Nearly two months ago, we reported on Sony renaming the Walkman app on their mobile fleet to Music. As expected, while some fans shrugged and only hoped that improvements would come to the app alongside the name change, others were more up in arms about it as Walkman has a certain nostalgic factor among Sony fans. Since that time, Sony has had an aggressive rollout of Android 5.0 Lollipop and even launched two new devices, the Xperia Z4 Tablet and Xperia M4 Aqua, both shipping with the new Music app.

Now, Sony has finally explained the reasoning behind the shift in their app naming.

According to Sony, the shift from Walkman to Music was a simple one.

 The Walkman app is changing its name to Music – because that’s what it is all about 

They went on

 Not all people make the connection that Walkman is about music. So, to simplify for all our users, we are changing the name to make it easy to understand what this app gives you: Music. 

During the initial reveal of the name change, I wrote

 Ask any 15 year old what Walkman is and they probably haven’t a clue. As such, Sony is retiring the branding in favor of something more obvious like Music with all the same functionality as before. Before you get your pitchforks out, remember that another certain iconic company did that not too long ago. 

It seems that my reasoning wasn’t far off. With Music, Sony can be clear on what the app does while also not plastering the name Walkman on anything and everything. Apple did the same exact thing in 2011 when the iPod app on iOS was renamed to Music. Arguably iPod with today’s generation is far more powerful and recognizable than Walkman and yet Apple chose to drop the name for something more straightforward.

Now, Apple is clear when talking about iPod which is purely hardware, much like Sony who just recently introduced a new premium Walkman. All Sony devices upgraded to Android 5.0 Lollipop will have the Walkman app renamed to Music.

Discuss:

Are you still sad to see the Walkman name dropped from the Xperia apps?