What to choose when buying a product

When I was very young, I was confronted with such a problem. At that time grandma asked me: "After the husband to find a how ah?" My answer to now all remember:find three, a money, a home to do housework, one to play with me. ”

Now, however, this childlike choice has been killed alive. Not the same, we will face a similar question is: To buy a MP3, function machine plus a card machine, or directly buy a smartphone to come?

Most of them choose the latter. Loaded with a variety of applications, mobile phones can achieve a variety of functions, in addition to taking photos, but also as a flashlight, play games, watch video and so on. More importantly, it can use the Internet, use social networks, and quickly share. Think of picking up a SLR, took a good picture, want to share immediately to friends but need to find a PC, insert SD card, change size, networking, in order to share.

The New York Times has also invited two people in the industry to express their views on this issue. Gregor Berkowitz, a consultant from San Francisco, argues that for most consumers, multifunctional devices are more meaningful than a single functional product.

In Gregor's view, the APP-based device can be said to be the Swiss Army knife of our time, including devices such as smartphones, tablets, notebooks, set-top boxes, game consoles, and even TVs, whose functionality and user experience evolve, as opposed to a single functional product. The developers ' quest for simplicity and consistency ensures that the application is close to the system style, allowing users to get started quickly without training.

But the production of a single functional product is not so understanding of products, such as SLR, users have to spend a long time to learn, even if it is a washing machine, you need to find out what each button means.

Gregor that in the near future, the boundaries between multi-function and a single functional device will become increasingly blurred, as a single feature product will also add more technology elements to connect an application based device to achieve a better user experience.

However, Dan Saffer, an interactive design director from Smart Designs, believes that a single functional product can still be irreplaceable. Application is indeed the future of the inevitable, but the application is not all, some things only a single function products can do the best, and some functions are multi-functional equipment can not do.

He thinks your smartphone computing power may be strong, but it doesn't wash the dishes, doesn't apply, and never will. You don't see professional photographers using Android phones to take wedding photos, and professional-level cameras can't be included in your phone. This is not just a professional problem, want to enjoy the music, you can not rely on the phone to the speaker alone, but rely on peripherals, such as Jambox.

Dan believes that when a consumer buys a single functional product, his expectation is that it will be available after unpacking, rather than expecting a developer to write a great application for it two years later. At the same time, multi-functional equipment manufacturers are rarely willing to invest heavily to maximize the development of the various functions. Because it may cause the phone to overheat or consume too much, or increase the weight.

You may spend 1.99 dollars on an app, but don't forget it's based on your 50 dollar contract price per month. If you don't have the money to buy an application, it's not very useful. And it feels better to have a 10 dollar physical alarm clock than the apps you can't get.

Such a question is difficult to come to conclusions, so ... Nokia, Come on!