Early Adopters Experiencing More Bugs?

As the pressure to push out new technology product continues, early adopters are continuing to experience trouble. A reader wrote to mention a USA Today article about some recent new product problems. From the article: "Philips Electronics revealed Friday that it is recalling 11,800 plasma television sets. The Ambilight TVs were sold in the USA from June 2005 to January 2006 for $3,000 to $5,000. Faulty capacitors inside the sets can spark. Nine incidents have been reported, but retardant material inside the TVs has prevented any fires, spokeswoman Katrina Blauvelt says. The problem is not expected to affect other brands, because it is a part related to Philips' unique Ambilight feature, which casts a colored glow on the wall behind the TV."

in other news:

[nietsch]

"Rain is wet! details at eleven!"

Some journalist really think they need to state the obvious...

What? How can this be?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they seriously suggesting that the people who are first to experience a new product or service may be statistically more likely to experience unintended side effects or consequences of a system which has only had limited & focused testing prior to it's release? Say it ain't so!

Here I was thinking that everything that has ever been done is tested, 100%, with every single possible scenario covered. Even ones the testers didn't think of. You've shattered my perfect world view!

The problem

[Moby Cock]

It seems to me that early adopters will continue to have problems as long as consumers keep their memories short. There is undeniable pressure to get new products to market fast. This leads to shoddy engineering. Thing is, generally companies do not feel many repercussions when they screw up, because consumers do not avaoid other products from that company. Phillips will take a hit in this recall, but six months from now, it will be forgotten by the world at large and Phillips will maintain the status quo: get new shinies in the store as fast as possible.

Remember that the XBox 360 had a duff power supply? That has hardly hurt the sales of that product and you can bet nobody will associate that debacle with the upcoming release of Vista.

Re:This just in....

[bunratty]

And yet in the previous story, users are seemingly rushing off to upgrade to Firefox 2.0 alpha. Sometimes you really do need to state the obvious.

At least wait for the .0 versions if you don't want problems, folks. You might want to wait for the .1 or .2 versions. This applies to appliances, cars, software, and even books (I try to wait for the first corrected printing for O'Reilly books).

Um, duh

[MikeyTheK]

OK, first, of course this is the case. That's why many of you recommend that nobody adopt any .0 release, but instead wait until AT LEAST six months until after a .2 release is out. You also experience the same thing with TV shows if you watch every new series from the first episode instead of catching the first season on DVD and coming in at season 2 - you tend to only watch shows that are hits then, but you are a bit behind for a season.

However, as we all know, early adopters get a huge head start on everybody else in terms of being able to use a new technology months or years in advance. As an example, I'm an alpha tester on a new development tool that I'm convinced is going to be a smash hit. It won't even be available for a public BETA for another month, and by that time I'll have been using it for six months, banging my head against the wall on some things, but learning a lot in the process.

The other thing that EARLY adopters get out of the deal is...input, and access to the designers. The customers who adopted the new Phillips units will have much more say in future product innovation than people who come later, because the cutsomer base is smaller at the beginning, and the team is more willing to listen to the people who give them the first feedback.

RAZR and SLVR users have the coolest phones (if a bit wide), and will be the ones who experience the early product problems. SO? They're still the coolest phones.

Duff power supply? The jury's still out..

[Channard]

The duff power supply thing was never really pegged down. There are apparently two different types of power supply, but Microsoft never really went around replacing power supplies, more the whole console. I believe one cause of the issue was that people were shoving the 360s in cabinets with little ventilation when in fact the console, essentially a squished down PC, generates a lot of heat and needs open air ventilation. I know some 360s had reported problems, but you don't hear from people who've had no problems. My own 360 has been going since December, and it's crashed about three times since then, which I'd actually put down to issues on the software, not hardware. The real issue is that Microsoft is now allowing games companies to release patches via Live, something that was a no-no for the X-Box 1. *That's* what's annoying me, the idea that it'll make games companies more likely to release games that haven't been properly tested.

As for Ambilight - just what is the point of that feature? It makes your wall glow? I've seen the adverts for it and it just screams gimmick. If you really want that kind of feature, hook up your own lights behind a non-Phillips plasma TV and you're done. I think more damage is done by companies denying there's a fault and being found out.. to quote Fight Club..

'If a new car built by my company leaves Chicago traveling west at 60 miles per hour, and the rear differential locks up, and the car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside, does my company initiate a recall?
You take the population of vehicles in the field (A) and multiply it by the probable rate of failure (B), then multiply the result by the average cost of an out-of-court settlement (C).
A times B times C equals X. This is what it will cost if we don't initiate a recall.
If X is greater than the cost of a recall, we recall the cars and no one gets hurt.
If X is less than the cost of a recall, then we don't recall.'

Re:The problem-Gotta Catch'em all.

[jellomizer]

Keeping up with the joneses, as it were.

Of course the joneses are about $10k in credit card debt.

I use to wonder how these people are able to aford such expensive things, I know my salary is above average but I can't afford them. Then I learned that the Average American is $10k in debt (Bad dept not good dept like home mortgages) then I feel better knowing that they couldn't afford it either, I was just smart enough to not keep up with the joneses and have no Bad Dept and an Excelent Credit Rating. Living humbly has it advantages too.

First to market != most success

[Quiet_Desperation]

That's what I don't get, though. How many more examples do we need of companies that innovated something being ground into dust by the Johnny-Come-Latelys? Do they even teach anything in business school anymore, or do the teachers and students just sit around rubbing their hands together in greedy anticipation?

Other news: Tall people experiencing more height

[CFD339]

WTF? Early adopters see more bugs. I'm stunned. You mean if you buy the very first run of a new product it may not be as good as say, once they've had a few thousand of them on the street and gotten service calls? Really?

Hello? What part of "Bleeding Edge" are they not getting here?

Re:Releases have bugs, no kidding?

[Renraku]

Companies are only fond of statistics that involve dollar amounts. So a dollar amount should be put on first-revision failures.

Whats that? Your product tends to catch fire? There's millions lost in lawsuits, replacement, etc. Something that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..

Car has a tendency to floor the accelerator, multiple times per day on its own? Billions. SOmething that COULD have been fixed with a few more weeks or days of testing..

A good example is the Sound Blaster Audigy 4 / X-Fi sound cards. There's a horrible problem with crackling/popping/system slowdown when using these cards. It took Creative 6+ months to acknowledge that the problem wasn't with people's machines. I'd say a good 50% or more of the people who bought the card have this problem. I hear there's a class action lawsuit gearing up from people who've replaced everything they own that's near their computers because Creative has blamed the problem on that. There's a story of a man that has tested it on literally 20+ computers and on 15 of the 20, the problem is there. With a fresh install of Windows XP on each machine.

Re:The problem

[Hao Wu]

That's why I'm scared to buy the next Dodge Challenger or Chevy Camaro in a couple years.

Not to mention that automakers intentionally dumb-down first-year models just to have something better to sell the following years...