As someone who owns a digital audio player I can give some reasons:
Since most phones don’t come with headphone jacks anymore, it’s nice to have a device you can just plug your wired headphones into. It also means headphone jack inclusion is no longer a factor when choosing a smartphone.
Better audio quality depending on the DAC inside the device.
Expandable storage. Most DAPs let you insert one, some even two micro sd cards. No need to stream anything, plus you have space for lossless files.
No need to worry about data/wifi, your music is always there ready to listen offline.
Some DAPs are really small (Shanling M0 for example), making them more portable than a phone for a lot of use cases.
More headphone compatibility. A lot of higher end DAPs support more than a 3.5 mm jack. The Fiio m11 plus for example has a 4.4 and 2.5 balanced output jacks in addition to the standard 3.5 mm.
Higher power amps to power hungry headphones. A smartphone can’t power say a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s, a DAP can because it comes with a preamp (not all though, depends on the specs).
Dedicated physical buttons. A touchscreen will never compare to controlling playback with physical buttons.
Though I will say, even as someone who owns one, unless you’re really into carrying your music library with you it’s generally not worth it. But they are nifty little gadgets and new ones come out every year to innovate the space.
It’s similar to an e-reader as others pointed out. Sure, you can read on a phone/tablet as well but it’s nice to have a device that’s purpose built for one thing and does it really well. The same applies to a digital audio player. Yeah you can (and most people are fine with) play music on your smartphone, but a dedicated device does add some nice QoL to the experience.
Smartphones rarely have headphone jacks or physical buttons for blind control anymore. They are also too large to fit most pants pockets. Their audio hardware (if it exists) is also usually quite poor.
I see the appeal when your music gets constantly interrupted due to every fucking app wanting to send you notifications to remind you of its existence and those constant messages from work flooding whatever communications tool you’re using.
I also see the appeal for something for kids to give them music without giving them a fill on smart device.
Yes, a phone can do almost anything, but single purpose devices can and should be better for that purpose.
I realise this isn’t a good solution for everyone, but my phone lives on do not disturb mode and only lets calls through (and even then my phone tends to stay on vibrate). It’s nice, generally leaves me uninterrupted when I’m doing other stuff.
I don’t get the appeal of a single-purpose device like this when smartphones are practically mandatory.
As someone who owns a digital audio player I can give some reasons:
Though I will say, even as someone who owns one, unless you’re really into carrying your music library with you it’s generally not worth it. But they are nifty little gadgets and new ones come out every year to innovate the space.
It’s similar to an e-reader as others pointed out. Sure, you can read on a phone/tablet as well but it’s nice to have a device that’s purpose built for one thing and does it really well. The same applies to a digital audio player. Yeah you can (and most people are fine with) play music on your smartphone, but a dedicated device does add some nice QoL to the experience.
Ever heard of a kindle?
Smartphones rarely have headphone jacks or physical buttons for blind control anymore. They are also too large to fit most pants pockets. Their audio hardware (if it exists) is also usually quite poor.
I see the appeal when your music gets constantly interrupted due to every fucking app wanting to send you notifications to remind you of its existence and those constant messages from work flooding whatever communications tool you’re using.
I also see the appeal for something for kids to give them music without giving them a fill on smart device.
Yes, a phone can do almost anything, but single purpose devices can and should be better for that purpose.
oh fuck, right, i got so used to obliterating apps ability to send notifications and ads that I forgot that’s kind of the baseline experience, yeah.
I realise this isn’t a good solution for everyone, but my phone lives on do not disturb mode and only lets calls through (and even then my phone tends to stay on vibrate). It’s nice, generally leaves me uninterrupted when I’m doing other stuff.
But I dont wanna use my phone. Usually, I try to keep that as far away as possible.