Remember Sony’s Walkman? 25 years ago it was the cat’s meow. I started a commercial audio recording business lugging around a Walkman so customers could hear what I could do. That was then and this is now. The BBC invited 13 year old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Sony Walkman for a week.
When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.
The iPod is a click or two to any of thousands of songs. The Sony Walkman was revolutionary—one cassette tape at a time.
The need for changing tapes is bothersome in itself. The tapes which I had could only hold around 12 tracks each, a fraction of the capacity of the smallest iPod.
The Walkman was nice and the article brought back memories, but I prefer my iPhone. It’s too bad that eight years after the iPod that Sony still hasn’t figured out how to make a music player for the 21st century work with a cell phone.