SHCC WYSIWYG Article from December 2010

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This article was written by Don VanSyckel, the club president, as a part of "The President's Pen".  This article appeared in the December 2010 WYSIWYG newsletter.

Phones and Software, More Features is Not Always Better

by Don VanSyckel

Technology continues to leap ahead but has run into a plateau, in speed, and is mushrooming out, multiple processors. But I discussed this last month. The item seeing the technology surge today is the cell phone. I have a cell phone from my employer and they recently made a decision to move everyone's cell phone to one provider. Not a bad decision, I probably would have done the same; there must be advantages cost wise to more units on one vendor. But here's the problem, the phone I was switched to has more capabilities. What you think, Don has it mixed up?

Before I explain let me tell you about Microsoft Word, my favorite example. It a well known fact that most people don't use all the features of MS Word. I've heard different quotes citing different percentages but for discussion sake let me say that over 90% of the MS Word users use less than 10% of the features in MS Word. If Word had 12 features and I used those twelve feature they would be easy to find and use. The problem with MS Word is it has tens if not hundreds of features. The twelve I use are hiding in there somewhere. Then about the time I finally remember where the features are I use, along comes an 'upgrade' and everything is moved around, again.

Well, my new phone is analogous to MS Word, bloated with features that you don't need, don't want, and won't use. The only thing the new features do is make a lot of clutter which makes it harder to get to the features you need. Previously one button and I saw my call history. Now it's touch a button, scroll through a menu, touch a button, scroll through a menu, and finally touch another button. What a nuisance. New and bigger isn't synonymous with better.

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