The iPod: retro from the get-go
Much is already being said and written about the social significance of the iPod. But the commentators have not yet explained how the fourth generation iPod (in the middle of this photo) has become retro before it was even unfashionable. It’s only been around since July 2004 and yet already it looks positively art deco compared with the 5th Generation Video iPod. Hold one in your hand and the effect is dramatic. How sleek the design appeared when it was first released; just two years later it has that rounded, chunky look of the comfortably middle-aged. It used to be that hip products went through a period of being so unfashionable that you couldn’t give them away; before, about a decade later, they surfaced again as fashion accessories for the very young, who found them by turns shocking, quaint and then mainstream. Not any more. What does the iPod’s shift to retro from the get-go say about society’s thirst — not for the perfect thing, but the new?
posted by Chris Bell at 9:28 PM
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