[Technology Tuesday] The Cry of the Consumer For Fewer Features

Laptops would be so much easier for novices to use if they weren't developed to do so much!

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have a Blackberry Storm, and I love it — this little device can do so many things that I’m finding myself using my laptop less and less for routine tasks like checking email or goofing off on Facebook, and finding myself anchoring my laptop to a desk more frequently.

Aside from those two devices, I have a PSP that I’ve loaded custom firmware onto, giving me a dedicated entertainment platform that can play so many games that I really have no need for the vast array of video game equipment I have. That means that between three pieces of hardware, I can have more functions than I know what to do with — and every week, I’m finding a new and novel use for one of them.

In the tech industry, one of the big buzzwords over the last ten years has been “convergence” — the idea that as technology evolves, there’s going to be less of a need for multiple devices and that more and more emphasis will be placed on using a single device for all of our technological needs. Right now, it appears that that device is going to be the cellular phone, though it’s possible that once long-distance wi-fi towers are a standard, VOIP will replace cellular technology entirely. In another decade, wireless networking will probably be everywhere, at a price that puts today’s rates to shame. And we’ll all be using a small portable device to take advantage of it instead of the bulky notebook computers we lug around today.

But there’s a downside to technology — the tendency to add new features to products that are already doing a pretty good job. It’s not enough to put out a nice product and leave it alone anymore — every new model has to include some improvement over the past model, even if it doesn’t make sense. We’re rapidly approaching a time when the cry of the consumer is not going to be for more, but for less. And it could happen sooner than you’d think…
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