As far back as 1992 Homer accidentally predicted the trend for converged devices when he warned his inventor brother that "people are afraid of new things".

"You should have just taken an existing product and put a clock on it, " he said.

It may be slightly unfair to compare Apple's phone/iPod combination to a paperweight with a digital clock but there was wisdom in Homer's luddite rambling. The two-in-one trend is sweeping the consumer electronics and home entertainment industry. Witness the jump in Apple's share price when it announced full details of the iPhone last week and the corresponding decrease in the shares of Nokia, Samsung and other phone makers.

The market is betting that consumers will ditch their separate MP3 players and phones for a device that fulfills both functions. Apple's competitors, meanwhile, will argue that existing devices, such as SonyEricsson's Walkman range and Nokia's N-Series do just that.

Elsewhere Microsoft is hoping to continue its push to establish the Xbox as the ultimate home entertainment solution: It's part games console, part DVD player and part internet terminal opening up a world of music, video and entertainment through your humble TV. Yet Sony and Nintendo have their own competing products aiming at the same corner of the living room.

On the other hand, why invest in all that hardware when network operators such as Sky are forging ahead into broadband internet and offering their own all-in-one entertainment and internet solutions?