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iPhone Problems? Does the iEmperor Have No Clothes?
Posted By : Dan Wilson
July 11, 2008 12:29 PM
If you open a window and listen carefully, you can hear the moaning and wailing of the iPhone crowd as their iPhones are malfunctioning today. (This post isn't about the pure and flawless Blackberry Pearl I carry around and I promise not to bring up the fact that I've never had an update to that phone that left me stuck in 'Emergency Call Mode Only'.)
This post is about a statement of affairs on what I term 'the iPhone Crowd'. You can identify the iPhone crowd by their closely cropped hair, (a la Steve Jobs), their black turtlenecks (a la Steve Jobs), their jean pants (yep, iSteve again) and their mindless raving about how Apple products "Just Work" TM.
The iPhone crowd is in an uproar because a software update (just made available) rendered the iPhone unusable (for a little while). In modern day society, we are quite used to ubiquitous reachability. Our social and professional lives kind of depend on it. I take the pain of being out of contact seriously. My point isn't that the iPhone not working isn't a big deal, but the fact that people are surprised. Maybe to an iKoolaide swigging SteveClone this is unexpected, after all, what part of "It Just Works TM" doesn't the iPhone team understand.
To many of us, this is simply another software release that has hiccups out of the gate. I've been a part of a number of software released in my time. Most, had great intentions, a nice start, a rushed end, and some issues on deal day. This has been true across the board. From projects of 2 developers working from a napkin-spec to a developmental army augmented with a cadre of PMP certified project managers furiously tracking deliverables, timeboxing effort and managing the Critical Path.
Software development is not easy. In fact, it is downright hard. I'd be willing to bet 99.99% of all software projects have problems when they go-live. Even the best tested applications find gaps in their testing. Spots where the ugly Real World messes up their nice clean model. It is just how it is.
So, since this software 'upgrade' is going just like all other software projects, you can bet these problems are actively being worked on right now by stressed out, hyper-caffeinated people who really want to fix this problem. My iPrediction is that in a day or two, definitely by Monday, the iPhone problems will be largely forgotten. The iPhone Crowd will be back to prancing around in their black turtlenecks, jeans and closely cropped hair and spouting off marketing babble like "It Just Works" all the while sophmorically pointing and laughing at those with other handset brands...
The problem I have with it all is it doesn't "Just Work TM". Actually, it often "Just Doesn't Work", (Remember the Leopard release?) but no iSteveClone worth his black turtleneck would dare utter such a thing.
Business as usual, right?
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"Dan Wilson" I'll remember that name and use it as as a synonym for "pea brained nimrod who can't think for himself and can only spew out ridiculous stereo types and make sweeping generalizations about things he knows nothing about."
Have a great day.
Come on.. 'anon', if you are going to call Dan a pea brained nimrod, at least have the balls to leave your name.
You should have just signed "it takes one to know one"
Good grief what an abysmal post by "anon" no name no number. Whatever it might be, I support nothing or no-one mindlessly.
I think many of the people who rushed to upgrade "immediately" are the ex-Windows newly-converted fanboi types :)
As a long -long- time Apple user, I've always waited a short while with each update to let Apple iron out glitches. Their main problem is usually their own success: they get absolutely hammered for the first few hours (or sometimes days) and the early adopters are always the ones to suffer.
I started back in the System 6 days when Macs were still powered by Motorola 680x0 chips so I've gone through two changes of processor and four major O/S upgrades (and countless minor O/S upgrades) but I've always tried to avoid the .0 versions of everything. I was also a happy owner of a Newton back in the day. It. Just. Worked. too :)
Because Apple stuff (mostly) "just works", folks get very used to things "just working" and tend to go somewhat apoplectic when there's a glitch :)
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The problem is that the ATT activation service is down. When you have a few thousand people trying to get in to one spot you will have backup. Blackberry has had it's problems in the past too, in this case it seems ATT did not learn from last year. I myself updated yesterday and did not have any problems. I think Apple should have released the 2.0 the day after the launch to help control traffic on the servers.