Some. My experience has been that the diversity of instruments dwarfs that of electronics, with the possible exception of early Nokia phones. I bet this is largely driven by product lifecycle, as my saxophones are each over 10 years old and have been refurbished more than once. High-end professional instruments are often one-of-a-kind.
> The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features.
I agree, but again I think it's a problem of intent. Glassmaking was improved to make decorations, then storage vessels, then optics, then cookware and labware, then electronics. Meanwhile people have been making bone flutes and leather drums for longer than they've been able to write about it.
The intent to create musical instruments is a tiny fraction of the history of woodworking etc. If you’re looking at things that narrowly there’s nothing particularly interesting left about em.
With that mindset a hammer has a much longer and richer history than a Tuba and musical instruments are just a trivial edge case crated as little more than novelty items.
On the other hand if you bring in the skills required to craft precision objects and the culture required to support such endeavors then tablets are clearly more wondrous.
I'm not claiming all of woodworking as the history of musical instrument making, just that which was explicitly involved in the creation of musical instruments. We've been making musical instruments for a very long time. To your point though, I bet the history of hammers is even longer!
I think we're probably arguing semantics at this point. I totally agree that the amount of raw effort and technological progress that goes into tablet making dwarfs that which goes into an instrument.
Some. My experience has been that the diversity of instruments dwarfs that of electronics, with the possible exception of early Nokia phones. I bet this is largely driven by product lifecycle, as my saxophones are each over 10 years old and have been refurbished more than once. High-end professional instruments are often one-of-a-kind.
> The rich history of glassmaking is directly relevant to the iPad and provides some of its most valuable features.
I agree, but again I think it's a problem of intent. Glassmaking was improved to make decorations, then storage vessels, then optics, then cookware and labware, then electronics. Meanwhile people have been making bone flutes and leather drums for longer than they've been able to write about it.