Apple Music is still celebrating the iPod, although only if you know exactly where to look. Here's where to find it.
On October 23, 2026, the iPhone Duo shipped, but 25 years earlier, to the day, Steve Jobs announced the iPod. It's been a remarkable road from one device to the other, but even as the spotlight is on the iPhone Duo, Apple has launched an almost fully working virtual iPod.
"Launched" is possibly not the right word, as you have to either know where to look, or manage to get Apple Music to return an error message. That's where this iPod is, it is hidden on the Apple Music online site.
So not the app, but the online version. It's the one for Apple Music subscribers who are stuck on PCs at work.
To go have a look on an iPhone or iPad, long-press on this address, https://music.apple.com/404 and choose Open. Be sure not to choose Open in Music, as that simply takes you to the Apple Music app.
You can press and hold on that URL to see a preview. That's also possible on macOS, but to get the full-size iPod on a Mac, right-click on the link and choose Open.
Maybe Apple has always had a virtual iPod that it made for Steve Jobs (right) - image credit: Apple.
What you now get is a typical web 404 page, except alongside the usual "page not found" message, it says "Give this a spin instead." The text, written in Apple's old favorite font Garamond, is next to an image of an iPod.
It's gorgeous. Plus in every way bar one, it even works like an old iPod.
So you have a click wheel and you can scroll through settings or music. And such a lot of music, probably getting on for 1,000 tracks.
You can scroll to choose any of them, and as you scroll, you hear the once-famous, now forgotten, but so very welcome click. The iPod clicks as you scroll, and then you can press on its center button to select and play a track.
It is so thoroughly lifelike that if you select a song, it will appear to play it. So you get a progress bar through the song.
The only thing AppleInsider couldn't make it do was have that track be audible. Doubtlessly every song is in Apple Music, but perhaps the rights don't include letting it be played where you don't have to be a subscriber.
It's not as if many people are going to stumble across it, though. This is an error page and realistically you're only ever going to find it if someone tells you.
So thank you Edward Munn, whose blog reported it first.
To be fair, neither he nor we can be certain that this error page was added specifically for this 25th anniversary of the iPod. Maybe it's been this way for a long time, but just in case and also just in case it goes away, do be sure to try it out now.
Funny. When Apple killed off the last iPod, it did so with a press release that rankled because it was trying to make it sound like a good thing. "The music lives on," it said.
But 25 years after the launch of the iPod and four years since it died, maybe Apple had a point.
