Apple has hidden a fully interactive iPod on the Apple Music website, bringing the iconic music player back to life on the exact day it celebrates its 25th anniversary.
The surprise Easter egg appears when users land on a page that does not exist on the Apple Music website. Instead of a conventional error message, Apple presents a virtual iPod complete with its familiar monochrome interface and click wheel.
The recreation is not just an animation. The controls can actually be used to move through menus, select music and play tracks, effectively turning Apple Music’s error page into a working browser-based version of one of the most important products in Apple’s history. The effect can be tried by opening a non-existent page on the Apple Music website.
The timing is unlikely to be accidental. Steve Jobs unveiled the original iPod on October 23, 2001, promising “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Apple later credited iPod with changing how music was discovered, listened to and shared before retiring the iPod product line in 2022.
Apple’s new Easter egg arrives exactly 25 years after that first unveiling and feels like one of the company’s most playful tributes yet.
It also follows a year in which Apple has repeatedly looked back at its history. The company marked its 50th anniversary in April with a special animated homepage tribute featuring the iPod, while Apple has also opened up parts of its historic prototype archive and revisited products that helped shape the company.
The iPod remains central to that story. It helped push Apple beyond the Mac, transformed the portable music market and laid important groundwork for the iPhone era that followed. Earlier this month, The Apple Post looked back at the Apple products Steve Jobs introduced that changed technology, with the iPod among the most significant.
Apple has not said how long the interactive iPod will remain available, so anyone wanting a dose of early-2000s Apple nostalgia may want to try it while it lasts.
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