In your opinion, what is the most well-designed physical consumer product, and why?
I’m wondering what people think is the best designed consumer product. I am thinking about something physical, and not a website or a software. If it is a category (like ‘bicycle’) instead of a specific product, even better.
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42 Answers
This ia an awfully broad question. It is comparing apples and oranges to compare a bicycle to a toy for example.
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Ivory® bath soap. It floats!
A computer. It allows us to access the Internet and is complicated.
The tire. It rolls. It’s simple.
I can’t think of anything better designed than the bottle opener, unless its a corkscrew, except of course you can’t use a bottle opener to do a corkscrews job which means that the person who combined both concepts really hit the spot.
For me, my cellphone! It allows me access to my email, instant messenger services, the internet, text messages, and phone calls. It’s basically the guaranteed way for me to be able to talk to my husband while he’s overseas (since I don’t always carry my laptop with me).
Compeed blister plasters. Put one of those on and I can keep hiking.
My vote would go for the original iPod. At the time hard drives in your computer were 20 Gigs. iPod had had five. It fit all my music on it. And it fit in my shirt pocket. Other Mp3 players used bigger hard drives. And fucked up everything else. They still do.
By far, its has to be the wheel. everything(virtually) operates on the round circle…..the wheel.
Think about that.
If the wheel had not been invented, we would be hitchhiking, instead of riding on four wheels. what could have taken its place?
The TiVo remote. It’s just so sleek and sexy.
Fender Stratocaster
Colt 1911
Blue jeans
The current tab aluminum can
Model-T Toyota pickup
@janbb, ever use a toilet that the natives use in Asia? You might change your mind.
I’ve always admired the design philosophy behind the Polaroid SX70 camera.
It was a Transformer before there were Transformers. How they got a true SLR camera to collapse like that is amazing.
The Photo Manipulations are incredible. A true favorite classic of any photo artist.
I carry one from time to time in the matched case which folds up right along with the camera as an external skin which never needs removing.
All this with no batteries. Each pack of film came with its own power system with just enough charge for that pack.
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I took one to my kids grade school and photographed the playground activities a few years back. All the kids ran over to see their picture on the back of the camera, but were shocked there was no LCD screen to preview the shots. Imagine their amazement when the photo spit right out and developed before their very eyes. They all walked away vowing to tell their parents about this new camera that didn’t need a computer to make pictures…
My butt thinks this is well designed. ;)
Hot tubs and memory foam.
My preferential way to die, a long soak and sinking into the memory foam.
Lights out! :-)
2nd Answer…...........toilet paper.
They ran out of Sears catalogues and corn cobs were tearing us a new one, so…............
Thank God for toilet paper.
@lillycoyote you can thank a Norwegian for the paperclip. lol….
three legged stool. shovel. (but NOT wheelbarrows!) corkscrews.
The NASA space pen. Bahaha—cause pencils in space just won’t do ; )
The upside down ketchup bottle.
Sliced bread!! You can use it straight out of the freezer
Suitcases with wheels on them!! Like… duh! How come it took us so long to figure that one out?
I’m going to change my vote. Ivory® bath soap is a good product—for the intended use—but it’s not very tasty.
Therefore, I change my vote to “the sandwich”. Think of it, a tasty and delicious meal included in an edible (and tasty enough in its own right) container, and with so many styles to choose from! Zounds! Could there even be a better invention?
Even the wheel can’t compare. Fire? Maybe, but it also fails the taste test. (And a sandwich can warm you up, too.)
@Cruiser I’m absolutely 100% with you on the portable french press. It’s great for traveling. I have one of these and I love it but it’s kind of clunky. I really want one like the one in your link. That one’s slick. It’s beautiful.
@lillycoyote I couldn’t believe it when I first used it and I love, it love, LOVE IT!!
I’m amazed with what they are managing to pack into a smartphone these days. A tool that pretty much does everything tucked into a box the size of my palm.
- a III-g, or M type Leica Camera
– any BMW. (1973, 3.0 is my fav)
-the orig Sony Walkman.
– Any Apple product.
just my 2 ¥
oh, and an Ames Lounger! :)
It’s this metal stapler that my Mom bought while in junior high school. Next time i visit her, I’ll look at what company made it. She still has it, and uses it every week. I used it myself, when I was a kid. If that stapler can last 55 years, why is it that modern staplers cannot even last 2 years?
Beer
In a can or bottle. Even out of a keg.
That’s it a keg of beer.
And a refrigerator.
And electricity, so the fridge works and keeps the beer cold.
Plus pretzels. . .
I’d have to say iPhone/iPod touch.
Sue me for liking them.
Buck 110
Maglite Tikka Petzl
Porsche 911 BMW M3
Honda XR500
Lagavulin 16
Digital TV is pretty cool and passes the time…. but Compeed and food in a tube rank higher, I think.
I love my iPod Touch too, and my iMac. And I certainly won’t sue you or anyone else for liking them. I bought Apple stock at $112 dollars a share and it’s now worth, as of today, $318 a share so love them as much as you like!
I can’t be too smug. I just makes up for the stock I have lost on. I had a little money and one day I bought shares of several stocks, at the beginning of the recession, when I thought the market couldn’t go any lower. The Apple stock was the only one I had really intended to buy but, on the advice of my “professional financial advisor” I bought some others. Oh, Bank of America should do pretty well? Yeah, that was some good advice, wasn’t it? :-)
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