The iPod and adaptive design

The iPod’s firmware upgrades indicate how we can now unlock new devices from within the existing, but what if adaptive design principles were pursued more thoroughly by Apple?

Ed. This piece was originally published on 23 November 2003.

For a while, I’d been meaning to write a piece about an aspect of the iPod design which, if not strictly adaptive, seemed to enable iterative design strategies around the functionality.

The ability to significantly extend the functionality of the product via firmware upgrades feels like it‘s increasingly possible to reveal new devices from within the existing device. It’s almost as if one simple firmware upgrade had me sensing that battery life had just increased, that there were additional functions, that I felt like I had a whole new iPod. The physical aspects of the product—control wheel, four navigation/select buttons, screen and a couple of ports—are abstract enough to enable improvements by simply remapping new elements of the software.

Assessing Stewart Brand’s original layer diagram from his book How Buildings Learn, via my reworked version for digitally-oriented user experience design (as part of this presentation) …