Edible Apple

As someone who grew up in an era where a yellow Walkman was the epitome of cool, this story is particularly interesting. The BBC “invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week” and document his impressions, frustrations, and thoughts on what it’s like to use a Walkman from the perspective of someone who was born after the technology had already gone the way of the dodo.

The results are amusing to say the least.

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.

You can check out the entire article over here. It’s definitely worth a read, especially if you can remember how cool it was when portable CD players first came on the scene.