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Microsoft Announces Major Windows 8 Update Before Windows 8 Even Exists

psychadellicponies:

clindhartsen:

psychadellicponies:

clindhartsen:

parislemon:

Probably not the best sign in the world that Microsoft has to release service packs to the RTM version of Windows 8 before it has even launched. I mean, why declare RTM then? Well one possibility is that you’re working to meet a deadline rather than releasing when a product is fully baked.

Microsoft has always had updates on day one of a Windows release, typically of a security nature. If they’re refining the OS, all the better.

They should have refined it before shipping it out.

The fact that big companies like M$ push out half-baked software, and “update” it into a full-fledged product months or years later is just disgusting.

How about— and this is a radical, crazy idea, I know— how about you actually FINISH THE GODDAMN PROJECT BEFORE SHIPPING.

MAYBE THAT KIND OF MAKES SENSE?

Say you bought a new oven. In this absurd beta culture, you’d get one heating element, one rack, and two burners. A few months later, you get an upgrade to both heating elements, all three racks, and all four burners.

Does this make any sort of goddamn sense?

M$’s service packs are not “refining” the OS. No, they are finishing the OS.

Companies think that it’s okay to just rush everything out the door, and ‘update’ the program later, with the actual finished code.

Guess what.

It’s not.

Name one company that ships final code and never updates it.

Name one.

The OS hasn’t shipped on one PC yet, and it’s been used in corporate + power users to this point, so refinement is good for the final users.

You can’t name one, because they all do it.

This is called beta culture. For all intents and purposes, all early adopters are paying to be lab rats.

There is now little to no internal beta (or even alpha!) testing. The consumers are paying to be beta testers.

Let me make this very, very clear. If you ship a product that is not ready, and has not undergone thorough testing, you’re doing it wrong. There have been issues that come up in early releases that could have easily been found and fixed with proper testing. However, some companies *cough*apple*cough* will dance around, and try to ignore the problem, or pretend it doesn’t exist.

Some just plain don’t care, and won’t do a damn thing about it. You’re stuck with the $200 piece of junk that has glaring flaws and that was clearly never tested.

Here’s a couple blogs that say it a lot better than I can:

bit-101.com

Gizmodo

Time

Beta culture is a bad thing, it screws the consumer over in more ways than you think.

Frankly, I don’t buy anything new. It’s all shiny marketing bullshit. For example, I bought my Evo 4G over a year after release. I have never had a single issue. This version of the Android OS is OLD and it’s FINISHED. There are minor revisions— there have been exactly two updates in the year I’ve had it.

That is what a release product should be. Finished. No problems. You couldn’t fuck it up if you tried. Instead, we release beta crap. For instance, when the Evo 4G launched, there were all sorts of issues. There was a 30FPS cap on video, the compass didn’t work, the internal clock was all fucked up, and the fucking screen was broken.

I have had no issue at all. Ever. Compass, video, clock, everything works exactly as it should on release day.

Yes, there is reason for updates and fixes later on. Even with proper internal testing, and controlled beta tests, you can’t find every bug. When you release it to the public, however, the sample size goes into the hundreds of thousands. With that many people, you quickly discover every bug and glitch there is, fix them, and roll out a minor revision.

I had a professor also make note of beta culture, and I can understand the complaints.

The key point underlying this, all of this, is that Windows 8 is a very much tested, very much baked OS. A happy PR line, but it’s one of the widest tested Windows released to date with those who were willing to install the Developer, Consumer, and Release previews numbering in the millions, with refinement present throughout this process.

I won’t contest you on the issue of beta culture being a problem. On the PC, there is the underlying advantage that upgrades are easily possibly, and constant, but mobile is a whole different mess, my own experience on a Droid RAZR being half aggravating hitting weird bugs in Android that reminded me of the Windows 9x days, let along the weird bugs in that OS that existed for upwards of years pre-ICS as far as I’m concerned.

Anyhow, the Windows 8 release and adoption will be fascinating to watch. They’re taking a chance, the pieces are beginning to fall into place, and it’s all a question of how consumers will respond. Windows 7 still lives on, and the desktop is only a click away.

(via i-fuck-nuns)