Reminds me of how much Sony (along with Braun) shaped Apple’s hardware design language. And that in turn keeps on shaping many others.
And the walkman is arguably one of the classic cases of “build it, and they will come”, where a product was well ahead of what consumers were already calling for. In my mind, that’s the kind of thing actually deserving the visionary label.
I remember feeling like I was living in the future every time I listed to music on my Sony MiniDisc player while friends where still using their portable CD players with easily scratched disks before mp3 players became affordable and ubiquitous in high school.
Not so lucky here. hated minidiscs from the moment I bought a recorder. I got an imported MZ-R90, fairly late into the cycle expecting maturity, which would persistently overheat when recording for some reason. Playback was reliable however but the limited ability to record meant that I only listened to about 5 discs worth of music for about 5-6 years. Prerecorded minidiscs were prohibitively expensive and very limited in availability in the UK as well.
Eventually, as I was stubborn as hell, it got replaced by an iPod shuffle when they first came out. Bar a stupid couple of weeks with an awful Sony Ericsson phone it’s been Apple all the way since.
Freedom from having to maintain and record media is the biggest win though over time, not the hardware. Apple Music saves me hours a week managing music for 5 people in my family.
That was an "ignorance is bliss" time, when everyone was enchanted by the sleek design of the MiniDisc and its players. But once MP3 took off, everyone started talking about lossy compression, and people suddenly realized that the ATRAC codec used in the 1990s MiniDisc players was flawed, and often said to be comparatively poor.
I remember when we were all rocking walkmans/aiwas and just accepted the mediocre sound quality of our mix tapes. CDs were ubiquitous but most portable players were prone to skipping and there was no economic way to create mix tapes on CDs for us. The day I bought a portable Sharp mindisc recoder and created the my first digital CD to Mindisc mix via an optical connection was eye opening. I cannot overstate what a game changer it was in creating portable CD quality mixes.
Quite ironically, these days you can get audio processing plugins for DAWs (digital audio workstations), which lower the quality of your audio to emulate the lower audio quality of cassette tapes.
I remember the kids who had minidisc players. Usually spoiled cause they were expensive and didn't have much prospect for future use, so it took parents who didn't mind wasting money. And typically used it to feel superior to other kids, cause it was different and apparently didn't skip. (My best friend had one, and he was pretty spoiled - we abused it trying to make it skip - they definitely do skip if you hit them hard enough). But kind of disappointed when it came to actually finding music to listen to. While the MiniDisc might have been superior tech, it doesn't really matter if record companies won't produce media for it. I'd make fun of my friend for having a player that didn't skip but not having any music for it.
If I remember correctly, it wasn't the mp3 player that made the MiniDisc a nonstarter format, it was CD burners that came out a few years before mp3 players that actually did it.
It's quite interesting that all both the Thinkpad and the Mac are inspired in different ways from what could broadly be called the 'Japanese aesthetic'.
> And the walkman is arguably one of the classic cases of “build it, and they will come”, where a product was well ahead of what consumers were already calling for.
Indeed, wonder if they used any parts of UX design/research. Was that even such a thing then?
And if you’re old enough, you may have experienced a SW transistor radio With a single mono earpiece giving you that feeling of being real time personally connected to the world far, far away from home. A precursor to the feeling of connecting to a far away BBS (bulletin board systems) and eventually the Internet.
> And the walkman is arguably one of the classic cases of “build it, and they will come”, where a product was well ahead of what consumers were already calling for.
I was born much after its release, but I have to say I find this surprising. Cassette players were popular with car commuters, why wouldn't it have been obvious that they would be with train or bus commuters?
Size and weight, usually 2 or 3 double A batteries and mono sound because intended for a single speaker output. To listen privately you'd have a phone in one ear. Deeply unsatisfactory experience.
Walkman was a huge step forward
I think the solution space is extremely constrained.
What else is there for these devices other than some variation of rectangles and radii.
I swing the other way, I want more choices with greater variance.
If you want something rugged that won't fly out of your hand but also reasonably spec'd, your choices are limited.
Forget anything from Apple.
Ok, you can have a ruggedised case as a clip-on-around extra, but if you want a rugged case with bigger battery and a physical keyboard, forget it.
Today's designs are extremely limited, it's all just a scale of progressively more fragile until you're buying something that looks more like jewellery or a display-case item. Fine China even.
And! The goal posts keep moving. You look at new devices, find something you like and think "okay, I can probably afford a secondhand one of those from two years ago" - nope, doesn't exist.
And the same applies in reverse:
You like the device from two years ago, and are prepared to splurge on new: NOPE! They don't make that combination any more.
It's like a dystopian choose your own adventure.
You can choose from any of the following one bullshit option.
You can buy a ton of iPhone battery cases and get exactly what you want.
As for ruggedness of the device itself - the current devices are way more solid than the first gen big screen devices. Most of them are even waterproof.
If you don't want a big screen, you can buy some phones that will survive anything - check out phones by CAT.
And the walkman is arguably one of the classic cases of “build it, and they will come”, where a product was well ahead of what consumers were already calling for. In my mind, that’s the kind of thing actually deserving the visionary label.