The slightly longer version would go something like: I like Nokia phones, I like the Symbian stuff. And I’ve never owned a Nokia that wouldn’t selfdestruct, slowly but steadily within about a year. They’re fine for the first few weeks, then they spin into their suicide cycle: Everything starts to slow down, using the camera takes ages, sending text messages starts to be a pain etc. etc. Random shutdown, auto-assigned random profiles, general instability. So I start not trusting my phone.

And every time I buy a new one, I think to myself that this is the biggest, most expensive phone I’ve ever had. And every time, I feel liked I’m being held beta-hostage at gunpoint.

You wan’t a feature-packed phone? Then pay up and accept that you only get some of them, not at the same time — and you can’t choose what and when yourself. Oh, and the basic phone features probably won’t work.

So I decided to accept that doing a software upgrade would destroy whatever I had on the phone, yadi-yadi-da and connected to the required PC. But as XP is a useless piece of where’s-my-driver crap, of course the Nokia software and/or XP suddenly encountered cable connection trouble halfway. Rendering my phone useless. Which I had been warned could happen if I myself did soemthing stupid along the way. But which of course also is the case if, say, Nokia decide to use, say, Windows XP as their preferred way of repairing (no, not ‘upgrading’ — _repairing_) their products on my time.

Which is more or less like trying to fix a broken turd with vomit and forcing me to watch for an hour…

Instead of looking at the whole picture and settle on a distinct style, they are all over the place, adding bits and pieces they hope will improve their expression. The ‘more is better’-crowd. I bet you’ve seen them around. Usually they are more than willing to include you in the process of deciding what to do.

Compare that with unfocused applications with lots of features. Highligts and bling bling — featuritis … is about insecurity. In the hope that someone will like them, they try to have a little something for everybody — and leave no area empty. Fear of whitespace, fear of focus.

So next time you see a web app standing in a bar looking nervous all pimped up, resist the urge to have a quick shag. Go for the hot one standing to the side, with a relaxed look and an eye for combination and color. Your future you will thank you.