I had thought, by now, that Apple would have sued everyone using the word pod in the name of their products. Not so. Shopping at Whole Foods this afternoon, I spotted the Airpod, a high-tech air filter system that goes out of its way to look like an iPod, right down to placing the circular wheel filter at the bottom of the rectangular form.
It’s shameless appropriation of the form. Maybe it’s just bombastic enough for Apple to leave them alone? Click through for a picture of the packaging. It’s like a nano gone wrong.
Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete’s particular Apple avocations are both around design–interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!
2 responses to “Meet the Airpod (Yet Another Industry Copies the iPod)”
Everything about this makes me want to vomit.