Gap or Bloat?

I read a post over on TechCrunch last week about bloatware, ostensibly about carrier software bundled with base Android.

An interesting example provided to illustrate the overall point was the lack of a “Set image as wallpaper” option in Chrome and its open source sibling Chromium, and the outcry for that feature, which has its roots in early IE versions.

Photo by markhillary from Flickr used under Creative Commons

Short version: Google has not built the feature, and the Chromium project leads won’t build it either. Ensure angry commenting.

The comment thread on the original issue is a hilarious read, bordering on hyperbole, including stuff like, “Every single browser since the beginning of time has had a convenient ‘set as wallpaper’ feature built in” which is just plain funny, intentionally or not.

Reading the thread makes me wonder why these geeks are so invested in such a trivial feature with Microsoft roots.

Anyway, for whatever reason, the lack of this feature is perceived as gap, not as feature bloat, although perfect reasonable methods for accomplishing the same functionality are available.

Well today, someone filled the gap with an extension, at least for Windows users. although the rest of us can soon enjoy this mind-numbingly insignificant feature.

My opinion doesn’t really matter, but having been in this exact spot many times before on both sides of the equation, I can relate.

This is great example of why software isn’t simple and why simplicity is virtually impossible to achieve and sustain.

And this is gap, not a removed feature. Imagine the rising tide of angry comments if they had lost a feature from earlier releases with no way to return to the older version.

Thoughts on this feature, its in/significance, design and PM in general, how to judge gap vs. bloat?

Find the comments.