Had Apple not axed the iPod Classic almost 12 years ago to the day, I imagine its 2026 iteration would look a lot like the New Matter Sudo.

Even if the website doesn’t mention iPod once, it is without a shadow of a doubt the iPod Classic’s spiritual successor, only it’s been updated with a USB-C port, touchscreen, 64 GB of internal solid state storage, microSD card support up to 1 TB, and Bluetooth support for wireless earbuds and headphones. Don’t worry your old-school heart; there’s also a 3.5mm headphone jack for wired ‘buds, and the all-important tactile scroll wheel.

an apple that fell from an alternate universe

Look, I’ve got no hands-on experience with New Matter. It was just unveiled, and I can’t vouch one way or the other when it comes to this yet-unreleased device, but I can say that it’s piqued my interest. I ramble often about how the iPod Classic’s touch wheel was the best control surface for a handheld music player, phones included, that ever existed. You don’t actually spin the wheel. It doesn’t move. It just registers when you place a finger on it and swirl it around clockwise or counterclockwise, which scrolls up or down on the screen.

I bought mine as a high school senior, about a week before Apple released the version with a color screen. Womp womp. But that scroll wheel was a delight to use. I could spin my finger around wildly to scroll way down or up in my list of songs and still somehow land very close to my target track. It was that intuitive and accurate, an absolute joy to use that touchscreens to this day can’t match.

The Sudo has a version of that tactile wheel, and it also adds something the iPod didn’t get until it ditched its control wheel and became the iPod Touch: a 2.73″ color touchscreen. Its 320 by 320 resolution shows album art, song navigation, and playlist organization.

I wish New Matter went into more detail than just saying that it had streaming support, but that’s all we’ve got for now, along with the expected fact that it works to play downloaded music offline. Battery life lands at about 20 hours, according to New Matter. Not bad at all. And blessedly it has a USB-C port so that you can use a common charging cable and not some weird, hard-to-find alternative.

Swapping out the tiny hard drive of the original iPod Classic for a 64 GB internal solid state drive makes the Sudo about 2 mm thinner. That 64 GB is enough for packing the Sudo full of enough songs for a cross-country flight, but hoarders will want more room for more songs. There’s a microSD card slot that’ll accept a card up to 1 TB, which is a truly huge volume of storage for a portable music player.

New Matter’s website plays a little fast and loose with marketing good taste. There’s a big, plump “$50” that turns out to just be a refundable deposit that secures you one of the initial batch that begins shipping in Q4 2027, with “expected price” of $249 tucked away beneath it and to the side in smaller font. In even smaller front below that, it says “+taxes/shipping.”

if you want an ipod classic now

Look at you, being all impatient and whatnot. It’s ok. You’ve got good taste. As long as you don’t mind buying used, there are still plenty of iPod Classics of various vintages out there on major platforms. Here are some refurbished ones, which are guaranteed to work. That’s more than I can say for the eBay mystery machines dug out of someone’s attic and sold as-is.

This refurbished iPod Classic 80 GB from Walmart for $200 or Amazon for $230. Most people will be able to pack plenty of songs onto the 80 GB drive, and the screen isn’t a touchscreen, but it is a touchscreen. Not digging the 80 GB version? There are a bunch of refurbished iPod Classics on Walmart.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinkin’. No wheel. The iPod Touch was superceded by the iPhone for obvious reasons. It was a touchscreen music player that didn’t do anything the iPhone couldn’t do. But in the days when more people want to unplug and detach, perhaps even use a dumbphone without giving up their music, it makes sense.

Way smaller than a regular-sized iPod, the iPod Nano was a darling for a people who wanted a soundtrack while running or working out in the gym without the bulk of a full-sized iPod bouncing around in their pockets. The touchscreen is smaller and the internal storage is only 16 GB, though, so keep in mind that you may not be putting your entire music collection on it at once.