Respondents to the RERC’s Survey of User Needs place "simple operation" among five most important features of wireless products. According to a recent article in Wired magazine, even feature-obsessed Japanese cell phone users are becoming overwhelmed by the complexity of their mobile phones. The article estimates that Japanese wireless customers use only 5% to 10% of the functions available:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/news/2008/06/japan_phones

How much of your wireless device’s features and functions do you think you use?

The issue of complexity in our mobile devices has become more pressing since the launch of the first iPhone and the subsequent rush by all handset designers to add more features and functionality to their "smart phone" devices.

Indeed, in a recent commentary article on CNetNews.com, Matt Rosoff argues that the iPod - that iconic device that relaunched Apple as a maker of portable electronic devices - is "already dead" in terms of being a platform for innovation.

Why is it dead? Because it is a single function device whose main functionality has become "just another application icon on the iPhone deck." Strong language, surely. But, it probably contains at least some truth. The question, as always, is the degree to which the consuming public will abandon single function devices - music, GPS, etc. - for complex, multifunction devices.

Read Rosoff's full commentary at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13526_3-10060747-27.html?tag=nl.e703