Is enough really enough?
Which leads to the point of all this. When exactly as consumers do we say enough is enough. Looking at Apple’s recent foray into the cell phone market with the iPhone and the announcement that they are going to start trying to tackle the hand held market via downloadable games for the iPhone, when as consumers do we say, “Hey you know I’d kinda like a product that does one thing really well vs. a jack of all trades, but master of none.”
Don’t get me wrong, having other options with you devices functionability is not a bad thing. It’s always good to have options! But when you get one company that strikes gold with some sort of innovation, you get a million others that copy cat. And then in turn until there is some sort of universal or tried and true method, most products end up being hit or miss and we as consumers get duped into buying them because they promise to deliver or build on what’s already established, and/or offer their own natural progression.
While as consumers the phrase “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” holds true at our every purchasing decision, I wonder what will be the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back? Will companies realize that in some instances they are blowing tons of resources trying to piggy back off technology and products that are in vogue, just to try and keep up with the standards? Or will we continue to eat up every new and not so improved product that could potentially just end up as dead space in storage depending on how the technological development wind blows?
Personally I’m almost at my wits end with a pocket calulator that doubles as a web browser, then checks your heart rate, that you can watch 3D movies on, while playing World of Warcraft, and getting directions via its GPS, as you make dinner reservations, while observing the weather conditions in Jamaica. I mean I don’t mind the options, but what if that pocket calculator just had focused on being a calculator? Not only would I have saved a couple pennies on the dollar, but it wouldn’t at times be so underwhelming to feel that I’m not getting my money’s worth because I’m not taking advantage of the product’s full features.
And there-in is where the monster dwells. I currently own a Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, iPhone, third generation iPod, and iBook G4. I got rid of my PSP a couple months ago because I wasn’t a big fan of the hombrew scene, never watched a UMD movie on the thing, and outside of the first month that I owned it, never touched any of the other features. My DS is strictly for gaming, I’ve never touched any of the other features, nor do I have a desire to. I’ve never rented a movie from Xbox LIVE (although I’ve been tempted), just purged my hard drive of music that I ripped to the system when I first got it and mainly use it to play games. The only feature on the Wii that use is the Opera browser at times, but nowhere near as regular as my laptop. On my laptop I listen to music, watch movies on long trips, and that’s about it.
So are we as consumers doomed to forever be sold the all-in-one, do-it-all product? Or will ther eventually be a more centralized focus on media projects? It beats me, but one thing is sure, no matter what happens, we’ll always be connected.
