The AI fever dream of the “Pony” portable music player

What would a collaboration between renowned Swedish design powerhouse Teenage Engineering and Sony look like? 
Designer Evgeniy Vakulich tried to imagine an answer to the improbable question, starting with an AI-generated inspiration image by mobilitylabs-ai, and falling into a rabbit hole of very detail Blender renderings. 

The concept created by Vakulich is a new generation music player that would entice audiophiles with deep pockets, you know, those who would also fork out a hefty €1499 for a Teenage Engineer TP-7 voice recorder. 

The concept is hard to describe, as it packs knobs and controls that don’t seem to have any particular use other than summoning the famed TE aesthetic.  The black and white touch display, though, is particularly refined, with an interface that reminds of an old-school monospaced command line. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Teenage Engineering pulling off a stunt just like this one. Despite its unclear use or nature as a music device, this “Pony Player” is nonetheless a fun design experiment and an involuntarily satirical commentary on the ubiquity of the toy-chic design aesthetics popularized by Teenage Engineering.