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Miss your old iPod? This app will make your iPhone look like one again

Bring back the click wheel!

Alison DeNisco Rayome Managing Editor
Managing Editor Alison DeNisco Rayome joined CNET in 2019, and is a member of the Home team. She is a co-lead of the CNET Tips and We Do the Math series, and manages the Home Tips series, testing out new hacks for cooking, cleaning and tinkering with all of the gadgets and appliances in your house. Alison was previously an editor at TechRepublic.
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Alison DeNisco Rayome
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The Rewound app makes your iPhone look like an iPod Classic. 

Shelby Brown/CNET

Who among us isn't nostalgic for the days of the iPod Classic, with its click wheel and lack of internet connection? (Answer: People under the age of 25, probably.) A new app called Rewound will help you recapture the magic of the early digital music days, by transforming your iPhone's interface into the iPod Classic's. 

Rewound uses downloadable skins to make the app look like an iPod, and it syncs with your Apple Music library ( Spotify compatibility is coming, according to its App Store listing). Rewound also uses haptic feedback to simulate the feel of the iPod Classic's click wheel. 

The idea behind the app was nostalgia, Louis Anslow, founder of Rethought agency which created Rewound, told CNET on Wednesday. "It is an experimental project exploring the blurring lines between the digital and physical world," Anslow said. "Edgeless displays with haptic feedback can become any device you wish. Rewound lets users morph their iPhone into a retro 2000s era MP3 player -- whatever brand or model they preferred."

Technically, the app isn't marketed as one to turn your iPhone into an iPod, since that would get it kicked out of the App Store. The skins are downloaded after the app is installed, and could be used for other purposes in the future. 

You can download Rewound free in the App Store. 

Originally published: Dec. 11, 10:57 a.m. PT.
Update, 2:04 p.m.: Adds comment from Anslow. 

The new iPod Touch looks just like the old one and it's kind of nice

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