a lot
of point to getting the iPod Touch.
And that's kind of the biggest issue, is you can actually
pick up and iPhone 5s off-contract for about the same money.
So, should you buy an iPod in 2017?
No, no, maybe?
I feel like, while the iPod Touch does make some sense
in the lineup, it is really crazy that Apple still sells
this entire range of iPods.
But what do you guys think?
When was the last time you used an iPod?
Let me know in the comments below,
and I will catch you in the next one.