Those of you who have been subscribed to this newsletter for a while will have been following my journey into old-fashioned music curation and listening. And by ‘old-fashioned’, I don’t mean I’ve taken to dropping the needle on my ancestors’ gramophone (although that would be cool) - I mean moving away from music streaming and back to my own collection.

This began with a rescue mission that saw me head into an old, dusty, and damp barn to retrieve a box-load of CDs and has evolved into an iPod modding project. Which has gone badly. Very badly.

I’m roughly 25% of the way through modding an iPod with an uprated battery and SD card storage, and I’ve hit a complete brick wall. No matter what people tell you, modding iPods isn’t as easy as you might think. It’s either that, or I’m just an idiot. Answers on a postcard, please. Particularly if you think you can help me (fix the iPod, that is - not become less of an idiot).

However. The abrupt halt in my iPod modding project has given me the chance to try out another music player, which also falls under the category “ah, I used to have one of those!”. Yup - the Sony Walkman.

All is revealed in this week’s Tech Diary episode.

Last week I gave a little taster of my unexpected relapse into the iPhone Air and now here are my full thoughts! Why have I done this? Am I enjoying it? And does this mean the iPhone Air is better than I gave it credit for?!

More AirPods Max 2 comparisons! And this one is probably the closest of all thanks to the latest refresh of the QC Ultra 2. Which is the best? You’ll have to find out!

I think you dear readers will find this quite interesting, and might give some insight into how hard smartphone manufacturers have to fight for your attention. By some distance, most of you don’t ever consider switching brands which might explain why noone takes many risks anymore in terms of design.

👉 Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra: Which Is Worth the Money? - Does anyone ever actually make this decision? →

🌆 Why Would Anyone Live in NYC? (CaseyNeistat) - Casey appears to be making videos regularly again. And this is a very good thing indeed.

🚙 Gordon Murray Automotive T.50 on road review plus what’s it like as a passenger? (Harry’s garage) - I love this man. And I love his strapped-together YouTube channel so much.

💥 The New DAW - Setting The Internet On Fire (CROW HILL) - I got very excited about this new music production suite… and then got less excited when I realised what it actually does. Or doesn’t do, to be exact.

Thanks for reading this week’s newsletter. Check your inboxes to see if you won the iPod giveaway!

~ Mark