Retro Product Styling

I'm not sure if this is a movement or just a blip on the map, but a couple of consumer electronic companies have both independently come to style their products with an 80’s interface aesthetic. Even more coincidental is that both are combo electronic products that are trying to create a new mp3 player niche for themselves.

This first product is the Olympus camera/mp3 player.

The second product is a cell phone/mp3 player

What I cannot understand is why these designers have made the assumption that consumers want their high end electronics to be retro. There does not appear any anecdotal support for such a brash design assumption. There is a fixation with retro design in graphics and apparel, but it is generally implemented in a borrowed fashion where the retro elements are juxtaposed in a more modern context creating something new all together. These retro elements in electronics simply make the product look cheap and seem to be an older product dressed up to seem new. Jonathan Ive and the Apple team seemed to understand very well when they were designing the Ipod that the important aspects of introducing a product into a new market where interface standards are not yet set that the interaction should seem new (not complicated though) and resonate with the user's fingertips so they want to touch it and use it. They want easy to use while not feeling limited. The retro aesthetic simply makes the product seem to have limited functionality. I cannot help but give these product's styling features a thumbs down.