Interesting little device I saw today (that am not affiliated with), which sits on the cusp of mobile, healthcare / wellness and data-as-a-consumer-service trend, and does it as a combined device+service, rather than just an app:  Fitbit. It has an inbuilt accelerometer to measure your steps, or your sleep patterns, and spits it out to a dedicated web service to track your progress.

The CPU, tech features and storage are no doubt fairly trivial - most smart phones wouldn't get out of bed for that (and a bunch already do similar things), but Fitbit are betting on simplicity. This removes many of the intimidating tech obstacles that put most people off ever trying to push their mobile limits  - downloading apps, navigating a UI and syncing with a computer /  web service.

Single use devices win on simplicity, but have a big downside: they make up for the lack of redundancy at the software level with wasted packaging. I hope they minimize this, making the charger compatible with other home electronics for example. More electronics enviro-waste is a big turn off for these gadgets.

Waste aside, these focused devices are here to stay. I don't see Nokia's decision to go for free navigation as necessarily being the end for TomTom and Garmin, or that the iPad will necessarily blitz Kindle. Single use devices (can) do one thing very well, rather than lots of things passably. If enough people care about that difference, both the focused device and the swiss army knives will continue to co-exist.