Consumer platforms appear to be overly fond of antiquated controls despite advances in interface design. A design standard possibly dating to Egypt's pyramids dictates, 'Keep it simple, stupid' (KISS), but cell phone designers have ignored this principle. First-generation cell phones could be seen as calculators, with fixed keypads and small liquid-crystal displays. Newer phones have databases to store phone numbers and addresses, Web browsers, world clock maps, speed dialing, phone-answering services and online stores to download music or games. However, user interfaces are neither simple to manipulate nor intuitive. The keypad remains a touch-tone application, essentially a holdover from landline telephones. A second legacy from technology's past is a typewriter keyboard and display combination used in early computers. Flip up a cell phone cover and a tiny keyboard with a color LCD awaits, which is discouraging. Technological change has been frustrated by the inertial tendency to continue existing technology. Semiconductor lithography, for example, was headed for fatal limitations as early as 1995. Focused-ion and electron-bean systems offered considerable hope, but the real future lay in incremental adaptations of optical systems. Immersion lithography and phase-shift marks gradually overcame photon limitations. Product planners and engineers need to reexamine voice communications with an eye to the KISS rule.