KISS

andyring writes "CNN has an interesting article about the increasing trend in electronics to add more and more features, less concise user manuals, and poor marketing, to products, which end up doing nothing more than increasing costs and frustrating users. As an example in the article, most people want cell phones that do one thing - make calls. Yet phones come with games, instant messaging, cameras, etc. You can't even buy a simple cell phone any more. Also cited, 25% of people think they own an HDTV, when the actual number is less than 10%. What can be done to make manufacturers get their heads into the real world?"

Comments

Camera phones are getting people fired!

[hacker]

Not only are these "gadgets" annoying and confusing, especially when you have to navigate 12 button presses of a phone just to get to the point where you can CALL someone, but the devices themselves, are getting people fired.

My girlfriend works at $BIG_PHARMACEUTICAL in CT, and they just sent out a memo last week that anyone, employee, contractor, visitor or otherwise, found carrying, using, or visibly displaying a PDA or cellphone with a camera attached or integrated, will be immediately terminated, no questions asked.

If you bring a visitor into work with you, or are eating lunch with a vendor who happens to have one of these, you will be immediately terminated.

Maybe these companies will get the message, that having a camera in a cellphone, while "cool for teens", does not make the phone more marketable to those people who actually pay their own cellphone bills (as opposed to the teens and pre-teens with phones, whose parents pay the bills for them).

Cameras on phones are a liability and a security risk, in many situations. The unemployment rate is high enough, let's not let these cellphone and handheld companies "bully" us into believing that we "need" these features. We don't.