I’d argue that the iPod ran but the Spotify Car Thing stumbled at its first steps. There wasn’t a problem with design, people were actually lining up to buy Spotify Car Things… but there was certainly a problem with vision – something Daniek Ek (Spotify’s CEO) can’t stand toe to toe with Steve Jobs on. But here’s the question – what if we just continued making these specialized music players? What would they look like. Designers at Steelworks put together a player so cool, I’m sure Jony Ive would look at it proudly.
Meet the SW-1, a player that embraces tradition but not traditional design. Watch the video above and you’ll understand what vision they’re going for. The conceptual player features an edge-to-edge display. The front fascia, which looks like metal, is actually a screen that comes to life when the display is maximized from its otherwise smaller container. Obviously, it’s all a concept, but let’s take a second to appreciate exactly how clean and beautiful the SW-1’s design is, whether it’s the sleekness, the handheld form factor, or the celebration of tactile controls even when you have touchscreens in today’s day and age.
Designers: Edin Agovic, Jordi Pagès, Afonso Soares, Marcel Piekarski (Steelworks)
The comparison to the Spotify Car Thing comes from the SW-1’s embracing of tactile controls. Aside from the touchscreen display (with a vibrant, minimal UI), there’s a really chunky knurled metal knob at the bottom that works presumably the same way the volume knob on the Car Thing works. It also is a hat tip to most hi-fi audio players that lean heavily into that chunky volume knob to prioritize a rather important action. In the center is a button presumably for play/pausing a track.
There are two more buttons hidden away on the side, although one can only speculate what they’re for. The rest of the device itself is almost dangerously sleek, measuring a mere few millimeters, and almost feeling reminiscent of the iPhone Air with how slim the entire device looks. The one key difference between the SW-1 and the iPod it models itself after is that it’s designed to be used as a landscape player too. A kickstand on the back lets you prop the player sideways (again, like a Spotify Car Thing), while a speaker on the back fires out audio. There’s a ‘hint’ of an aux input on the bottom, and what I can’t really locate is any charging interface.
Ultimately, the SW-1 doesn’t even attempt to be a real device. Look above the screen and you’ll see the time ‘etched’ into the metal body. It’s hard to conceive that the entire front panel is actually a display… although that’s where concepts often take liberties. That being said, you could absolutely make a hi-fi music player as thin as this one. Borrow a smartphone battery, use a small display, machine everything out of aluminum, and you’ve got yourself a fairly capable player that celebrates minimalism and futurism in a way that Steve Jobs would absolutely be a fan of.
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