Search results for: “throwback gadget”

Throwback gadget: SnapperMail
Thinking about SnapperMail takes me back to end of 2001, I started to prepare for leaving my job at Edelman. This meant upgrading my home IT set up. I picked up an iBook. The iBook was Apple’s consumer-orientated laptop made from 1999 to 2006. Mine was a second generation ‘Snow’ laptop with a G3 processor, dual USB sockets and a combo drive which allowed me to watch DVDs and burn CDs.

I used the move to go on the first version of OSX. The move also meant that I got a new email account, my default account to date. It had two key attributes:
- No adverts, so it looked professional in comparison to having a Yahoo! or Hotmail email address and it wasn’t tied to an ISP.
- IMAP support which allowed me to use my email account across different devices that syncs across the devices. POP3 downloads the emails from the server to the device, so is ideal only for when you are accessing email from one machine
My iBook was my only source of email access whilst I left Edelman, freelanced, and then eventually joined Pirate Communications. My first smartphone was a Nokia 6600, which I used alongside a Palm PDA – l got this sometime around the end of 2003. The 6600 supported IMAP out of the gate, it was slow, but I was connected.

The 6600 was eclipsed by Palm’s Treo devices which were a better device. I moved from the 6600 and a Palm Tungsten T3 combo to a Treo 600 smartphone in January 2005.

The process wasn’t smooth. The Treo was sufficiently fragile that I got a translucent silicon jacket that worked surprisingly well with the keyboard and screen protector to look after the touchscreen. Software wise the Treo 600 was a step back from the Tungsten T3 PDA. The screen was smaller and the software felt sluggish in comparison. I had deliberately chosen the 600 over the 650 because I had previously worked agency side on the Palm account and been a long-suffering device owner so knew how crap they were at bug fixes on new devices. The media didn’t call the former Palm CEO ‘Mad’ Bill Maggs for no reason (just sayin’).

Unfortunately Palm had not been as progressive in comparison to Nokia with its default email client. The software didn’t support IMAP. Fortunately I used to follow Mitch Kapor’s blog and he had recommended SnapperMail: an app from a small New Zealand company SnapperFish.

SnapperMail was a compact modern email client. It has a number of features that we would expect now:
- It supported IMAP
- It supported SSL client to mail box encryption*
- it was really easy to use
- You could work with attachments including zipped files**
- There was no restriction on the file size of attachments, the only restriction was your email account rather than your email client
This looks like the kind of technology you would have thought Palm should have done. At the this time Palm were competing against Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003, BlackBerry 6200 series, 7100 series and early 8700 series. Yet the default email client was back in the 1990s.

*The full-fat application cost US$39.99

**SnapperMail came bundled with HandZipper Lite which handled the compressed files and JPEGWatch Lite image viewer

I used this alongside MetrO – a public transit directions app and QuickOffice Pro – to read Office documents as part of my modern smartphone experience. It wasn’t just me that loved SnapperMail, it was praised by Walt Mossberg back when he wrote at the Wall Street Journal.

SnapperMail won two Palm Source (Palm’s software licence business) Powered Up awards in 2003. It was recognised as Best Productivity and Best of the Best Solution. More on Palm here.

More information
SnapperMail Has Solid Software For Savvy Mobile E-Mail Users | WSJ
QuickOffice
MetrO – open source mass transit application
PalmSource Welcomes Developers with Awards, New Tools; Announces New Licensees | PalmSource press room
June 14, 2016
Apple iPod HiFi – throwback gadget

Introducing the Apple iPod HiFi

Now and again Apple makes some odd diversions in direction and focus. One of these was the Apple iPod HiFi. The best way to describe it is imagine of Dieter Rams had made over one of Panasonic’s old RX DT75 with the motorised ‘cobra’ top. Which is why it made my blog as a throwback gadget.

It will take a stack of D-cells like a traditional boom box. The speaker arrangement and handle on each end reminded me of iconic 80s boombox the Hitachi TRK 3D8 portable stereo. Holding it reminds me of lugging one of those round in the back of my first car on long trips, because my car didn’t have a radio or cassette deck, let alone a CD player.

How hi-fi is it?

The HiFi as in high-fidelity in the name Apple iPod HiFi is a bit of a misnomer, but it does a very good job on the electronica that I tend to listen to at home. It’s sound isn’t coloured per se, but it does a better job of some genres than others.

If you like a string quartet playing classical music, it probably isn’t the device for you. But then neither would a Bose Wave either, which would be the obvious competition.

As with most Apple products there were design details all over the box. It sits on a rubber pad that covers most of the box length with iPod written in the middle, despite the fact very few people will ever see it.

Many people decried the Apple iPod HiFi for its lack of features, but it was designed as an appendage to the iPod rather than a device in its own right. I use the line in on it to act as an occasional sound bar to the television which it does an adequate job of. Apple discontinued it just over a year after it was launched and now they can found occasionally on eBay. More gadget related content here.

July 27, 2014
Philips Philishave Tracer razor: Throwback gadget

When I was a child my Dad taught me how to use an electric razor and helped me buy my first one a Philips Philishave Tracer.

Wet shaving wasn’t as popular in the 1970s and 80s as it was synonymous with cuts and pieces of tissue paper stuck to your face. My Dad used a vintage Philips two-head razor from the mid 1960s that fitted comfortably in the palm and came in a smart case. All of this packaging gave out the message that razors were expensive.

When it came to getting my own razor, something expensive was a waste of good money that could have been spent on records or a great personal stereo from the likes of Aiwa.

The second decision you wanted to make was did you want a ‘foil razor’ like Braun or Remington? Or a rotary razor, which was the Philips unique selling proposition. My Dad was a Philips fan, he valued that it was easy to repair and less delicate than its competitors.

That’s where the Phillishave Tracer came in. It was Philips cheapest razor.

Cheap didn’t mean cheaply made, Philips still made a razor that was built to last. It was small, easy to use and care for. After almost 20 years, this one still works.

Compared to modern Philips razors it was was unsophisticated. The beard and sideboard trimmer has a habit of yanking hairs right off your face. The heads don’t shave terribly close, because don’t have the fancy head geometry of newer razors that match the shape of your jawline.

You couldn’t ‘wet shave’ with it as water didn’t agree wit it. Rechargeable batteries were a novelty on high end razors so you were tethered by the cable. I personally didn’t find this a problem as I used to shave in the bathroom mirror.

The graphic design and logo typography aren’t the greatest examples of classic design, but when you are 14 or 15 and you had one of these it started to feel that you were growing up fast. More product write-ups here.

November 6, 2012
Sony MICROVAULT: Throwback gadget

The Sony MICROVAULT offered a great opportunity to move large amounts of data around. We are used to shipping everything over the internet now, but for the past three decades the sneakernet – where data is exchanged over devices that have been delivered by hand still is an efficient way to move large amounts of data. What constituted a large amount of data has historically varied over time. I first started moving files around on 720KB and 1.44MB 31/2 inch floppy disks on my Mac and friend’s Atari ST machines in the early 1990s.

I used to get artwork, particularly photographic scans during the early part of my agency life on Iomega Zip disks that held between 100-250MB, but CD-R disks quickly eclipsed the proprietary disk format. Iomega hit back with the 750MB Zip cartridge and the expensive Jaz drive, but they missed the wave.

Apple encouraging us to ‘rip, mix, burn’ ushered in an era of large file storage on CD and DVD media. But there was niche for convenient fast file storage that didn’t require burning optical media and that was where the USB flash drive came into common usage in the early noughties.

I bought my first flash drive sometime in late 2003 – early 2004. Sony’s MICROVAULT was wrapped in a plastic case that mirrored the design language of the Viao computers at the time. Silver and violet plastic wrapping the technology.It had 256MB of memory, which meant that it was adequate for carting any documents I was currently working on or a couple of completed PowerPoint presentations.

Now every company seems to give away flash drives. They have become as ubiquitous as CD-ROMs were on the front of magazine cover-mounts and in direct mail shots during the late 1990s.

The flash drive was a liberating experience, files could be written in seconds and the devices were remarkable robust. I have had one for a few years on my key ring. You didn’t need to check and verify a disk. You could bring a presentation in your pocket instead of hiking with a laptop around to meetings.

There is no loading up Dropbox on a work computer or negotiating with IT for the admin rights. However, now I no longer use a Sony MICROVAULT. The speeds and feeds of flash drives quickly became commoditised as did the quality of the electronics once manufacturers worked out out the ins and outs of the products. Sony failed to keep up with innovation in product design and instead I use an Iamkey from LaCie, which has a playful design that is robust enough to stand being on my key fob along with all my household keys.

In comparison Sony’s MICROVAULT range looks like it could have rolled out of any factory in China and is probably a Sony in name only.

July 17, 2012
Sony Vaio PCG C1 series: Throwback gadget
I’m an unusual choice to write about the Sony Vaio PCG C1. I’ve only had PC envy with a couple of devices during my twenty something years at a Mac user:
- The IBM ThinkPad 701 series with its butterfly keyboard
- The Sony Vaio PCG C1 series of notebooks
In common with the 701, the Sony Vaio PCG C1 impressed me with its product design. In a pioneering design for 1998, the Sony Vaio PCG C1 included a built in web camera above the screen that could be rotated to try and ensure an optimum camera position.

Sony made a small modular computer. What was important was what they had left out in their device case and instead relied on a set of outboard peripherals so the user could bring or configure their computer set-up to suit their needs. The PCMCIA (Personal Computer Memory Card International Association) slot was equivalent of the USB socket today and used to connect a wide range of devices including both fixed-line and GSM wireless modems.

The beauty extended on to the inside of the devices with some of the range using a Transmeta Crusoe processor. The Crusoe was the Intel Atom almost a decade before the Atom; it used a combination of software techniques and hardware innovations to reduce heat output and improve power consumption. This had some benefit in terms of battery improvement, but battery life relies on a combination factors such as screen power, hard drive power and other parts on the circuit board.

This device is even more remarkable when you realise that the Vaio PCG C1 was launched some seven years before Steve Jobs went on stage at Apple’s Worldwide Development Conference in 2005 to announce the move to Intel processors because of a new focus on computer power per Watt. You could consider the MacBook Air that I am typing this post out on as a spiritual successor to the Vaio C1. More Sony posts here.

More information
More about the Sony Vaio PCG C1 and one man’s adventures trying to install Linux on it
April 28, 2012

More posts