How many gadgets do you need?

For years now, maybe even decades, tech journalism has been haunted by the term ‘convergence’. The idea is that individual devices keep gaining more and more functions until we have one gadget that meets all our technological needs.

We’re now half-way there, but the second half of the journey is proving much more difficult, as illustrated by a colleague’s desk (photo above). There’s no shortage of multi-function devices, but for reasons of convenience, style, personal preference, portability or the divergent requirements of home and office, we tend to cling on to several gadgets that do the same things.

The (unstaged) image above shows a computer, a landline phone, a mobile phone, a Blackberry and an iPod Touch, all within 30cm of each other. Between them, they provide:

-four ways of getting online
-four ways of storing and playing music
-four ways of storing contact details
-four personal organisers
-three ways of watching video clips
-three ways of sending e-mails
-three ways of making phone calls
-two ways of sending text messages
-two ways of holding an instant-messaging conversation and
-two ways of taking photos.

Comments

[Laurence]

The problem with convergence can be summed up like this: -

Jack of all Trades, Master of None.

Until they can excel in ALL areas, we will always need multiple devices.

[Sir Daniel]

get an iphone

[Mark Rejhon]

Four ways of holding instant messaging conversations.

The iPod Touch still has access to AppStore, while BlackBerry has good instant messaging software. All cellphones 2 years and newer can get third party instant messaging software installed on them. And obviously, the computer too.

[Nobby Clark]

Get a life?