We are in the era of the multi-converged super-gadget. Soon, all the smartest pockets will sport a silver-finish fetish object that combines telephone, music, camera, organiser, video, games, satellite navigation, bells and whistles, all crammed on to one do-anything device.
These objects, such as the feted palmOne Treo 650 phone-cum-whatever else, are the latest lust objects in the world of mobile gadgetry. Yet some would say that they represent the apotheosis of what design guru Donald A. Norman calls “feature-creep”. When will the average person actually use all these functions? And how long will it be before this 21st-century talisman, so desirable now, is an unfashionable piece of junk?
