|
Originally Posted by greyseal
|
But isn't that exactly the point? Why is it the job of the consumer to fix all the things that should have been working to begin with? I don't buy a car with the expectation of having to modify the engine if I want to drive more than four blocks at a time.
We're at an advantage because we know how to fix these things. But the average person trying to use their Axim day-to-day isn't going to read posts on how to modify settings to keep ActiveSync from sucking the battery, or how to change registry settings so the stupid OS can recognize CF cards.
When you buy something, there is an assumption of trust on the part of the seller that the product works as advertised. Microsoft has trained us to accept half-baked products as part of life. And we've all bought into it.
|
You're right - that is exactly the point. A consumer device should "just work". As a developer of some 30 years I've seen both sides of this. Microsoft technology has definitely had its ups and downs (like the entire industry has). I've used Microsoft stuff ever since they were a 15-man operation and it's amazing to see how that has grown to what it is.
PC's in general do seem to be reaching the point where consumers can buy them and they "just work". Even PocketPC's seem to have gotten to that point with WM2003. I bought my Axim last December and it has worked with little to no tweaking on my part - I simply install stuff and it works. At that point I would recommend PPC to anyone. I would not have recommended the VGA one yet for a neophite user, though, (too much tweaking to get it right).
This situation with WM5, though, I have watched with a great deal of interest. Microsoft and/or Dell has seriously taken a step backward with this one. I've not seen any release of an O/S (since Me) that was so frought with problems. There is no way a consumer-level user could recover from the problems I've seen detailed on just this board; such users would do the only thing reasonable, that is return the product. Who can blame them?
PPC's have *got* to become stable enough where people won't be afraid to buy them and just drop into user mode
immediately. We'll always have tinkerers and "power users" around that goof around with the stuff but these devices will have to be nearly idiot-proof before you'll see them carried around in the same numbers that you see cellphones right now.
My 2-cents.
-CB :approve: