Who wants good news? I have info to pass along if anyone wants to stop complaining long enough to hear it. Seriously, asking a telephone/internet rep a question that they do not have an answer to will not help the situation - nor do they care about the 50k subs that purchased the 810... The device was over-priced, just like the 710 before it... Look for it to pop up on Groupon or some other social deal at $200 soon and grab one if you can.
Let's get to the "good news" in a moment. Yes, I've had the same thoughts some of you have about waazzupppp, that is I wonder how he's gotten the information he's passed along and about his relationship with T-Mobile. That said I appreciate the information even though I have some questions. Let's get back to that in a moment.
First though, I really don't like being insulted. If an explicit T-Mobile representative gave us a real answer about what T-Mobile intentions were, then the majority of our "complaining" would have stopped. It's just a psychological truth that humans prefer to know what to expect, it allows us to plan and to feel that we have some degree of control over the situation (even if we really don't control anything about the situation). The idea that asking a telephone or internet representative a question "they do not have an answer to will not help the situation" highlights the failure of the customer service paradigm that appears to be industry standard. The idea "nor do they care about the 50k subs that purchased the 810" just reinforces our fear about T-Mobile support of the 810 and just fills me with contempt. Waazzupppp goes on to say that the 810 was overpriced as was the 710. The customer certainly did not set that price point. The price point was set largely by T-Mobile, as was the advertising budget. T-Mobile was responsible for selling the phone and setting the price point and we are being told that only 50,000 was sold, therefore T-Mobile does not care. My response to that would be F*CK YOU T-MOBILE.
Now on to the supposed firmware. Personally I don't care about WiFi calling. I care about the Storage Check feature that Nokia is adding to their software. Which brings me to the idea that I thought it was Nokia that works on firmware, not T-Mobile. Nokia does the firmware and passes it to T-Mobile for testing. As far as the idea that "caching 3rd party info to a SD card can corrupt the data & card" strikes me as more of an Android feature and not a WP8 feature. I don't know if that is part of the Storage Check feature that Nokia is releasing.
Finally we come back to why he is giving out the information and not a support representative, "it has NOT passed Technical Acceptance yet and is not official." My question would be is there a NDA with Nokia that specifies that a company cannot say, "Hey we received a firmware update that is said to enable X, X, and Y and will be testing it for release." I bet there isn't a NDA that specifies that you cannot say that. I bet that it is simply standard protocol to have no comment, and I suggest that is a failed customer service paradigm.
If a company like T-Mobile want's to stop customer churn maybe they need to take responsibility for what they sell and not treat customers that buy their products like they "do not care". T-Mobile and the cell phone industry also needs to change their customer service paradigm and communicate with their customers in a clear fashion. The entire industry is trying to stop customer churn, but instead of actually doing good customer service they are paying lip service to it, and instead trying to lock people into service with them by selling them more devices and hoping that it is harder for the customer to change providers. WHAT FREAKING INCOMPETENCE.
Clear communication with your customers builds brand loyalty. Hiding behind a curtain of "we don't know and when we know if or when something will be released we will tell you" destroys brand loyalty.
So to all that still have an 810 we will see.