What's the Best iPod Ever? Every Model, Bracketed and Ranked
Before Apple was the iPhone company, it was the iPod company. Apple’s portable music player dominated its market for most of its heyday between 2001-2010. While the last “classic” iPod was released in 2007, the name continued with the iPod touch line, phone-less iPhones that Apple is now finally discontinuing after more than 20 years.
Between 2001 and 2019, Apple and its partners released around 30 distinct iPod models, depending on what you call a “distinct iPod model.” (It’s more if you treat every U2-branded model as a distinct model or split the two revisions of the Classic, for instance.) That’s a lot of iPods! It’s enough for a March Madness-style (or, if you prefer, Squid Game marbles episode-style) battle royale.
In our family, we had six iPods: a third-gen, a fifth-gen, a second-gen Mini, a first-gen Nano, and second and fourth-gen Shuffles. So I know some of what I’m talking about here. Without further ado, let’s get to ranking 32 Apple iPod models. Be sure to stick around for the video at the end, where we reminisce about all things iPod.
In this first phase of the bracket, I matched up a lot of similar pairs and had a few matchups between very different models.
The worst iPod in history, in my view, happened when HP skinned over iPods and tried to sell them as its own products. Although the fourth-gen iPod was a decent iPod, buying the HP model put you out of Apple’s support system and forced you to try to get support for an Apple product from HP, which wasn’t a great idea.
Apple did a lot of weird, co-branded iPods between 2001-2004. You could get one with Beck’s or Madonna’s signature on the back, for instance. I’m calling out two on this list - the Harry Potter one and the U2 one (which had a great color
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