Quoted: Catching up with the Flip, one of the most popular electronics products of the last year.
(...)
So why, exactly, does a machine that does so little earn so much love from the people who buy it?

Funny story: years ago, Jeff Hawkins, founder of Palm, decided to develop the Graffiti handwriting-recognition alphabet for the original touch-screen Pilot. Since no technology can recognize everyone's handwriting, he reasoned, he'd design a special block-letter alphabet that gives you 100 percent accuracy -- if you form your letters his way.

His employees thought it was a terrible idea. Make customers relearn the alphabet?

But Hawkins, a brain scientist, knew something about people: if you're successful at something the first time you try, you fall instantly in love with it. And sure enough: people fell in love the first time they wrote on a Pilot with the special alphabet and saw their letters turn into perfectly typed text.

That's how it is with devices like the Flip. They're so simple, mastery is immediate, and so is your sense of pride and happiness.