W10M preview builds released too slowly

[mprebich]

I have no idea if that is directed at me or not. Either way, W10M does have a scheduled release date:

http://forums.windowscentral.com/windows-10-mobile/377693-w10m-release-dates-answers-inside.html

There is currently no release date.

The link is to a post you created and state that unofficially October will be the month of release. October is not a date, it's a month.

If there is something from MS that states an official release date, please enlighten us.

 

[mprebich]

You think delays, being slow, and constant "resuming" and "loading" represent critical errors. Nobody in the software industry would agree with you, but you're entitled to your opinion.

A critical error/bug is a literal show-stopper. It's a feature that should work but doesn't, and ends up making testing impossible or meaningless. This is the definition typically used by anybody in the industry, including those who finance custom software development but aren't developers themselves. Having to wait longer than you'd like for an app to resume doesn't qualify.

Granted, substantial delays can make testing a pain in the rear, but if you CAN test it, then there is no insurmountable (critical) error.

Lastly, what you think should be fixed in a matter of days and prompt MS to release a new build ASAP, may very well involve a team of people working for one or two months on SoC optimisations. What you want may simply not be possible. At least the loading/resuming issue is likely systemic, for which I doubt there is a quick/easy fix.

Anyway, the point is this: you can rant all you want, but you won't get anybody at MS (or Apple, or Google, or anywhere else for that matter) to change their mind on this. The only viable alternative would be to NOT deliver a preview at all. If a majority of people adopt your view, canning the insider program is MS' only reasonable alternative, because your expectations are not realistic for software in this phase of its development.



This we agree on. Apparently we disagree only on the definition of the word "prevent". A computational delay can't prevent you from testing anything. The critical error here is actually your impatience, which is easily remedied by going back to WP8.1.



Actually, finding and reporting bugs isn't the primary purpose of the insider preview. If that's what you're doing you're wasting your time. MS has their own professional testing staff that delivers far more useful, reproducible and actionable bug reports than the community ever could. What you should be reporting on are things you do or don't like. That is far more interesting to MS.

The "Loading..." issue has taken on occasion 60-120 minutes to return, and only after I tried turning on airplane mode, putting it into battery saver, etc., etc.

I consider that a critical error and in a project manager capacity would immediately request a new build and not keep a garbage build in front of my users.

You can quote "the entire software industry" all you want, you are wrong.

If finding errors/bugs is not at least part of the purpose of the Insider Preview, then yes, I guess all of us participating are just wasting our time. But I don't believe that you are correct. MS has set up the Insider Feedback app exactly for the purpose of receiving such feedback from Insiders.

"you can rant all you want" - it is unfortunate that, as a moderator, you need to revert once again to comments like this to defend your points.

My post was in no way a rant, but simply outlining the reasons I agree with the OP, in this case of build 10512, more than 2 weeks is too long between builds, especially given MS's statements of expecting faster release of builds.

 

[xsonwong]

Even the fast build got some known issue and other small bugs, we still not happy with the build quality.
I believe the QA team in MS met a bigger problem in recent build which blocks the release.
You won't want a broken build (actually current fast ring is already broken).

Moreover, seems current build is from latest Windows 10 Branch (TH2), which means thousand of developer will make changes everyday.
In fast develop cycle now (compare with old Windows Release Cycle), we will be difficult to have stable release, things keep changing everyday.

 

[a5cent]

The "Loading..." issue has taken on occasion 60-120 minutes to return, and only after I tried turning on airplane mode, putting it into battery saver, etc., etc.

I consider that a critical error and in a project manager capacity would immediately request a new build and not keep a garbage build in front of my users.

You can quote "the entire software industry" all you want, you are wrong.

In the same sentence you mentioned multiple instances of the device being slow and exhibiting delays. You implied all of those instances of "slowness" should prompt MS to release a new build ASAP. Unless all of them are on the scale of hours rather than seconds, I'd still consider your contributions here to be more about your need to vent and rant rather than your desire to have a serious discussion.

However, I'd obviously agree that the start screen not showing up for one or two hours, provided that's regular behaviour and wasn't just a single freak occurrence, deserves to be fixed quickly. That does make it impossible to test the device in a tolerable amount of time so that does constitute a critical bug/error. Then again, I've not seen such behaviour on any device running W10M myself, nor am I aware of anyone else reporting such behaviour. If you're the only one seeing this then it's not critical either.

All of this complies with the standard definition of what constitutes a critical error. Unless you can show otherwise I don't see how I can be wrong here. At worst I misunderstood a very poorly worded bug-report.

If finding errors/bugs is not at least part of the purpose of the Insider Preview, then yes, I guess all of us participating are just wasting our time. But I don't believe that you are correct. MS has set up the Insider Feedback app exactly for the purpose of receiving such feedback from Insiders.

There is no harm in reporting bugs. However, 99% of the bugs the community reports are typically the same things being reported over and over again, almost all of which MS will already have been aware of long before the build was even released. W10 also comes with a lot of technical infrastructure which reports critical bugs automatically, and those are a lot more useful than anything we as users could provide.

How the community (as a whole) likes/dislikes changes being made to W10M is a lot more interesting to MS than our bug reports. Believe it or don't believe it. Both are fine by me.

 

[daniel cooper2]

To wrap this up in a short comment. These builds are not that good for the time it take them to release them.
Maybe MS should hire some apple employees to get W10m on track. You need hype and outstanding marketing to get w10m off the ground. MS should know not to do a preview for the public when its nowhere near finished. W10m should have minor bugs at this point not major bugs like disappearing SD cards.

 

[safariking]

Twitter released a new button special for Gabe Aul :grin:

 

[etrosce]

I'm not particularly concerned about the frequence for the builds but for the actual progress on them. I'm starting to get impatient.

 

[ajj3085]

Twitter released a new button special for Gabe Aul :grin:

View attachment 111814

Its a national holiday in the USA today. Why would you expect a build today?

 

[dreamglimmer]

You think delays, being slow, and constant "resuming" and "loading" represent critical errors. Nobody in the software industry would agree with you, but you're entitled to your opinion.

false;
that IS a critical UX(user experience) bug. quite likely caused by underlying crash (or even made intentionally, for some special testing)

A critical error/bug is a literal show-stopper. It's a feature that should work but doesn't, and ends up making testing impossible or meaningless. This is the definition typically used by anybody in the industry, including those who finance custom software development but aren't developers themselves.

which matches the description perfectly
you can't ship product with such bug to customers - ever. hopefully we aren't the customers, just large group of beta testers

Granted, substantial delays can make testing a pain in the rear, but if you CAN test it, then there is no insurmountable (critical) error.

once again, this IS Critical error, not a Fatal though

Lastly, what you think should be fixed in a matter of days and prompt MS to release a new build ASAP, may very well involve a team of people working for one or two months on SoC optimisations. What you want may simply not be possible. At least the loading/resuming issue is likely systemic, for which I doubt there is a quick/easy fix.

more likelly - it needs specific circumstances to actually see what is happening in there, and takes lots of time/resources/test devices/testing time to see all the reasons for it, and having the proper solution for the fix

Anyway, the point is this: you can rant all you want, but you won't get anybody at MS (or Apple, or Google, or anywhere else for that matter) to change their mind on this. The only viable alternative would be to NOT deliver a preview at all. If a majority of people adopt your view, canning the insider program is MS' only reasonable alternative, because your expectations are not realistic for software in this phase of its development.

same goes for every rant over the internet.
think is - we are the beta testers, not a Product Managers - we just try it, run it, tell what errors we found and what might be changed/fixed/reinvented. what and when will be actually do is not for us for sure. but what we tell - is quite important and IS heard.

This we agree on. Apparently we disagree only on the definition of the word "prevent". A computational delay can't prevent you from testing anything. The critical error here is actually your impatience, which is easily remedied by going back to WP8.1.

there is a workaround for this issue, but without using it it literally blocks your interaction with tested device. or renders useless all lock screen information. it does prevent phone usage.

Actually, finding and reporting bugs isn't the primary purpose of the insider preview. If that's what you're doing you're wasting your time. MS has their own professional testing staff that delivers far more useful, reproducible and actionable bug reports than the community ever could. What you should be reporting on are things you do or don't like. That is far more interesting to MS.

false;
50% of bugs found could never be found by in-house testers. 70% of rest would take 2-3-4 times more time to find, than by opening beta tests. this IS for improving the product, in all possible ways - feedback, bug reports, usage telemetry and logs, update polishing, wide range of devices (and device state) testing, update servers optimization, etc

your truly,
not-so-old and wise
Software Developer

 

[safariking]

Its a national holiday in the USA today. Why would you expect a build today?

That was just a joke don't take it to serious please

 

[a5cent]

false;
50% of bugs found could never be found by in-house testers. 70% of rest would take 2-3-4 times more time to find, than by opening beta tests.

If the insider preview were actually a beta test I'd agree with you. It isn't. Software that undergoes a public beta test is practically always considered feature complete and fully tested by the developer. With the developer having already put a lot of effort into QA, bug reports are obviously quite valuable since those bugs are often found in constellations the developer didn't think to look. That's not the situation we currently have with W10M.

W10M is littered with bugs, non-functional parts, and not a single app is feature complete. MS will no doubt have long lists with thousands of issues they have yet to fix. In this state, most bug reports are just noise.

false;
that IS a critical UX(user experience) bug. quite likely caused by underlying crash (or even made intentionally, for some special testing)

So you signed up on this site to tell me that being slow (whatever that means exactly, 4 seconds, 9 seconds, an hour?), exhibiting overly long loading times and overly long resuming times (both of which are very different operations), are all very likely the result of parts of W10M crashing, which MS may have done intentionally for testing purposes, which MS then left in the build before distributing it to insiders?

Yeah... you think I could get some of whatever you're smoking?

I'm not sure what to do with the rest of your post. I'll leave it at that.

 

[safariking]

Im getting so tired of everyone who is complaing about Preview Builds.

 

[Charles Brown8]

If the insider preview were actually a beta test I'd agree with you. It isn't. Software that undergoes a public beta test is practically always considered feature complete and fully tested by the developer. With the developer having already put a lot of effort into QA, bug reports are obviously quite valuable since those bugs are often found in constellations the developer didn't think to look. That's not the situation we currently have with W10M.

W10M is littered with bugs, non-functional parts, and not a single app is feature complete. MS will no doubt have long lists with thousands of issues they have yet to fix. In this state, most bug reports are just noise.



So you signed up on this site to tell me that being slow (whatever that means exactly, 4 seconds, 9 seconds, an hour?), exhibiting overly long loading times and overly long resuming times (both of which are very different operations), are all very likely the result of parts of W10M crashing, which MS may have done intentionally for testing purposes, which MS then left in the build before distributing it to insiders?

Yeah... you think I could get some of whatever you're smoking?

I'm not sure what to do with the rest of your post. I'll leave it at that.

Well that's the thing.. Microsoft took a closed beta and made a public beta of it. Starting with XP if I am not mistaken may have been win 2000 but I don't think so.. Lol.. If I'm wrong don't flame me just correct me lmao..

 

[jhildy73]

Coming from a ton of android devices I would rather them take their time and get ALL the bugs out. I originally had a LG g2 on jelly bean but on kit Kat and lolipop the phone actually got worse..you hope for a stable OS.trust me

 

[a5cent]

Well that's the thing.. Microsoft took a closed beta and made a public beta of it. Starting with XP if I am not mistaken may have been win 2000 but I don't think so.. Lol.. If I'm wrong don't flame me just correct me lmao..

Unfortunately, I don't understand what you're trying to point out. Sorry.

 

[mprebich]

If the insider preview were actually a beta test I'd agree with you. It isn't. Software that undergoes a public beta test is practically always considered feature complete and fully tested by the developer. With the developer having already put a lot of effort into QA, bug reports are obviously quite valuable since those bugs are often found in constellations the developer didn't think to look. That's not the situation we currently have with W10M.

W10M is littered with bugs, non-functional parts, and not a single app is feature complete. MS will no doubt have long lists with thousands of issues they have yet to fix. In this state, most bug reports are just noise.



So you signed up on this site to tell me that being slow (whatever that means exactly, 4 seconds, 9 seconds, an hour?), exhibiting overly long loading times and overly long resuming times (both of which are very different operations), are all very likely the result of parts of W10M crashing, which MS may have done intentionally for testing purposes, which MS then left in the build before distributing it to insiders?

Yeah... you think I could get some of whatever you're smoking?

I'm not sure what to do with the rest of your post. I'll leave it at that.

Well, it seems the "entire media industry" would seem to disagree with you, including Windows Central.

Microsoft execs say Windows 10 Mobile 'is significantly feature complete', hints at Surface Phone | Windows Central
"Microsoft execs say Windows 10 Mobile 'is significantly feature complete', hints at Surface Phone
By John Callaham, Wednesday, Jul 29, 2015 at 9:58 am EDT "

Here's what's new, improved and fixed in Windows 10 Mobile preview build 10512 | Windows Central
"Here's what's new, improved and fixed in Windows 10 Mobile preview build 10512
By John Callaham, Wednesday, Aug 12, 2015 at 1:17 pm EDT"

Windows 10 Mobile Build 10512 now available to Insiders - WMPoweruser
"The latest Windows 10 Mobile build comes with a couple of new improvements and a few features. As expected, this build doesn?t include a lot of features ? as we previously reported, Windows 10 Mobile is now feature complete, and the company is working to fix bugs and improve performance. "

"Yeah... you think I could get some of whatever you're smoking?"

Do you have to continue insulting people in attempt to get your point across, or to try to discredit posters who seem to prove you wrong, or at least misguided?

 

[a5cent]

^ In the exact same article you linked to, Belfiore is quoted as saying:

"We'll put features in right up near the end. But in general, the broad feature set is set."

In other words, the current build is not feature complete, which is exactly what I said. :-/

More important however, is the fact that beta tests are usually run with software that is much closer to release candidate quality. We all know build 10152 isn't release candidate material. Even if you don't believe me, the errors, missing functionalities and other issues Gabe Aul has so far always mentioned alongside each preview build announcement should be proof enough of that.

All of this just serves as context for the more important point, which is that MS won't be paying a lot of attention to the ten-thousandth report of a bug they've already known about for the last three months. A flood of bug reports, most of which state the obvious, is the natural consequence of people reporting bugs for a product that is full of obvious flaws. Rummaging through 100'000 unsystematically written bug reports, to find the few dozen that are interesting, isn't economically worthwhile.

Maybe the next preview build will exhibit release candidate quality. Then that will change. I hope so.

Anyway, it's not that complicated, so I'll stop here. Anyone who still hasn't understood never will.

Do you have to continue insulting people in attempt to get your point across, or to try to discredit posters who seem to prove you wrong, or at least misguided?

Some opinions deserve to be insulted.

I still feel you're arguing just for the sake of saving face or for argument's sake itself. You're so focused on nit picking the details in the hope of finding some point you could potentially criticize, that you can't acknowledge the broader points being raised. I've lost interest at this point, so I'll leave the last word to you. Have at it.

 

[Rising Mos]

We had quite few insider builds in desktop side with:-
- problems with start screen not showing up or crashing.
- apps not running or constantly crashing.

 

[sheldon cohn]

I manage a lot of Insiders are sending feed back on problems found, but the fixes are not coming
fa:unhappy:st enough for a lot of people. I connect my W10 phone to the computer at night for charging,
with the start screen showing. When I take it off the USB to use the phone, I unlock it, but it
takes a VERY long time for it to show the start screen. The windows 10 phone is my test phone,
I have a BLU HD LTE phone with the SIM card. I have moved the SIM to the W10 phone, but
the response time is to slow for me to use it.. A person generally picks up the phone for using
it, and it's a disappointment having to wait until the phone is usable.

 

[MACRM32]

If I had to venture a guess, I'd say they're still adding features (10512 doesn't allow for custom ringtones, for example).

However, I wouldn't be surprised if they were in fact sitting on an update. Coming from a developer, the last thing you want is for customers to know how long you REALLY take to fix/add/develop something.

That said, it's been nearly a full month, so I'm guessing a new build is coming shortly. All I ask of them is better battery performance.