Glitchy Phone Software is "New Reality?"
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: RIM, BlackBerry, Storm, Software, OS
While consumers constantly deal with malfunctioning hardware and buggy/glitched software, has it become a "new reality" and accepted norm?
The question stems from a recent WSJ article on the BlackBerry Storm and its "bumpy" start. Launched in late November of 2008, the touchscreen BlackBerry saw sales around 500,000 in its first month. Nothing to sneeze at by any means, but when compared to the elephant in the room, it's on track to fall very short of the iPhone's 2.4 million sold in its first quarter.
Be it touchscreen troubles, glitchy software or sluggish performance, many Storm users think the smartphone is falling short of expectations. "I found myself wanting to throw it in the ocean due to my frustration with its overall usability," said one New Jersey Storm user, who returned his phone several weeks after purchase.
So where does the lack of performance stem from? According to RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie, the Storm barely hit its pre- holiday mark, even after it missed its October debut. When a product is rushed off the line to meet peak sales dates, the hardware and software suffers. "Mr. Balsillie said such scrambles -- and the subsequent software glitches that need to be fixed -- are part of the "new reality" of making," said the WSJ.
Of course, there is always the flipside of the coin. For all the discontent Storm owners, there are just as many - probably more - who enjoy the new device. While sales figures for the Storm beyond the first month aren't available, Balsillie said RIM is producing 250,000 Storms a month to meet demand. While it may not catch on with the same fervor as the iPhone, the Storm is still one of the most popular smartphones out there. "Daniel Mahoney, a financial and management consultant in Philadelphia, said he's happy with his purchase of the Storm," said the Journal, "and added other early buyers are being too critical. "No single device is going to be the end-all be-all for everyone," he said."
Typically, the second generation of a product is the one everyone goes after (see iPhone 3G). If the Storm follows this pattern, the next Storm may be one of the hottest (and best) phones of 2009/2010.
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The cycle hardware and software developers have gotten into is pathetic and absolutely ludicrous. I don't know why on earth we, the consumers, put it up with nonsense like this but we do. 99% of electronics and appliances will work the minute you turn them on without a problem but for some reason these "tough to design" cell phones get a free pass on awful hardware engineering and even more awful software engineering and coding.
If I drive my brand new Altima Coupe off the lot and I keep having problems with it I take it back and have it fixed or replaced IMMEDIATELY and Nissan is more than happy to oblige but more often than not there is QUALITY CONTROL TESTING that happens before a vehicle hits the lot so you don't get all sorts of problems from day one.
Cell phones are not and should not be exempt from the exact same scrutiny all other electronic devices are subjected to. That includes you, too, iPhone. Shaky start for the 3g if I ever saw one.
heh 3 "3G" nokia's owned, all with the same flaw - here in australia on a train if you travel from my town to the city (1 hour) you go between no signal, to standard and then 3g about 20 times - if you have 3G enabled and listen to music on a nokia it WILL reset every few minutes, no questions.
Only fix was to disable 3G (which isnt an option soon when everything gets pushed to 3G) - i ditched nokia never to use there rubbish again.
Also had physical issues with them - screens breaking (2 slider phones), one just cutting out and not turning back on (after a week) and that was enough for me.
My iPhone is the closest thing iv ever had to a working phone - only thing i can complain about is slow browsing (or even crashing if i dont reset it every week or so) when listening to music and surfing etc - needs some sort of "flush memory" feature....
"New Reality"? I thought shitty software on phones was always reality.
My iPhone is the closest thing iv ever had to a working phone - only thing i can complain about is slow browsing (or even crashing if i dont reset it every week or so) when listening to music and surfing etc - needs some sort of "flush memory" feature....
I totally agree but if you were around for launch you have to know that it had some SERIOUS issues for the first several months until they started releasing firmware updates. Dropped calls, dropped service, crashed applications, txt messaging screen taking literally 30 seconds to load, etc. It was awful. They were very diligent about fixing those problems but the launch was most definitely not without major hiccups.
Early adopters always get stuck with finding bugs in any product, because no amount of quality testing can find every problem. The issue with RIMs statement, though, is that they KNEW they didn't perform due-diligence in trying to find all the problems. RIM tried to rush out an unfinished product in time to hit the Holiday shopping market.
If this example tells us consumers anything, its that we should avoid all the hype around black-friday and the Christmas season. If manufacturers are going to knowingly put out crap to try to get it to sell, we, as consumers, should knowingly not buy that crap. Wait till the summer to buy any new products, sure, they'll be a few months old, but most of the problems should have been worked-out by then.
Once there is a unified OS used by many phones (i.e. Android), this should cut down on a lot of the bugs as software will have a much longer life cycle since it can be used on many phones.