“Why first generation Apple products suck”

TUAW has a rather interesting post here commenting on Gundeep Hora's article here . They (TUAW) suggest that Apple's percieved product cycle can really be applied to the whole computing industry. The Percieved Apple Product Cycle (in Gundeep's article):

But here’s how a typical product cycle works at Apple:R&D –> Production –> Launch –> Marketing and Sales –> Real World Testing (Quality Assurance) –> Recall, Technical Support, Mass Hysteria –> "Re-Release" –> Success.

So why is this?

Essentially Apple sets the bar for excellence in product design. And when things go wrong, minor or otherwise, it gets noticed. Now the challenge is not really having that reputation (however hard it may have been in the first place to get that position), but its maintaining it year in, year out.

Thats happened to me too: set the bar too high for a particular piece of software and spend so much time on the flashy/cool features you want, you wind up losing sight of the fundamental criteria that the software is supposed to meet (especially if you're working on your own).

Now does the whole computing industry set that bar? No. Apple for better or for worse are in a class of their own. All manufacturers get their hitches. But none get noticed as much as Apple's (except Microsoft: the press love to report the latest patches to combact THE ULTIMATE security flaw). The TUAW popints out a few hitches with other manufacturers that I'd never heard of.

TAUW's post suggests that Gundeep's criticism should be treated as routine. I don't think so. Its misses the point of bug/defect/problem reports. Such criticism should be taken constructively and as a reminder to Apple to wise up on a particular problem with one of its products. Such criticism, provided its constructive, is all part of an effort to improve the products.

Sure, its not nice sitting with faulty hardware or software that refuses to work correctly ( Been there, Done that and got the T-Shirt), but it can only get fixed if the problem/defect is reported.

So in this way, we could think of computers (since we are discussing them) or software as a community effort. There are thousands of widgets for OSX that can be used. Some hilerious ones here and here. I'm not sure exactly what percentage are opensource, donationware or subscriptionware, but the principles are the same: its community coming together to add functionality on top of a basic product (as much as OSX could ever be called basic, but you get the point).

Thanks to TUAW for that post. I think I'll be sending in way more error reports to Microsoft (Now isin't that wierd: a Windows user commenting on Apple products, whatever next).