The Apple Watch doesn’t get much credit or attention from modding geeks. Over the years, it has been turned into a necklace, sleeve armband, and a hiding place for AirPods. Then there are kits that turn it into an unholy luxury watch wannabe in all sorts of flavors — Hublot, Rolex, you name it.
The latest hardware adventure is about turning the Apple Watch into a tiny iPod. And fittingly, the company behind it calls it TinyPod. After all, what better strategy to success than taking a hot product, dialing back to the good ol’ tech nostalgia, and turning it into a functional hybrid?
That’s the whole premise here. And I am totally sold on it. Your Apple Watch becomes an iPod Classic — one that runs watchOS and does a lot more than the music player could ever do.
The best part is that the wheel works. In fact, it seems a lot more convenient to interact with than fidgeting with the tiny crown on an Apple Watch. I have very small hands, and I still rage at it because my wrist gets in the way and makes the crown difficult to use.
This whole project is so Apple that you’d think it was some official long-lost side project. The website’s design, clean animations, font selection, blue-white-gray theme, and rounded buttons — this is as Apple as it gets without Apple. Come on, guys!
It looks really polished and not like one of those rough ideas that probably materialized on a cheap 3D printer in a garage. The TinyPod can handle calls, messages, emails, news, weather, and, of course, music. You know, all the stuff you can do on the Apple Watch.
“Through careful mechanized components inside, TinyPod’s wheel makes direct rotation contact with your Apple Watch crown, letting it naturally scroll anything across the OS,” says the company. The folks behind it are even hawking the idea of “your phone away from a phone.”
Of course, that’s assuming you spend more on the cellular version of the smartwatch. The team assures that the design won’t hinder features like Namedrop, contactless payments, and magnetic charging. The company even touts extra battery mileage because wrist detection is turned off.
The company also makes a version without the scroll wheel and calls it TinyPod lite. It supports the mainline Apple Watches, the SE model, and the giant Ultra trim, too. As for size compatibility, it plays well with 40/41mm, 45/44mm, and 49mm versions.
The standard variant costs $80, but the one that ingests an Apple Watch Ultra will set you back by $90. The variant without a scroll wheel — and without any joy, objectively speaking — is priced at $30.
Shipping starts this summer, and so does my countdown to spend money on yet another gadget that I’ll use for a day and then abandon to eat dust. And hey, we’re in July, way past a cruel April Fools joke, and far away from Kickstarter shenanigans, too.
