Feature Creep

I want you to think back, way back, to thirty years ago. It's the mid-70s, and you have just bought yourself a brand-spanking-new tape recorder. That's right. A cassette tape.

Not a portable one. One that plugs into a wall.

If you look at this portable tape recorder, you'd see only a handful of buttons. Five, in fact. Stop. Play. Rewind. Fast Forward. Record. There might be one other knob to adjust the volume, and a slot to add a microphone. Unless of course, you had one of those fance setups that had a built-in microphone (I know! It's so hard to prevent yourself from gasping at this technical marvel).

I dare say that the tape recorder hadn't changed much in twenty years or more. Consumer electronics manufacturers, if you could call it that, in those days, didn't think there was a great need to add more functionality. What more could you possibly want? Super fast forward? I mean, there was simply nothing more to add, right?

And think about it. The basics of what we now call "user interface" didn't change for years, decades even.

These days, of course, consumer electronics companies can't help but add a new button, a new feature, new, new, new. Their thinking is simple. If they don't add a new feature, who's going to buy the latest gizmos?

But how could this industry, which was so loathe to change, now want to change features every year? Part of the trend must have resulted from customers who buy these goods. There's a claim that the younger generation are smarter than the older one. Television plots are increasingly more complex (compare the current version of Battlestar Galactica to the one from the late 70s). Teens now play video games as a major source of entertainment.

Back when video games were first coming out, advocates claimed that playing video games would increase hand-eye coordination, and that this would be a positive benefit. Critics argued that we weren't training kids to be fighter pilots, and thus, such games were useless beyond their capacity at games.

However, there are plenty of video games that give users very little clue as to what they are supposed to do. Occasionally, figures come out to give you advice in case you get particularly stuck. The point is that these games teach kids to reason with fewer clues than usual. With kids now using TV and movie references (quotes from Simpsons, The Family Guy, Seinfeld, etc. now abound) to be sly and humorous at the same time, there's an increasing sophistication (though perhaps not book smarts) to today's younger crowd.

The skill to deal with the unknown has pushed its way to electronic goods. There are plenty of bright people, folks with post-undergraduate degrees, folks with Ph.Ds, folks who are just plain smart (say, Tony Kornheiser), who can't stand new technology. Kornheiser, of all people, should appreciate the new, because sports is all about the new. But it's easy stuff. Sportscenter highlights all the stuff of importance, and sports commentators like Kornheiser simply have to offer opinions. He doesn't have to go to some special website or blog to find unusual information. He can do something that's simple for him to do (gather sports information) to do the hard stuff he does (make humorous entertainment out of it all).

I was just talking to someone of the twenty something set, and he said "the vast majority of people want to play with new things". Maybe the vast majority of people he knows. I'm old school. I don't like to learn new things, but I'm constantly forced to do so.

I should take that back. I don't like to constantly learn new arbitrary things. I don't want buttons to move around, menu choices to change. I don't want a paradigm shift. Most of these decisions are really, completely arbitrary, made to be "different", and thus adding to the general confusion of consumers who just want things simple and unchanging.

But, it looks like I'm not the face of the new generation. The new generation wants all this stuff.

Now, I have to be fair, because my friend's a smart guy, and he likely has friends that are smart as well, and so, it's possible that he happens to hang around folks that are peculiarly blessed (or cursed) with the pursuit of the next bright shiny thing (TM), and have the patience, and the mental makeup to deal with newness and embrace it lovingly.

I'm a disgruntled old so-and-so, and so I have to resort to silly things like buying books on IPod and ITunes. By the way, I really have to give props to the Missing Manual dudes for writing such a great book on IPod and ITunes.

And, in fact, let me address those who would scoff at my desire to obtain such a book. Those who would say "Why do you need a book to deal with something so simple, so easy, as an Apple product?". I will then turn you to this book, and note its thickness. It is several hundred pages long.

I would also implore you to think about how long a manual would be for the lowly tape recorder. In case you need some help, let me get you started.

Ladies and gentleman. Welcome to the latest generation of the TruRecord Tape Recorder, a technical marvel of no equal. To operate this recorder, you need to plug the recorder into a working outlet. Then, obtain yourself a cassette. Insert the cassette into the recorder as follows.

Now, we wish to record. At the same time, press the record button and play button. Both will stay down, if you have done things correctly. Say "hello, hello" and then repeat the declaration of independence. Once done, press the stop button. The two buttons you just pressed will now pop up, and you have stopped recording.

To listen to your spectacular piece of oration, press the rewind button, back to the beginning. If the tape did not move in this time, you put the cassette in on the wrong side, and must flip it 180 degrees and insert, and try again. If you have done it correctly, and the rewind button did not pop up when it stopped at the beginning of the tape, then press the stop button.

Press play button to listen (but do not press the record button, lest you start recording again). You will hear a hissy version of the Declaration, but it should sound like you. Once you are done listening, press Stop.

The cassette can be recorded many times, for up to half the time on the cassette. Should you have a 60 minute cassette, each side can record 30 minutes.

Thank you for your attention. The directions for this recorder, or any other, made by any other manufacturer, will work almost identically.

And see if you can do the same thing with your little Apple doodad, which, yes, can do much, much more, at the expense of learning much, much more.

In order to survive the America of tomorrow, you must put away this prejudice of yesterday which says that the knowledge you have is worth keeping, because someone else will come up with some silly idea, and convince you that more button pressing, more menus, more choices is what you really, really want.

(Strains of Spice Girls Wannabe play).