JD, the problem is they shipped production software with the 950XL that was clearly not even close to being ready.
That's a completely different argument and I'm not disputing the initial production release was delivered incomplete/as good as it should have been.
So if you wanted more than 4 hours of batter life and any kind of stability, you had to jump on the windows insider program. Then they tease you with a visual voicemail fix (yes, it wasn't in the release code, WTF is up with that?) and you jump on the fast ring, but they don't say FYI this is an entire different branch and you are hosed from any production release fixes for performance.
So you're saying that when they announced the fast ring builds that they didn't make it clear that this was a Redstone build? Sorry, that's on the consumer -
the info was out there (and while
here they don't call it Redstone, the words "development branch" should make you stop and realize this isn't the production branch). As for the VVM fix: why wasn't it in the release code? Because as convenient as VVM is, it's easy to work around and live without. It's a convenience and nothing more. It probably wasn't feasible to get it done in time for the initial release.
All of this could be mitigated if a developer took 20 minutes and update the text label in the windows insider app with a little more information, as well as bug fix and known issues list. It's not hard to push out a toast notification of what the next release has, and do you want it.
Again, this info was out there: see this
Windows Central article on 14283 about what's fixed and broken (there was one for 14267 as well) along with
this one from MS - both of which contain the notes you ask for - both including info that it breaks band syncing and the workarounds.
I think its fair that people here wanted a $700 phone to function like a $700 phone. It's not like the OS was stable, and we all jumped on the insider ring. We are all trying to get a phone that isn't a POS. So stop blaming the consumer, when in fact we are all that MSFT probably has left on this platform. I would hate to see the 950XL sales numbers, they are probably less than 100k units.
It's absolutely fair to expect a $700 phone to work like one. And I agree the experience of lots of people hasn't been that of a $700 phone. I must be one of the lucky ones because my experience with the 950XL has been pretty good. Very few random reboots (probably 2-3 since mid-Dec.), very few freezes (probably 5-6 since mid-Dec.) That said, my battery life is below expectations and I'm glad for rapid charging.
As for blaming the consumer? I don't if you're running on a production release - and there have been issues with the production release. Whether it's the OS or hardware or some combo, my perception of the number of people with problems on the production release seems too high for me to believe it's a normal number (because there are always issues). The second you go to a development branch, though, I will blame the consumer because there are plenty of warnings out there.
And as for "MSFT has left on this platform", that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Microsoft is making a phone because they absolutely need to have something in the mobile market for future plans, but they have absolutely ceded the market (at least in the U.S.) to Apple and Google for the short term. Long term will tell.