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Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

theatlantic.com

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Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#41

Post by thezilch »

ohashi wrote: post #17
jd wrote: post #13

And the cool thing is that a smartphone now serves the function of all of these gadgets. It's a music player, video player, camcorder, digital camera, answering machine, and so on. Internet TV replaces the need for satellite TV and a cellphone camera + email replaces the need for a FAX machine. It's astonishing how few appliances you need aside from a smartphone.

But it does a poor job replacing the boombox. You need some other device or attachment to really share that sound.

That's a feature. Artistry was a failing industry in the era of the boombox; friends and family would steal the hard work -- performances -- of artists in the streets of our nations. Handheld devices have come a long way of protecting the consumer, from the likes of the MPAA, and the artists, from those of us stealing their live performances.

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#42

Post by excuse-me »

cperciva wrote: post #14
pawosty wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as the iPod? Or are you thinking of a different example? Actually I might be way off with the iPod...

The first example which came to mind was the internet. After that, smart phones.

The internet came on the market in 1982, 7 years later it was still pretty much only in universities.

If you count 1992 - when com connection was really allowed and the web was invented it probably still wasn't in all that many homes 7 years later. 1999 was still dial-up for me and I was a Caltech grad student!

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#43

Post by Elepsis »

planckscnst wrote: post #25

My guess was the keyless entry remote, which I expect is now very close to 100% penetration in the US. I wonder if that was one considered for the chart.

This strikes me as utterly implausible, since the most likely way to get one of these is to get a new car, something that seems to happen on about a 10-year cycle based on the latest data.

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#45

Post by keithpeter »

callmeed wrote: post #40
crusso wrote: post #37

The things on the left side of the graph were relatively inexpensive consumer devices while the things on the right were generally more expensive. The author's surprise that the color tv or cell phone weren't more quickly adopted seems ignorant of price considerations. Color televisions and cell phones were very expensive when they were introduced.

When you consider all the D batteries I had to buy for my boom box, it was pretty expensive ;)

+1

My Panasonic took 8 of those

Seriously, the boombox was relatively low cost of entry, and the distributed stand-alone nature of the device. You didn't need connections, signal strength &c. Just some music.

Correlates with Kodak box camera in the 19th/20th century?

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#46

Post by gravitronic »

gcb wrote: post #19
ohashi wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it does a poor job replacing the boombox. You need some other device or attachment to really share that sound.

It already does a pretty good job at annoying me in the bus with other people's dance/rap "music"

Then take your hearing aid out.

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#48

Post by _delirium »

pawosty wrote: post #12
cperciva wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, it's 7 years after first introduction to market . There are lots of products which spent a long time going nowhere and then suddenly exploded once they became sufficiently refined.

Such as the iPod? Or are you thinking of a different example? Actually I might be way off with the iPod...

Color television would be my pick for that category. If you go by time of first commercial introduction, it had no uptake really: it came out in 1953, but expensive units with little programming available sold poorly in the 1950s. But once it started catching on around 1965, the transition was really fast, with nearly everyone having one by 1970. If you went by 7-year period with the biggest percentage delta, I think it would be in the running.

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#49

Post by [deleted] »

ohashi wrote: post #17
jd wrote: post #13

And the cool thing is that a smartphone now serves the function of all of these gadgets. It's a music player, video player, camcorder, digital camera, answering machine, and so on. Internet TV replaces the need for satellite TV and a cellphone camera + email replaces the need for a FAX machine. It's astonishing how few appliances you need aside from a smartphone.

But it does a poor job replacing the boombox. You need some other device or attachment to really share that sound.

[deleted]

Re: Guess What's the Fastest-Adopted Gadget of the Last 50 Years

#50

Post by donw »

cperciva wrote: post #7
Jabbles wrote: post #3

Depends how you define "fastest". In this case it's "percentage of households after 7 years". I think if we shortened the definition (arbitrarily) to 1 year we would get very different results (yet keep the same headline).

Also, it's 7 years after first introduction to market . There are lots of products which spent a long time going nowhere and then suddenly exploded once they became sufficiently refined.

That was my thought -- the personal computer and mobile phone have definitely outsold the boombox over the span of the last fifty years, but it took both technologies about two decades to mature to the point where they were a fit for the mass market.

A better title for this article would be 'Which new gadget had the fastest uptake during the past fifty years?'

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