Apple Music has a hidden iPod easter egg on its web 404 page, and it works. Land on a broken Apple Music link in a browser and an original-style iPod sits next to the Page Not Found message, with a menu, playlists and a Now Playing screen you can control with the mouse.
Kian posted a demo on X on October 23, which is 25 years to the day since Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPod. You can go to any address on the Apple Music website that does not exist, such as https://music.apple.com/us/404. Under the iPod, the page reads “Give this a spin instead,” with links back to Home, New and Search.
A made-up album address on the US storefront brings up the same iPod, so it is not limited to the link in his post.
The Apple Music iPod easter egg is fully clickable
The iPod follows the 2001 layout, with Menu at the top, previous and next on the sides, play and pause at the bottom and a center button in the middle. The screen uses a chunky pixel font on a gray LCD-style display. The main menu lists Playlists, Artists, Songs and Settings.
The center button selects the highlighted item and the Menu button steps back one screen. Dragging a mouse around the wheel scrolls through lists, and on the Now Playing screen the same motion changes the volume.
Pick a song and the Now Playing screen shows the track number, title, artist and album. A progress bar with elapsed and remaining time counts in real time. Take California by Propellerheads loaded as track 1 of 22 with a running time of 1:30.
The playlists look back to 2001
The Playlists menu opens with a list whose name is cut off on the small screen as “Songs From iP…”. It is followed by Alternative Hits: 2001, Country Hits: 2001, Pop Hits: 2001 and Rock Hits: 2001, plus a Hip-Hop and R&B list.
The first playlist includes Take California, Feel Good Inc, Technologic, Jerk It Out and Love Train. Three presses of the center button take you from the main menu to a playing song.
The page lands on the iPod’s 25th anniversary
Jobs unveiled the first iPod on October 23, 2001, as a 5GB device with a monochrome LCD, a mechanical scroll wheel and a $399 price tag. Apple sold it with the line “1,000 songs in your pocket,” and it required a Mac running iTunes.
In May 2022, Apple discontinued the iPod touch, ending the iPod line after more than two decades. It is not clear when the 404 page went live.
The first iPod also hid a trick of its own. Holding the center button on its About screen launched a Breakout clone, a nod to the Atari arcade game that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked on in 1975 and 1976.
