Windows Phone Thoughts: Mobile Design: Less is more?

"Mobiles are getting increasingly powerful in terms of processing power, and graphics technology. They are also turning into storage devices in their own right. But the mobile phone industry is in danger of confusing people in its quest to pack everything into handsets. . . . "So first we had the WAP fiasco. We had phones are hot, cameras are hot, phones plus cameras are hotter, and that went nowhere. "And guess what? We're doing it all over again with iTunes. . . .What the industry should be coming up with are more innovative ways to get at these functions, thinks Mr Jenson, in ways that understand the kinds of experiences people want. It is about simplicity through design."

The key to this BBC article is philosophical point that UI design is about removing usability obstacles for users and that mobile devices should have 'invisible design'. We may not yet have the perfect Pocket PC User Interface, but we've come on in leaps and bounds from where we were. We've heard about the elegance of simplicity before, but is the pace of improvements fast enough or too fast in your opinions? Do you worry about your devices incorrectly second guessing what you are trying to do? Imagine Clippy on the Pocket PC: "You look like you're trying to Activesync. Do you want help with that?"! :crazyeyes: I like my devices to be 'smart enough'. How about you?