All this spooky music and the design that looks like it came from a version of The Matrix done by some emo high school kid who’s going through his steampunk phase — do people find this enticing? Persuasive? If so, who are these people? And can we find a way to keep them as far away from the rest of us as possible?

The photo here, for example, is a screen shot I snapped after clicking on an ad and time-traveling to this page. Click on it, if you dare, and then just listen to the awful soundtrack — I can’t call it “music” — and tell me if this is a product you want to buy. But then there’s the visual nightmare. Black background, way too many graphic elements, way way way too many words, and I guess the idea is, like, this amazing machine just fell down from outer space, or time-traveled back from the future, and it can do a zillion different things and so to make that point we’re going to overwhelm you with this confusing graphic about all the things it can do. The immediate impression that any normal human being gets is that this thing is gonna be way too complicated and scary and they’ll never be able to figure out how to use it.

Just for comparison, go here to the iPhone page. That’s still too crowded for my taste. But what does it tell you? Hey, there’s lots of white space. This thing is easy. It’s simple. Oh look. There’s a video of some kids playing in a backyard. Happy. Right? And there’s a nice little guy there who will give you a video tour. He’s not some weird cybernaut terminator dude from outer space. He’s just a friendly guy who lives down the street, and he’ll show you how to use your phone.

The Droidtards were on to something when they had that cute little green R2D2 mascot. Like, hey, it’s just a friendly little tech helper who will make your life easier. Well, the great thing about companies like Google and Motorola and Verizon is that you can almost always count on them to mess up their own great ideas. Much love, Droid marketeers. Keep the great work coming.