Apple is making life difficult by heading up the simplicity movement. With the likes of the iPod and the MacBook Air, taking features away and making devices simpler is creating a society that now frets at complication.

Merge has a couple employees in their twenties who have no idea how to operate their desk phone. Checking voicemail requires they dial **#, a combination that is just not worth remembering. “Give me one button to push.” This comes from an employee who custom programs database applications.

Remember the day when you relished the fact that you could operate your parent’s VCR, but they had no clue? You were needed. We were marvels because we grew up with technology and we could figure out anything they threw at us.

But now things are changing. Good technology isn’t complicated, and the next generation is demanding no complexity. If it’s complex, they’re just refusing to use it. Like the phones here at Merge.

Will our kids not be able to set alarm clocks, use the microwave or set the thermosat? Will they wait until they can do such with a press of the button? That’s their prerogative, but they may freeze to death waiting.

Simplicity is in vogue. The #1 request we hear for a new web design is “clean and simple.” Simple is in vogue because it stands out from everything being so complex. However, once everything is simple, will we crave the complex? Will we wish the iPod had just one more feature? Will we want our MacBook Air to come with just one more USB port? Will the next generation say, “Give me more features than I can use, because I’m smart enough to figure it out”?