The previous post on Dieter Rams included an interview which featured the following ad. It is a diatribe against planned obsolescence; something I agree with strongly.
Against obsolescence from Vitsœ on Vimeo.
There's a certain beauty in obsolescence, however. This story in Wired considers how aged and loved objects do not suffer the epithet of obsolescence.
Against obsolescence from Vitsœ on Vimeo.
There's a certain beauty in obsolescence, however. This story in Wired considers how aged and loved objects do not suffer the epithet of obsolescence.
It's much the same with my first Mac, which was an iBook G3 from 2002. It's still in use. I've maxed out the ram and with a new battery, charger and a second hand hard disk, it's almost not the same machine at all; but I love using it, despite having other machines.
In a way, once an object has been replaced with a new version, it becomes obsolete. Mostly, however, it still works and may possibly work as well or (with software upgrades or better fuel or longlife batteries) even better than the day it was bought. So it still does the same thing.
And once it's obsolete, it stays obsolete.
It can't get more obsolete until it either breaks and can't do something I really need (or, more likely, want) it to do. The iBook was obsolete as soon as the G4 version came out. Or possibly when Mac OS X Leopard appeared, which the iBook G3 can't run. However, it can still do pretty much what I want it to do. So it works perfectly and it's obsolete and I don't have any worries about what will the next version look like or be like because I know.
Being comfortable with "obsolete" products and objects that we can afford to replace tells us how good the design was. They're the art of the heart - the things and tools we love to use.
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