So, Samsung are working on a fix. Great. I’m sure the current users of the Galaxy will feel a little happier the next time their phone randomly shuts itself off, knowing that Samsung are working on making their expensive phone actually function the way it’s supposed to.
I have a dream, a dream that one day, some phone manufacturer is going to release a phone that actually works, straight out of it’s fancy packaging and cellophane wrapping. A day where, rather than releasing what amounts to a beta version of a phone, to be tested for faults by it’s unwitting customers, they release a version of the phone which needs no firmware or software update to actually function properly without a workaround. That day will probably never come, but if it were to come, surely it would only benefit the phone manufacturers? Take the HTC Hero/T-Mobile G2 as an example. If you go look up any review for the phone when it was first released, you’ll see a common theme developing- “Great phone, shame about the lag” they all say. Now, as most Hero users will be aware, the lag issues have been fixed with the most recent update. But consider this- as I’ve mentioned, the only negative that the majority of reviewers mentioned in their reviews of the Hero was it’s sluggish performance. Some of them even suggested that it could’ve been an iPhone beater were it not for these performance issues. A lot of people, who would otherwise have gone for a Hero, will undoubtedly have been put off by the reviews (and probably gone for an iPhone instead). Now, if the Hero had been released lag free, those reviews wouldn’t have mentioned the lag, and would’ve gone from good reviews to stellar reviews.
As another example, take the Blackberry Storm, which RIM completed development of by it’s deadline day, but only, according to Jim Ballsillie, RIM’s co-CEO at the time, “by the skin of their teeth”. Well, ask anyone who bought a Blackberry Storm from release and it turns out that the phone wasn’t fully completed after all, in fact some users found it so horrifically glitchy that they returned them after just a few days of use. Whilst most of those glaring glitches were resolved with future patches, it was a little too late to do any good for those users who had handed back their Storms, some of whom swore off ever using another RIM device again, so bad was their experience.
Surely the bad publicity must impact on the phone manufacturers? But, given that none of them seem to believe in or practice the “right first time” ethos, I guess it can’t impact them all that much. Or perhaps they do care about the bad publicity, but are being forced in to meeting ever-shorter deadlines by the money men.
So, what can be done? Well, there are plenty of geeks, fanboys and tech-heads out there who would give up a limb, and probably an organ or two, to be given the opportunity to take part in a closed beta test of a new piece of kit. The majority of whom will be knowledgable enough to really put the phones through their paces and give them a proper stress test. I’m sure there are other possibilites too, but I suspect that in this situation, the old 80/20 rule is what the manufacturers work to:- fas long as you fix 80% of the issues found during your testing, you can fix the remaining 20% after release. I think it’s unacceptable, and I daresay so do most people, but there’s little we can do, other than to vote with our feet. – The only problem there is, if all of the alternative manufacturers are doing the same thing, who do you move your alliegence to?