Convergence
Now I’m sure some clever person at Tefal thought that idea of being able to poach eggs to the same size as muffin on your toaster would be a huge boon for people in bedsits. And this strange device also heats ready meals somewhere. What more could more could someone stuck in a lonely, featureless room want for cooking?
Like all gadgets, of course, this will be bought and given to those setting out on life’s great adventure, used once, and put back in the box and stuffed away somewhere. Or it might live on as a good old plain toaster.
I think this is a good parable for many convergent systems - just because you can put them into one box, it doesn’t mean that you should. Strikes me that what the target audience here would really want is a toaster and a microwave, but of course they don’t really fit into one box.
So while the gentleman I met on a train into London recently might worry that the radiation from a phone is enough to poach an egg, this should be a warning to those adding more and more bells and whistles to handsets.
