When my mom first got a microwave oven in the 1980s the UI I was aware of was being able to set a time and a power level.
Eventually microwaves got buttons to do specific tasks like "cook a potato", "cook frozen vegetables", etc. The strangest one is that many have a "microwave popcorn" button that bagged microwave popcorn says not to use on the package.
My feeling for a while was that this was all stupid, "I already know how to cook a potato" -- that this was a nightmare bicycle.
Turns out that those features work really well, the microwave has a gas sensor that can figure out how to cook a potato better than you can most of the time, in fact the best ones have a microphone which can tell the pops are a second or so apart and it's time to stop. I don't know how many people, like myself, think it is a lot of marketing bullshit, even though it's really an improvement.
I think this is different then what the article is talking about. It isn't against adding actual features. But in many devices (most microwaves, air fryers, the Ninja Creami) they are just presets. And sometimes you can't even manually set the time/power. You are likely to have a microwave with a steam sensor. They are quite rare unfortunately.
Eventually microwaves got buttons to do specific tasks like "cook a potato", "cook frozen vegetables", etc. The strangest one is that many have a "microwave popcorn" button that bagged microwave popcorn says not to use on the package.
My feeling for a while was that this was all stupid, "I already know how to cook a potato" -- that this was a nightmare bicycle.
Turns out that those features work really well, the microwave has a gas sensor that can figure out how to cook a potato better than you can most of the time, in fact the best ones have a microphone which can tell the pops are a second or so apart and it's time to stop. I don't know how many people, like myself, think it is a lot of marketing bullshit, even though it's really an improvement.