4 ms·

Eh, I see this more as a shift in consumer design patterns overall. At the launch of the iphone, everything was skeumorphic. The cover flow clearly emulated fl

Eh, I see this more as a shift in consumer design patterns overall. At the launch of the iphone, everything was skeumorphic. The cover flow clearly emulated flipping through a stack of records or CD books. Now that people don't have physical media, the metaphor changes. The new design treats the cover art like an avatar on a forum or social media site -- a small thumbnail to identify the music. Additionally, the original iPod/iPhone typically used internal storage in your Library. Under the Apple Music era of streaming, this may be a decision to shave a few % off of bandwidth costs by only pushing lower-resolution images. And then the choice being made to not upscale low-res to screen-width and incur blurriness.

amelius 6y ago
Meanwhile lots of folks are going back to vinyl.
- echelon 6y ago
  The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. You don't have to hate streaming to enjoy vinyl, and vice versa. I happen to enjoy both and treat them as different experiences. I'm fine if the expectations around digital change as long as it's still accessible.
  - crocsarecool 6y ago
    I do the same thing! I find that with vinyl I’m more likely to listen to the whole album. With streaming, I’ll hear a song I like, remember another song, hop around all over the place.
  - rory 6y ago
    This was (is?) the idea behind Paper & Plastick Records [0] in the MP3 heyday. The "paper" is a download code, and the "plastick" is a vinyl record along with it. Pretty fun concept IMO. [0] http://www.paperandplastick.com/ http://www.paperandplastick.com/
- barnaclejive 6y ago
  Not "lots". In terms the entire music consuming industry, "more than previously (which was nearly 0)" at best
  - efsavage 6y ago
    Every music store I've been in lately has a larger vinyl section than CDs, so as far as physical media goes, it's a pretty big shift.
    - plorkyeran 6y ago
      That mostly reflects how much CD sales have plummeted.
      - cpeterso 6y ago
        Vinyl record sales in 2020 surpassed CDs for the first time since the 1980s: "Vinyl records accounted for $232.1 million of music sales in the first half of the year, compared to CDs, which brought in only $129.9 million. ... Since 2005, sales for vinyl have grown consecutively. In the first half of 2020, vinyl revenue was up 4%, while CD revenue was down 48%, according to the RIAA." https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/tech/vinyl-records-cd-sales-riaa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/tech/vinyl-records-cd-sales-r...
        Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        For reference, that same article mentions that streaming is a $4.8 billion market, so about 20x the size of the vinyl industry.
        Juliate 6y ago
        From a purely financial point of view, if that's all that matter, yes, you may compare streaming/vinyl/CDs. ... those are _different_ markets: - Streaming is about subscription to a right to listen to music passing by, attached to a specific set of account (with all the metrics that come with it). - Vinyl is about physical analog copies that you can transmit to someone across space and time and that are barely trackable. Edit: but indeed, huge markets crush small ones...
- marvindanig 6y ago
  Besides, what in the digital realm is not skeuomorphism to begin with? Every single item in the digital world down to a pixel (off of the `pt` points system) we see online is skeuomorphic inspiration off of something! Typesetting and the alphabet is skeuo off the typewriter systems/foundry, buttons––of course skeuomorphism, web-page and scrolling follow from pulp and physical scrolls, header, footer, body inspire off of letterheads. Anyone who claims 'skeuomorphism this, but !skeuomorphism that' is a digital noob and doesn't quite understand where the world has been and how it got here.
  - playpause 6y ago
    There is a difference between (1) being able to trace design inspiration back to something non-digital, and (2) skeumorphic design. The latter is more about making a nostalgic leap back to a specific pre-digital aesthetic, painstakingly hiding the interim steps. The difference may be subject to nuance and debate, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
- jp555 6y ago
  Only if by "lots" you mean "almost no one".
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > lots You're deluding yourself.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    Vinyl is cool again tho. I’m not “going back” because I never had it in the first place. It’s a collectible piece of art you can listen to!
- austhrow743 6y ago
  https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ Absolute dynamo of a medium.
  - j0057 6y ago
    Wow, that page is spectacularly broken on Chrome mobile: it disables zoom so that I can't see the whole graph, and if I view it using 'Desktop version' the page becomes unresponsive due to either too much Javascript, or due to CSS hacking.
- mdoms 6y ago
  A small number of very noisy folks.
bluthru 6y ago
>The cover flow clearly emulated flipping through a stack of records or CD books. It also cleverly makes albums take up a small amount of space while being identifiable. iPhone Safari tabs are similar.

amelius 6y ago

Meanwhile lots of folks are going back to vinyl.

echelon 6y ago
The two don't have to be mutually exclusive. You don't have to hate streaming to enjoy vinyl, and vice versa. I happen to enjoy both and treat them as different experiences. I'm fine if the expectations around digital change as long as it's still accessible.
- crocsarecool 6y ago
  I do the same thing! I find that with vinyl I’m more likely to listen to the whole album. With streaming, I’ll hear a song I like, remember another song, hop around all over the place.
- rory 6y ago
  This was (is?) the idea behind Paper & Plastick Records [0] in the MP3 heyday. The "paper" is a download code, and the "plastick" is a vinyl record along with it. Pretty fun concept IMO. [0] http://www.paperandplastick.com/ http://www.paperandplastick.com/
barnaclejive 6y ago
Not "lots". In terms the entire music consuming industry, "more than previously (which was nearly 0)" at best
- efsavage 6y ago
  Every music store I've been in lately has a larger vinyl section than CDs, so as far as physical media goes, it's a pretty big shift.
  - plorkyeran 6y ago
    That mostly reflects how much CD sales have plummeted.
    - cpeterso 6y ago
      Vinyl record sales in 2020 surpassed CDs for the first time since the 1980s: "Vinyl records accounted for $232.1 million of music sales in the first half of the year, compared to CDs, which brought in only $129.9 million. ... Since 2005, sales for vinyl have grown consecutively. In the first half of 2020, vinyl revenue was up 4%, while CD revenue was down 48%, according to the RIAA." https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/tech/vinyl-records-cd-sales-riaa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/13/tech/vinyl-records-cd-sales-r...
      - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        For reference, that same article mentions that streaming is a $4.8 billion market, so about 20x the size of the vinyl industry.
        Juliate 6y ago
        From a purely financial point of view, if that's all that matter, yes, you may compare streaming/vinyl/CDs. ... those are _different_ markets: - Streaming is about subscription to a right to listen to music passing by, attached to a specific set of account (with all the metrics that come with it). - Vinyl is about physical analog copies that you can transmit to someone across space and time and that are barely trackable. Edit: but indeed, huge markets crush small ones...
marvindanig 6y ago
Besides, what in the digital realm is not skeuomorphism to begin with? Every single item in the digital world down to a pixel (off of the `pt` points system) we see online is skeuomorphic inspiration off of something! Typesetting and the alphabet is skeuo off the typewriter systems/foundry, buttons––of course skeuomorphism, web-page and scrolling follow from pulp and physical scrolls, header, footer, body inspire off of letterheads. Anyone who claims 'skeuomorphism this, but !skeuomorphism that' is a digital noob and doesn't quite understand where the world has been and how it got here.
- playpause 6y ago
  There is a difference between (1) being able to trace design inspiration back to something non-digital, and (2) skeumorphic design. The latter is more about making a nostalgic leap back to a specific pre-digital aesthetic, painstakingly hiding the interim steps. The difference may be subject to nuance and debate, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
jp555 6y ago
Only if by "lots" you mean "almost no one".
chrisseaton 6y ago
> lots You're deluding yourself.
- Spivak 6y ago
  Vinyl is cool again tho. I’m not “going back” because I never had it in the first place. It’s a collectible piece of art you can listen to!
austhrow743 6y ago
https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales-database/ Absolute dynamo of a medium.
- j0057 6y ago
  Wow, that page is spectacularly broken on Chrome mobile: it disables zoom so that I can't see the whole graph, and if I view it using 'Desktop version' the page becomes unresponsive due to either too much Javascript, or due to CSS hacking.
mdoms 6y ago
A small number of very noisy folks.

bluthru 6y ago

>The cover flow clearly emulated flipping through a stack of records or CD books. It also cleverly makes albums take up a small amount of space while being identifiable. iPhone Safari tabs are similar.