Just a week ago, I bemoaned the lack of any good iPod click wheel explainers, and today the news broke about Apple Music hiding a functioning iPod on their 404 page.

I am usually not a fan of easter eggs – most of them are poorly made – but this might be the best iPod recreation I’ve seen, and it’s an interesting thing to study:

• I think it generally covers all the modes etc.
• (with small exceptions) the typography looks accurate,
• it has the little “haptic” beeps,
• it has proper acceleration and the scrollbar,
• it has a little music library with various playlists,
• I have only noticed a few small bugs.

Most importantly, it works well on mobile, too – well, some of the page chrome and ads feel a bit the way, but it’s not a big deal (and you can hide them using the Hide Distracting Items feature in Safari) – so you can pretend you’re holding an iPod in your hand. Worth spending a bit of time with it, especially if you have never used an iPod in your life:

Kudos to whomever put this together. This is how you do easter eggs.

I tagged this as emulation, even though this is a grounds-up recreation in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.