Are Mobile Devices Getting Too Complex

Filed under: Cell Phones, Visionaries

Last year, Martin Cooper, the man credited with inventing the cell phone at Motorola in 1973, made headlines when he complained at a Boston conference that the iPhone was too complex. Further cementing his reputation as a curmudgeon, Cooper told a gathering in Madrid this week pretty much the same thing — that modern cell phones are too feature-packed to be useful. “Whenever you create a universal device that does all things for all people, it does not do any things well,” he told the crowd.

Now, our knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss Cooper as a crotchety, out-of-touch coot when he stated, “[Our] future… is a number of specialist devices that focus on one thing.” Clearly, the trend in technology has been convergence — cramming more and more capabilities into fewer, smaller gadgets. Many of us at the Switched offices lug around smartphones that can snap photos, record video, play games, browse the World wide web, get directions via GPS, play music and video, and make calls. Yet a quick survey revealed that most of us own, and still use, dedicated iPods and GPS devices, as well. And no one would even contemplate ditching a personal to rely purely on a smartphone for Web access.

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Are Mobile Devices Getting Too Complex originally appeared on Switched on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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