Guys, please stop before this thread goes completely out of hand, we
need to consider a few things.
1.
Without Michael, Andy and the other old Slim Devices employees the
Squeezebox product wouldn't exist today, they have not only spend their
working hours on this product they have also been visible on the forum
more or less 365 days of the year, day and night. As Michael says, they
are the good guys. And for Michael, most of us really appreciate all
your hard work and the fact that you keep fighting for these products.
I personally also appreciate that you dare to say the things you've
said earlier in this thread, even though you know it might make some
people upset because they interpret it the wrong way.
2.
There are other factors than geeky community members like most of us on
these forums to consider when deciding what to to include in the next
product release, for example:
- Problems which users calls Logitech support regarding costs money for
Logitech support organization and due to this they are important.
- Features that are able to sell more Squeezeboxes are important
because it makes the Squeezebox not just a successful product but also
a product which gives Logitech something back economically.
It might be boring to think in economical terms, but those are still
the ones that controls most companies in the world we live in. In any
professional company products that makes a good economical result stays
and products that don't will disappear.
3.
However, it's not possible to use support organization for getting
ideas of most wanted new features or changes in functionality, because
people don't call support for these kind of things. It might be
possible to use the review forms from new users to get some ideas but
it's important to understand that most of these users haven't
understood what the product is all about yet, they have just started
their Squeezebox journey and might not have realized what's important
on longer terms yet. Some issues are only an issue during the first
month and after that you realize that you can work your way around it
and even though correcting such issue will make the first month more
enjoyable it's not these kind of things that sells more Squeezeboxes.
On the other hand, long term users like most of us tends to have
problems to think outside the box, we can sometimes be stuck in old
principles and don't see new ways of handling things, this also applies
to long term employees by the way.
I think the important new features has to come from other sources,
like:
- From long term users which understands the product, but is able to
think outside the box
- From creative employees and/or third party developers who understands
the needs
The issue is that it's not possible to use "votes" in bugzilla for this
because a vote is just a vote and you have no idea why people have voted
on something and you have no idea if they have actually fully understood
the consequences before voting. It's also hard to use the public forum
for things like this because sometimes you can't say what you want
because someone who aren't understanding the context might see it and
will interpret it the wrong way and threads will turn completely off
topic and end up in endless discussions about things that aren't
important.
The forum sections which have been used during some hardware beta
testing where all people with access also have signed a NDA was a place
where things like this could be discussed, but unfortunately I believe
that kind of interaction no longer exist between Logitech and this
community. I personally still believe something like this would be a
good way to get good feedback, but anything that involves a NDA doesn't
work unless the management people also understand and likes the idea.
So the result is that for the last years all focus have been on point
2, decreasing costs and implementing basic new features which are easy
to advertize. However, while being easy to advertize, most of these
features doesn't really turn into usable features which makes you
recommend the Squeezebox to a friend.
I'm talking about the fact that most new stuff like premium services,
iOS/Android apps, facebook integration, Revue integrating tends to be
implemented to a basic level so they can be advertized on the box but
then nobody is continuing the development to make the features useful,
so people use them as an argument to recommend the Squeezebox to
friends.
Maybe I've missed things, but to me it feels like (with the exception
of critical bug corrections):
- Facebook integration is basically the same as it was in the first
release it was introduced.
- Spotify integration is basically the same as it was in the first
release it was introduced.
- iOS/Android Logitech apps is basically the same as they was in the
first release they were introcuded.
- Image/Video/UPnP support is basically the same as it was in the first
release it was introduced. Of course, it was introduced in 7.7, so maybe
Logitech will prove me wrong and do a lot of enhancements in this area
in 7.8, but probably not since the only reason they made it was to sell
more Revue's which they later decided to abandon completely.
I guess what I would like to see is that Logitech continue to develop
features they've already added and not just abandon them as soon as
they have enough to put a sticker on the box.
Regarding anything related to browsing or ratings/smart playlists, I've
just given up, I would be extremely surprised if Logitech would put any
focus in this area, because it's something that would make people
recommend the product but it's not something that's easy to advertize,
so it's not in line with what their strategy seems to be.
--
erland
Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
(Developer of 'many plugins/applets (both free and commercial)'
(http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/User:Erland).
If you like to encourage future presence on this forum and/or third
party plugin/applet development, 'consider purchasing some plugins'
(http://license.isaksson.info))
Interested in music discovery ? See 'Social Music Discovery (SMD)'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=656713) project.
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View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=94109
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