Spotify’s Car Thing might be dead but our imagination isn’t. Using the power of ChatGPT’s new image generation tool, IG user Aurelien created a series of retro-inspired handheld devices built on old-timey companies. And I loved the series so much I built some of my own.
Here’s a look at what an alternate universe could have looked like if popular services like Winamp, Limewire, MSN Messenger, Windows Media Player, Nokia Snake, eMule, and Omegle could have looked like if they built their own standalone devices. Be warned, this journey is filled with enough nostalgia to probably distract you from actual work, so scroll with caution!
Designers: &
The 90s and 2000s were some phenomenal years. Interfaces were gorgeously skeuomorphic (looking like physical elements), software and media were by and large free, and everything was either open-source or pirate-able. Was it a great time for companies? Probably not – but it was an amazing time for consumers! We’d download MP3 files and skins for our Winamp, watch bootlegged Friends episodes on Limewire, and cap off with some time playing Snake on our Nokia phone – but what if, instead of all digital services/software, these were actual products?
A Winamp or Windows Media Player-inspired playback device. With exposed screws, gorgeous flat surfaces, and controls that were more primary forms of input than touchscreens. Ah! The glory days! We’ve got two media players in this collection – one inspired by Winamp and the other inspired by Microsoft’s default Windows Media Player. To be honest, I was a diehard WMP guy who really never saw the appeal of Winamp. That’s until I ditched it for VLC Media Player. It breaks my heart that this new generation of kids will look at traffic cones and feel absolutely nothing.
Other gadgets include a Tamagotchi-style device that plays Snake – arguably the most popular game on Nokia’s older phones before Bounce became the new favorite. There’s an eMule downloader gadget, although I was more of a Limewire, Ares, and Bittorrent guy myself. Finally, a personal favorite – an Omegle-inspired View-Master. Would it really work? No, but you’d probably be able to cycle through profiles using the same trigger/button interaction.
We lived in a simple time where consumers were really happy. Sure, there was friction with media consumption – you’d have to wait long hours to download movies. Sometimes they’d be shitty CAM prints, sometimes they’d be viruses, other times they’d be misleading videos with the wrong file names. But when the system worked, it worked well. We could watch stuff for free on VLC media player, without shelling money for subscriptions. Heck, we could adjust the EQ of our play media. Do I think we live in a time where content is more democratized? Heck yes, but do I also yearn for the glory-days of dial-up internet and trippy media player visualizations or burning MP3 compilation CDs? Undeniably!!!
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