A fairly new set of Cross pens just passed into my possession. People who know me for a long time know that I am an absolute writing instrument freak, and as such, I already had aquired an old Cross set. To my astonishment, both of them look very, very similar:
Compare that to a few recent Palm OS devices. Hmm… . What would the Palm Tungsten T3 have been if it would have been in thre case of the Palm IIIc? The battery would have been much, much larger, there would have been enough space for two SD slots, and so on. Of course, this example has a lame foot – the Palm Tungsten T3’s slider design has its merits and definitely was cool.
Nevertheless, I wonder what forces people to permanentely radically redo their well-working designs… Are we really off better with the new, ultra-slim lava lamps? Are the latest, pink mobile phones really neccecary? Was it really necceccary to append a My to every product a few years ago?
IMHO, if companies would start to look at radical improvement more and would step away from the “throw-all-away-and-rebuild”, who would really be off worse? OK, a few industrial designers will loose their jobs, but overall? Would we – as whole – be off worse?
Don’t just think of the “3lit3 ppl” who want to always have the lastest stuff; think of people like my father for whom moving an icon on the desktop equals changing its function. Look at people who aren’t technology freaks and take time to learn new stuff. Look at freaks who loose their habits(like pressing the center button to see the clock, doesnt work on my Palm Tungsten E2).
This post shouldn’t discouage development or research – but IMHO, we should start to question if stuff needs to “look different” at every version. The m515 IMHO sold well altough it looked like the m505 – inner values count, too(IMHO).
What do you think?
Related posts:
The entire product-lineup of Palm worked that way:
From Pilot 1000 to Palm Pilot Professional (4 devices), from Palm III to Palm IIIxe (8 devices) they all looked the same. They got better and better on the inside but the outside didn’t change.
Hi Oliver,
but I wonder why they didnt keep it up…
I\’d carry a IIIc with VGA, 624MhZ, huge battery and stereo speakers all over the world happily =).
Best regards
Tam Hanna
You always have to develop new stuff to keep customers buying it. So every now and then it has to look “new” on the outside, too.
[...] Tams Palm Blog expounds On Classic Design : Tam Hanna suggests there are benefits to having product designers reuse classic designs multiple times. [...]
I agree with the fact that you always need to re-invent your products or at least having new products comming out to keep your customers.
There is the counter argument about all of them looking the same, but the have different categories as well.
How can someone go wrong by buying a cross pen. I own ten of them and a few are collectors items. I am really happy with all of them.
Hi,
being honest: I am a parker 45 diehard… . Nevertheless, good point!
Best regards and thankj you for talking back
Tam Hanna