Sony’s iconic Walkman music players symbolize a bygone era when portable music players were completely separate from phones and other smart devices, and are considered one of the company’s most successful innovations. Therefore, it has revived them again through a special edition that costs close to $6,000 in a gold-plated casing.
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The updates in the new version of the Walkman are not limited to the gold-plated cover, but Sony has added another set of improvements that make it keep up with the times, including relying on the Android 16 system to run the phone, as well as adding a touch screen.
The new devices also support Bluetooth technology, which was not present in the original versions, allowing users to take advantage of it with the wireless headphones that have recently become popular.
Sony also offered a standard version of the phone without the gold casing, with 64GB of internal storage, costing up to $1,900, with a larger version of up to 128GB available for $3,000.
An independent developer has managed to bring the unique "Walkman" experience to Samsung's flagship phones by developing a special application called "Foldman" that makes the device's interface mimic old music players.
The next step for the app developer is to add support for music streaming apps such as YouTube Music and Spotify, which have seen a significant increase in user reliance recently. However, the app remains an independent project by a developer and is not available on official app stores.
47 years of playing music
Sony introduced the first versions of the famous Walkman devices in 1979, so the device is now about 47 years old. At the time, the device was revolutionary because of its ability to play music tapes directly in a portable way and connect to wired headphones.
During these years, Sony has introduced a large number of popular "Walkman" models that have many features and improvements, including adding a screen to the device and offering special versions of it, the latest of which was in January 2023, before the release of the gold version this year.
The company also previously released several mobile phones bearing the same name and offering superior sound quality compared to traditional phones, in the period before the spread of smartphones.
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