CibbuanoPlanned Obsolescence has become obsolete
August 13th 2008 02:30
It's not cheap, either, aiming for upper-end consumers, the ones who have enough money to actually care about cables destroying the overall aesthetic of their home.
I wouldn't normally care about this (you can make your own version of this -sort of- by creating a MythBox), but Slate has an interesting article in Tech that uses the Sonos as an example.
That example is that, as time has crept up on the Sonos, it's just gotten better. By using the internet to deliver updates, the Sonos people have ensured that the 2005 version of the media player is as functional as the 2008 version.
Incredible, if you think about it. It's not too long ago that things were designed to become inferior, to coerce you into buying the latest model.
Forget about that - we've got a new design philosophy in town, which is, the longer you use something, the better it should be!
"What's remarkable, though, is that while its hardware has barely changed in three years, the Sonos system has improved tremendously since it went on sale. In 2006, the company issued a software update to every Sonos sold—suddenly, the system could play audiobooks. A few months after that, another update allowed Sonos players to hook into the Rhapsody online music service, which meant that for $13 a month, people could now listen to millions of tracks that they didn't own. Later, Sonos added Napster, Pandora, and Sirius, plus a slew of free Internet radio stations. Last year, the company improved its controller's user interface, adding a function that lets you search your tunes from the device—another feature that every Sonos owner got through a software update."
I love this idea, and I'm willing to back it. I bought Galactic Civilizations II recently; I'd heard it was a good game, but the recent expansion pack blew me away. They managed to include an update that would make the game run faster on your computer! I heartily support developers that approach programming with the opposite mentality of Microsoft - make things smaller and faster.
The good thing about this shift in design is that it benefits everyone. You'll spend less money, hopefully, though companies like to include sneaky ways of making you subscribe to services. You'll throw away fewer devices, which is great for our environment. And, best of all, with this mentality, manufacturers can continue to improve things, not just release something half-done, then leap to the next platform.
This is good. Let's dig in.
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