USB flash drives were invented around 12 years ago. They soon became commonplace, so designers differentiate with creative designs. I have a drawer full of them and have picked out some that caught my eye.

I like the understated elegance of this Adobe stick.

though for elegance perhaps this Kingston is the winner. Paperclip included so you get the scale:

This Huawei stick pays homage to Rubik’s Cube:

This Google man is a favourite:

though for the full effect you have to plug him in:

The designer of this Asus stick plays on the fact that they are sometimes called USB keys:

This one from Supertooth is a fake music player or something:

Marley goes for the natural wood effect of course:

Finally a reminder of where we started. I am not sure of the date of this stick but I have not attended a Borland event for many years:

It has an LED that lights when plugged in. But the real shocker is the size, shown on the back along with a rather obscure warning:

Still, bearing in mind that a floppy disk was not normally bigger than 1.44MB, 16MB is not to be sniffed at.

I also suggest that the era of USB flash drives will soon pass. Apple does not support USB storage in iOS, other than to a limited extent for cameras, and just as CDs gave way to USB drives, the USB devices will be replaced by wireless transfer, either locally or via the internet. Some press releases now arrive with links to Dropbox folders. How sensible.