Sorry if this is not the right venue for this, but my 9 year old wants an MP3 player. We use Apple Music and have iPhones. We don’t want her to have a cell phone yet, but we are OK with giving her access to Apple Music, but it seems there are no options out there for an MP3 player that works with Apple Music. Some people suggest we give her an old iPhone and disable a bunch of stuff on it, but we don’t have old iPhones laying around nor do we want to give her access to things that might be used for Internet browsing or messaging. We just want her to have a music player. Is there an option we’re not considering?

  • MobiusOne_ISAF@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    Realistically, you’re gonna have to get her a phone of some sort. Almost nothing that supports Apple Music is gonna be magically unable to install other apps in one way or another.

    Sony’s Walkmans might be your best compromise since the iPod Touch is dead. It’s an Android, wifi only, device and you can set it up with Family Link to try to lock it down somewhat. Similarly, an iPhone SE is cheap, and you can lock a lot down with parental controls.

    Just be aware that kids are smart, and no lock that you can put on the device is truly foolproof. You do have to have some level of trust in them that they’re not gonna do anything stupid.

    Alternatively, go the old-fashioned route and just buy an actual MP3 player. The Walkman NWE394 is still available, and the iPod Classic is still available if you look on eBay. You’d obviously have to buy music again and work with her to get the songs she wants, but that would solve the problem.

    Unfortunately, MP3 players are effectively dead since they serve no purpose in a world of smartphones.

  • Ok-Assistance-6848@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    What you could do is buy an older iPhone (say iPhone 11 or 12…. 12 mini for example) unlocked (carrier and iCloud) and give it to her. Since iOS 13, you don’t need a cellular plan to setup iPhone now. It’ll behave exactly like iPod Touches all those years ago.

    That way, if the iPhone is still receiving updates and she’s old enough to have a cellular plan, just purchase a cheap MVNO plan and pop it in.

    Didn’t read the entire thing…