A company by the name of "New Matter" has revealed their first product dubbed "Sudo" as a dedicated music player with an ahem familiar design.

It'll cost $250 and you may place a $50 reservation now. They expect to ship in the fourth quarter of 2027.

I have been longing for the return of an iPod Classic in my life. The used market is booming lately with prices being in the $150~ range, and that's before exploring mods that bring the iPod forward with new batteries, storage, Bluetooth, etc. This seems like a possible better bang for those 250 bucks.

But, who are New Matter? I can't really find much. Their website and socials are sparse and newly made. On Instagram the account follows three others—stuffbyretro, Teenage Engineering, and MSCHF—those last two feeling like inspirational follows. This stuffbyretro account is also new, but is promoting an iPod app for iPhones that will surely never leave TestFlight and be widely available. Apple does not tolerate iPod clones.1

All of that does not instill confidence in me, but I would like to believe.

I think the design is what I want out of a dedicated music player. The iPod Classic was called that for a reason. The tiny specs section lists both offline and streaming playback. There is 64 GB of internal storage with the ability to expand with a microSD card. There is a "tactile wheel," not a Click Wheel. They got the standard 3.5mm headphone jack and Bluetooth with 20+ hours of battery life, which is recharged over USB-C. The screen is roughly a quarter inch larger than my beloved Classic and is a touchscreen—that feels unnecessary with the "tactile wheel," but is probably just a part of the screen they sourced.

The software is "Sudo OS" and there isn't much to glean from the screenshots except the standard menu options like "Albums" and "Playlists." I would bet on it being some wrapper around some version of Android. It comes in four colors—Silver, Basalt (black), Forest (green), and Tangerine (orange). They all, unfortunately, come with a black "tactile wheel." I don't think that combination looks right. I do like the backplate being secured with the flush hex-head screws. I wish the power button was a different color to evoke the bright orange of the Hold switch.

The important part of this product is one that cannot be conveyed through images and videos. How does it sound? How does it feel? The Click Wheel felt right. How does this "tactile" copy compare? I assume the body is made of aluminum. How is the texture and weight in hand? How clicky are those buttons? And then there is sound. I saw comments on YouTube already rejecting the product for the lack of a 4.4mm jack. There is no mention of the DAC or supported Bluetooth codecs.

My biggest question after "Will this even come out?" is "Will Apple Music be supported?" Seems like New Matter doesn't know either. Here's a response they gave in the comments on YouTube:

"As Sudo will have Wi-Fi, streaming service integrations are something we’re actively exploring. The goal would be to support both streaming and offline downloads where the service allows it. It’ll ultimately depend on the APIs/SDKs each service makes available, so we don't to promise Apple Music or Spotify specifically just yet - but something we’re working towards."

Again, more wishy-washy hand-wavy bits. While I don't believe streaming is essential for a product like this, I wish they didn't promise it on the product page. Better to surprise and delight with the feature later than to promise it up front and not be able to accomplish it. This product is very much in active development and this announcement is more of a concept reveal than a product launch.

I still want to believe though.

Footnotes

  1. Still have Rewound installed on my phone though! ↩