Gadgets, Gadgets Everywhere... But How Much Is Overlap?

from the can't-get-away dept

Mon, Aug 1st 2005 12:36am — Mike Masnick

In a series of articles that must warm the hearts of the consumer electronics industry, the Washington Post is showing just how gadgets are taking over so much of our lives, from the family vacation to the busy executive's day. On the whole, that isn't all that new or surprising. We've all seen articles (or... um... experienced something quite similar) before. However, what seemed most interesting about the article was how much overlap there was with the gadgets. For the article about the business traveler, he has a laptop, a PDA, a blackberry and a mobile phone. You would think that he'd have figured out how to combine a few of those features by now.

2 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

to love TV you should be very standard, 1 Aug 2005 @ 12:36am

standard, tremendous, standard nothing comparative
Hey! I liked your site very much! lazy, greedy, central nothing comparative to profound
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Yehuda Berlinger, 1 Aug 2005 @ 1:44am

Not necessarily
Re: combining gadgets.
Short: not necessarily.
This same family going on vacation might take: a few small water bottles, some large water bottles, some ice packs in the cooler, a suction pump for drawing water, pots for cooking water, etc...
We don't combine these functions because, while essentially what we want is water, each one is designed for its function in relation to the water, with a simple user interface, quick startup, good quality, low error rate.
As Scotty said in Star Trek III (paraphrasing), the more features you throw in, the easier it is to gum up the works.
Each of the accessories you mention give better functionality for some tasks, rather than others.
It's true that more accessories means more chance of failure. However, it also prevents a single point of failure for all access.
Yehuda
[ link to this | view in chronology ]