How new versions of successful products lead to failure

Or do they?

New versions of successful products would fail in the past as customers got frustrated with the missing or altered features that they were used to. Dave Winer writes about it here:

People thought we had removed features from ThinkTank, because they had used the Apple II or IBM PC versions. In fact this was a completely new codebase, and we shipped early because there was a lack of software on the Mac. So it didn't have a lot of the features of the earlier product. No matter, the users were outraged by this. They thought they had bought a better computer, and here was the product with less features. We totally didn't anticipate this, because from our point of view it was a major accomplishment to get something out at all.

 He writes about dBase and his own product ThinkTank as historical examples. I'm not sure though that we are living in the same world. dBase and ThinkTank didn't have the advantage that is brought by "Network Effect". In the case of twitter, despite the fact that new twitter clients have missing features and that twitter is actively destroying its third party developer community, I can't leave. All the people and services are "tweeting", and until they all move away en-mass to another service, I can't leave.

Apple doesn't have network effects on its side, but they do have a great brand. I'm not sure if a great brand is as powerful as "network effects", but it sure seems like it is. I guess we'll see.  

Gatekeeper added to OS X Lion 10.7.5

Apple Adds Gatekeeper to Lion with OS X 10.7.5

According to the article the default setting is the middle one, which is "Mac app store and identified developers". I wonder what an identified developer is. I suspect that open source developers might not be "identified". Which means you won't be able to install software like vlc without changing the setting in the control panel. But before you could do that, you would have to know about gatekeeper first. I think 10.7.5 is going to cause a lot of headaches for a lot of people.

Good and bad software <Rant>

Had some good and bad software experiences that I’d like to talk about.

1. I ran across this page regarding IE9 Javascript on twitter. Its in an Asian language, but there is a box on the side that gives you the option to translate.

Weird thing is, I can’t translate to English.

If you open this page in Google Chrome, the browser detects the difference in language, recognize which language is on the page (Japanese) and gives you the option to translate it automatically. And seems to do quite a good job at the translation too. That’s how software should be.

2. I’ve been running across some PDF files recently and had to install a PDF viewer on Windows. I haven’t found a good solution for this.

The Adobe install experience is horrible. I wanted to install Adobe Reader X, apparently the latest version is sandboxed on windows. The browser I’m using is firefox. I go to the link from the article and the first thing that Adobe wants to do is download and install the Adobe Download Manager, which requires you to install a firefox extension. Then restart the browser. Then wait for all your tabs to reload, and wait for the extension to launch the download manager which is now an extra piece of crapware on my system. Then the download manager pops up and tells me that it has first downloaded and installed McAffee Security scan. Wait… what?!

There is an option on the side when you first start the download that is by default checked. I missed it, I guess its my fault for not paying attention. Thanks Adobe for giving me that feeling. I guess I’ll have to look elsewhere for my PDF reading.

So next up, is Foxit Reader. Turns out the install package for Foxit also has crap like the McAffee stuff.

 

And once they finish installing they aren’t done messing with your system. A normal person might assume they are done and click finish.

If you look at the wizard, there is actually an option (checked by default) that will add ebay crap to your system.

Ok, so its back to ghostscript/gsview I guess. Its not as easy to navigate the document but at least it does only what I need it to do, that is display a PDF file.

I wish I could move to Linux. It has its own problems though. I live with laptops that I move around. I need a machine that can suspend/resume reliably, stays connected via wifi (my most recent install of Ubuntu would keep disconnecting from the router), and doesn’t reorder the systray icons on the taskbars everytime I reboot.

No wonder Apple/Google are doing so well.  *Sigh*

</Rant>

Windows SDK installation

I needed to install windows 7 SDK on my machine. The installation works by downloading various pieces and installing them. Somewhere along the line, the download stalled. Its been that way for hours. Cancelling the installation brings up the dialog above asking me to wait while the operation completes. But that's the problem, the operation is stuck and won’t complete. Plus the dialog remains on top of all windows and won’t go away. Bad design.

soundsource

Here is a useful utility thats free for the mac. I have USB headphones that have a mic, and putting them in and switching the sound source from the system preferences was a little bit of inconvenience that should be solved with this utility.

Bad Software Design

I'm not sure whose fault this is. Whether its the installer, the WindowManager (or OS). I'm installing world of warcraft in the background. I'm writing a blog post in the web browser. The installation is now on its third disk. The third disk finishes install, the installer suddenly gains focus as I am typing, my key strokes are passed to the installer instead. Installation cancelled! I have to go through the whole damn install again!