Yeah this is kind of an iPhone/iPod 3.0 software post. Sorry if you’re tired of it. We’re not doing a round up of cool features or anything like that so read on.

My experience with my iPod 3.0 update was less than satisfactory. 3 hours 2 reboots 1 complete restore and I was up to date. I played with it for the night plugged it in to charge and went to sleep. I woke up in the morning and tried to grab my iPod to do some email triage before work and crashy crashy is what I was met with. So another complete restore and resync is what I had to do to get the iPod working again.

Needless to say I was not super happy. I know this is totally a first world problem. I still had food, I still had a roof, and I probably threw out more food last night than lots of people have opportunity to eat in a day. But it got me thinking…

The Epiphany

This whole experience got me thinking about my 5th Gen iPod video. I don’t ever remember having to restore it. I used it while I was working construction and going to school for 8+ hours a day 5 days a week for 3 years. I dropped it 2 stories onto concrete (as it was spinning and playing). Not once in the time I used it did I have to do a restore.

Really, the big thought here is that all of the power and good stuff about the iPod Touch and iPhone (when was the last time to restored your basic flip cell phone?) breeds a whole lot of complexity. If something is more complex it’s way harder to keep running properly.

This transfers to our designs and information architecture on sites. The more ‘stuff’ we throw into the mix the more ‘stuff’ there is to break. Next time you want to add the cool new plugin to your blog or the boss wants to add just one more thing to the site really stop and evaluate if the added complexity is worth the time.

With great power comes great complexity. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).