Featurephobia...

Here's an hilarious article where a guy mercilessly digs into appliance manufacturers for adding internet enabled features.

YOUR BOSS: What are you doing?

YOU (tapping computer keyboard): I'm starting my dishwasher!

YOUR BOSS: That's the kind of productivity we need around here!

YOU: Now I'm flushing the upstairs toilet!

For the most part, I agree with him. I really don't see why anyone would want an appliance that does any of the things the authoer noted. Recently, a friend of mine bought a refrigerator. Pretty much the biggest, baddest, most featureladen refrigerator that he could fit into his house. He's just that kinda guy. But he still didn't get the internet features.

The thing is, the author of the article then brought up remote controls, and how he's got 3 of them just to turn on the TV, each of which had more buttons than he knew what to do with. So I thought of Google and Apple. As great as some technology may be, the interface may be the most important part. Especially since manufacturers just seem to keep piling it on.

The success of Google had a lot to do with the strength of their search engine, but I'm sure the utilitarian interface had something to do with it, too. I hope more companies invest more heavily into developing their interfaces. I think it makes all the difference in the world.