It is astonishing that they'd admit it, but this is entirely true. Entirely.
The only thing I'd change is that their phone is also a beta test. All high tech products are a beta test. The product planners go by the mantra "go ugly early" - get to market and let your users tell you what to change. So it's never ready for Prime Time, by definition.
Love the amish guys, though.
That's our "damned if you do, damned if you don't" curse. If you do anything new, you need a beta test period. The only way to avoid it is to keep shipping the same old stuff. But the fickle public doesn't want that, they want new! New! NEW!
ReplyDeleteAs a non-representative late-adopter sample of one I don't want NEW, I want OLD!
ReplyDeleteI see your point about never-ending beta testing, but I think I'd rather beta-test v1.1 than v1.01, if for no other reason than that all the users of v1.01 through 1.09 have had a chance to find bugs. Fortunately, I have no urgent need for smartphone functionality, so I get to wait until v2.x is in beta-test.... ;-)
ReplyDeleteFor much the same reason, I prefer to wait until Microsith has released at least one Service Pack before buying a computer with a new version of Windows. While there's a place in the world for early adopters, I believe that part of their place in the world is to stumble on the dungeon's traps, so I don't take damage from them....
I'm with Auric Tech. The bleeding edge is painful and expensive.
ReplyDeleteAlso I wonder if it was supposed to be ironic that the dude was wearing 1950s Diving gear.
ReplyDeletePeople will choose the buggy new model now over the more mature design later every time. In my biz, we spend more time just qualifications testing a new product than the time a new model smartphone is on the market.
ReplyDeleteWhich is not to say software bugs don't still exist, it's just easier to fix them in hardware most of the time.