I am not sure it is necessarily people growing wearier of phones. It is kind of a mix of gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up with and the proliferation of AI music. I have a hard time trusting random playlists on music services because I don't know if it is genuinely new music made by real people, or ai the platform is pushing so they can make more money. Either way I don't want to be part of that. I don't personally own one of these devices but my listening habits have changed quite a bit in the last year.
> gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up
Plenty of older Gen Z grew up with iPods - the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old, and it took the smartphone another ~5 years to fully kill off that whole product category.
>the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old,
In America. My country, and 90% of the world, was noticeably behind, and "mp3 players" reigned.
yeah, I grew up on my dad’s old iPod and BlackBerry up until high school; a lot of people in my peer group also were exposed to “older” tech by way of parents, siblings, etc.
For me it's about intention and decoupling core entertainment from algorithmic bs.