Wow I really am getting old! It is the end of an era. The iPod is now discontinued……. After my initial thought of buying all the remaining brand new unopened iPods on the planet to then sell for a fortune in 50 years time, I decided to share a time when I was creative director of a web design/multi media agency which they were sometimes called back then.
It was 2002, the year after I got married and I was the creative director of an upcoming agency based in Clerkenwell and then down the road in Farringdon. We designed these ‘things’ called web sites which was either something that was a craze or something that may revolutionise the world with over 22 billion users in the year 2022.
We also developed CD rom presentations using Adobe Director and flash. I spent many a night burning 1000s of CDs with presentations, preying that there wasn’t a mistake. After all, that is what I loved about the web… you can change something whereas CD burning and print is oh so final.
I worked on some great presentations for NSPCC, Atlantic 252 and generally loving life. The studio was in Clerkenwell and then Farringdon and my journey was accompanied by my brand new iPod!
This was the second generation iPod. The first to have no moving parts. No spinning wheel, just a very cool touch wheel. Holding a device the size of a pack of cards containing 1000 songs, I was in heaven. The envy of other commuters on the way into work was clear to see. I peered over the top of my latest GQ, FHM, loaded or Sky (Not that Sky) magazine to see the eyes starring at me. On several occasions, I was asked about the device… How very un-british.
I loved the fact that I was someone with a new trendy gadget in my hand that everyone was interested in.
I actually remember buy it for around £350 from Dixons duty free on a journey somewhere. I am convinced I’d made up my mind ages earlier but hoping there would be a big saving at the airport to justify my purchase.
The music I loved was The Cranberries, U2, The Verve… very decent respectable bands at the time, now my kids would probably just laugh at me until they hear a song and claim ‘they know that one’!
20 years have passed and what has happened in the tech world since then? Maybe I should write was hasn’t happened since then as it will be a lot easier.
Around the time of my purchase within a year or so either way, the dot.com bubble burst and everyone was in a state of wonder how technology was evolving and what was the purpose of the web. 56k dial up modems became ethernet LAN lines, always connect and speeds got faster. Google started taking over a doing it very well indeed! Yahoo, hotmail and AltaVista soon gave way to the new guys on the block who just got it right! Netscape died and Chrome, Safari on a Mac and Internet Explorer were king with the latter dying out a few years later.
It seems to me that in technology, if you were first, you then got left behind by the next generation of widget… software or hardware.
Apple continued to grow in stature and became a consumers dream and not just for us designer folks. iPhone changed the landscape completely by having everything on a single device and Sony Ericsson, Nokia and certainly Blackberry again fell by the wayside… More evidence from the early players not being able to keep up.
We then come to the modern day and the world is a different place. Heading towards my 47th birthday, I realise how long I have now been in business, and how much I love seeing technology evolve mainly for the right reasons, due to demand and not just because it can.
I look forward to the time when we sign up to an internet service provider that is global above and below ground. Whether it is Sky, BT internet or something new like Tesla Internet or Amazon Internet, we’ll all pick a provider and 24/7 wherever you are, you will be connected.
I’m looking forward to augmented reality improving and being an advantage to looking at things to buy or storytelling rather than being an expensive gimmick that looks as cool now as flash animations looked back in the 90s.
I’m looking forward to further enhancements in the smart home, driverless cars which is clearly not far away now, (although I’ll still want to be around enough to afford the super sports car that I can actually drive).
Cyber security and cyber terrorism is worrying, for all the good the internet is doing, it is opening up a lot of concerns and I just hope that we stay ahead of the criminals.
All I can say is my memories of early business life were great and my trusted brick of an iPod came with me for much of the journey until it was upgraded to an iPhone.
I wrote this post due to the iPod retiring and I think it is the right time and fully justified. It had its place in the world and made me very happy. Now we all have them so I look forward to seeing what’s next!