The Era Of Simpler Gadgets?

Damon Darlin of the New York Times wrote an interesting article entitled, The Year of the Simpler Gadget.  The article highlights such gadgets as the Flip Camcorder, Wii, Apple iPhone, and others.

I strongly believe that we are on a path to build more simplification into our lives.  My previous post was about simple applications.  There will be a new era of simpler gadgets.  Apple has certainly led the way with novel product design combined with software that works extremely well together.  I remember years ago before the concept of plug-and-play had become commonplace playing around with different components, configuring different networking stacks (the world didn't used to be all TCP/IP-based), etc so that you could connect disparate devices as well as to connect to file servers computers. 

On a personal note, one of my favorite gifts in recent years was a Tivoli Sirius Radio.  Primarily because it caputres a vintage style and the engineering is just darn easy.   You plug it in and it basically works right away.  Basically like plugging in any radio. 

I think we're all going to see a slew of cheaper, more simplistic devices that optimize experience over configuratability.  We simply don't have enough hours to mess with the multitude of tiny devices that enter into our lives.  Last time that I checked, technology is supposed to improve our productivity.