Gapless playback

Gapless playback means that there is no pause in play between the end of one song and the beginning of the next song. This allows for playback of albums with no gaps in the way it was meant to be heard by the artist.

History
This feature was introduced in iTunes 7 and the 2nd-generation iPod nano on September 12, 2006. It was also made available to pre-existing 5th-generation iPod users through a firmware update. Older iPod models required 3rd-party firmware, such as Rockbox, to attain this feature.

iPod models that support gapless playback
Newer apple devices, such as iPhone, iPad, and HomePod, all support gapless playback. However, HomePod Software 15.4 and iOS 15.4 are known to have broken this feature in February 2022. With the retirement of iTunes for macOS, this issue has not been fixed in Apple Music as of April 2022.
 * iPod (5th generation) and later (2005 models require a firmware update)
 * iPod nano (2nd generation) and later
 * iPod touch (all models)