I would like to build a music player / device for an older person, not tech savvy user.
I have the MP3s on my linux desktop/laptop, but not all the metadata and cover art.
I’ve worked with RPi before, jailbreaking iPhones and roku. So I have some limited experience with small devices.
I’m wondering if I could obtain some kind of old/used android phone, remove all the apps so the home screen is completely empty, transfer via USB or ssh/scp the MP3 files (and metadata + cover art), then have some kind of music player app which would be the only app on the phone/device.
Then shutdown any wifi or internet connectivity, but still allow bluetooth to pair with an external speaker.
They never actually stopped making offline MP3 players, they just went out of style.
Not that you should buy off Amazon, just to give you an idea – https://www.amazon.com/touchscreen-mp3-player/s?k=touchscreen+mp3+player
Tons of name-brand options from days of yore, too, that weren’t just iPods. RockBox supports a pretty good selection if you need some model numbers to look up: https://www.rockbox.org/
I recall people liked their Archos players a lot, I had a few Sansas and Creatives over the years, they were pretty alright.