How much is enough?

Steve Ruble At Micro Persuasion touched on a subject near and dear to me...

This trip was unusual. For only the second time I left my laptop at home and traveled with just a smartphone (in my case an iPhone), a Verizon Mifi router and an 8gb Lacie Iamakey USB drive. Nevertheless, I was remarkably able to do just about everything I needed.

Steve gives a real-world example of 'How much is enough?' More importantly this example shows what the constituent elements of 'enough' are. We are finally seeing computing platforms that offer the applications and services that make them truly useful.

At the same time we are beginning to recognize the difference between what we were taught to want and what we really need. This distinction is of major importance. In previous times it was the limits technology (8088, 80286, Desktop PCs, Laptop PCs. et al). With the advent of current processor technology the device is sufficiently powerful to support every application we might want.

Now we are being liberated from the hulking behemoths not by the PC makers but by market forces that have demanded functionality in hand-held devices. With this freedom comes the understanding that an iPhone or Palm Pre will not do everything that a desktop system will. Rather our expectations are coming more inline with our needs instead of our 'wants and desires'.

Thr real freedom that we are enjoying is not the small form factor computational platform but rather a realistic assessment of our true needs.