Who is in charge of this junk? Seriously!

[Paolo Ferrazza]

I think you are missing the point that this is end-users (consumers) that are going through this, not developers. I am also a developer and in fact run a software company, but I need my phone for work to work, not go crazy on me twice a day. "Early adopting" has nothing to do with it, I've been on Windows Phone since WP7 and <angry&disappointed>THEY SHOULD HAVE SORTED IT OUT BY NOW</angry&disappointed>

It's been year after year of 'always somethings' - either no apps, or no stability, or no accessories, or no this or no that or blablabla, always something. I personally am fed up with them going round in circles.

This is a new OS with new HW. Again, my post was in response to his post. He reported little problems that we are all facing and I'm so satisfied that I can ignore those problems and enjoy my phone with all the apps I need. As an early adopter I can live with small issues.

In your case it looks like you have BIG issues so I wouldn't call your problems early adopter problems. A crash here and there and a FB app that you don't like can be an early adopter problem; in your case you are saying it does not work at all so for you it is a different situation and you should change environmet completely. (920->930->950 here)

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

Since it is a beta you have to google it. When you'll click on the result you'll be redirected to the store app.

 

[garyhartaz]

Just two tips:
-facebook beta app with latest update is near perfect for me with just some bug/delay on notifications
-new firmware when combined with build .36 should fix most of the little issues you are talking about

My 950 is already rock solid on build .36 the firmware will probably solve the once in a while crash, happy!

(p.s. I'm an electronic engineer and a developer like you, I can't believe how you are facing the situation, you are an early adopter of a new HW+SW, you are having problems, MS is patching them, nothing strange; Apple does this, Google does this, Siemens (where I work) does this)

I am facing the situation with honesty. I would have a much different attitude to all of this if the 950/950XL were NOT being sold in retail stores. Retail indicates consumer ready products which it is clear these are not. And let's be clear what MS is patching to the average consumer.....NOT MUCH. .0 to .29 and even then half the 950XL's initially could not receive the update. BE honest!

 

[richv77]

Ok, thanks. I used Bing and now when I found it in the Store it says it's not compatible with my Lumia 830.

-Rich

Since it is a beta you have to google it. When you'll click on the result you'll be redirected to the store app.

 

[garyhartaz]

As a "developer", you did all that rant from button placement, reset to resolve battery issues, bugs that exist in the OS but spent the money 800+ bucks on the Lumia 950XL anyway? You didn't read up, visit a MS store and put hands on, talk to people in the ecosystem then make the 800 dollar call? All I can say is if I had your income, I'd be the best dressed engineer at the firm. I mean, 800 bucks based on splashy advertising is one healthy bank account.

You make it sound like having it in your hand at the store would magically allow you to discover these things. Since you cannot make or receive calls on the stores devices, you don't get to see how horrible the button placement is or how the IRIS scanner remains on after a call every now and then and subsequently drain your battery. You can't see that there are messaging issues. The list goes on and on!

Until you have the device working outside the store, in the real world, only then can you appreciate how unspecial it all is.

 

[garyhartaz]

Here is my point. Microsoft did not advertise the 950 or 950XL as an "early adopter" or "BETA" device, especially putting it in retail stores across the country. Simply put, Microsoft is selling this line as a "consumer-ready" product to which it is not.

My wife got her 950 from AT&T. We went through 2 of these because of the call echo issue. I finally said let's just hard reset it and magically the issue went away ONLY to come back with .29 and forcing us to go back through that process again. My point here is, even AT&T has/had no idea how to fix this issue and imagine how many RMA devices the unnecessarily have had to handle on a pure retail level! I couldn't imagine having to walk my parents through such a feat!

It just blows my mind that with the talent and money available that this is the perceived best Microsoft can do. IMHO, Microsoft needs to break these groups off to operate autonomously from corporate.

For some of the other commentators out there, I can appreciate your replies on the matter and the geek side of me agrees; however, when I put my other hats on to cover support, marketing, sales, etc. what is happening with this platform is shameful for a company like Microsoft.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

Yawn.

 

[EMitchell]

Here is my point. Microsoft did not advertise the 950 or 950XL as an "early adopter" or "BETA" device, especially putting it in retail stores across the country. Simply put, Microsoft is selling this line as a "consumer-ready" product to which it is not.

Agreed, it shouldn't be a beta-ready device when released to the market at large. I've been OK, debugging things as they've come along, but there are multiple features that are intermittent, sometimes they work, other times they don't. Irritating at best.

... Microsoft needs to break these groups off to operate autonomously from corporate.

Agreed, although unfortunately this is the opposite direction taken by MS.

 

[Justin Engel]

I thought the echo issue was a "Hey Cortana" bug? But yeah I agree. There is bug after bug from one thing or another. It takes too much time to figure out how to fix a bug which usually means you have to go without a desired feature.

The keyboard autocorrect just drives me crazy. How does this not work? This worked well in Windows Phone 8.1.

The end user should never have to hard reset to fix an issue. My friends don't even know what hard reset and soft reset mean. A normal user doesn't know everything they have to backup. If they have photo backup turned off that's a hassle. Not to mention photo backup had problems. I don't know if it is fixed or not.

They need to have the Windows Feedback App work like a bug tracker plain and simple. Show me what bugs they are aware of, show me their progress on them, let me follow the bugs, and alert me when a bug has been fixed and in what update.

 

[techiez]

Being an early adopter is different to being a "beta tester". The same thing happens for many products when they first go to market.

So essentially MS is incapable of producing a decent hardware and decent software after going though so many iterations. and now everyone is pinning their hopes on surface phone which is going to be a disaster considering how surface book being a first gen has turned out to be.

 

[anthonyng]

It's consumer ready enough for my mom! =D I put windows 10m insider on a Lumia 640 to upgrade my mom's Blu Win Jr. She's getting along fine with it and can do what she needs without issue.

(minus the fact that she keeps answering a skype call without video somehow and each time I have to go through the process of guiding her to find the way to put her video on while she's yelling at me "but I can see you! I can see you!" lol)

 

[ScubaDog]

Gary here is my advise.... Take back the phone and go get whatever "Works" for you. We get it... your not happy with it. Obviously you never bought a phone before that just came out with a new type of hardware and software. I was there at the starting of Android, trust me they had worse problems. I know what I am getting myself into.... it's called the forefront of new technology, and I am expecting to have problems, A lot matter of fact. It is something I am willing to deal with.I am sorry it isn't what you expected, but those of us who are making the switch from Android to WP10, we know what we are getting ourselves into, and we know that patience is virtue.

In Gary's defense, I bought each of these devices the first day they came out: Samsung Focus, LUMIA 900, Lumia 920, LUMIA 1020. I bought these devices well after they began discounting them: LUMIA 635, Lumia 640. I can honestly say that in NO cases did ANY of those devices give me a headache or issues. WP7, WP8 and WP8.1 functioned as smoothly as I expected. Meanwhile, when I loaded W10M on the LUMIA 635 and 640 (which was my intent with those devices all along) I understood they would be betas. What it served to prove to me was that I hated what Microsoft was doing with the operating system and that W10--unlike WP8--COMPLETELY depended on the hardware to give you anything close to an acceptable performance experience. The 635 is virtually unusable with W10M. The 640 is BARELY acceptable. But, stupidly, my wife and I were swayed by those who had gotten the 950 early and claimed that W10 was awesome on these new devices. Well, I can tell you that's not true. We both see "resuming" a LOT, and all of the issues Gary describes as well. And THEN some. Not to mention that that camera isn't nearly as good as my 1020 (with the exception of speed). The OS is STILL beta and this hardware is, too.

 

[Gunbust3r]

So essentially MS is incapable of producing a decent hardware and decent software after going though so many iterations. and now everyone is pinning their hopes on surface phone which is going to be a disaster considering how surface book being a first gen has turned out to be.

Indeed. Look at the Marvel Avastar disaster of a WiFi/Bluetooth chip that has plagued the surfaces from the beginning. That trash is still around in the Surface Book and Pro 4. 7 devices and they still issue "did we fix it yet?" driver and firmware updates for it.

 

[Zoolok]

This is a new OS with new HW. Again, my post was in response to his post. He reported little problems that we are all facing and I'm so satisfied that I can ignore those problems and enjoy my phone with all the apps I need. As an early adopter I can live with small issues.

In your case it looks like you have BIG issues so I wouldn't call your problems early adopter problems. A crash here and there and a FB app that you don't like can be an early adopter problem; in your case you are saying it does not work at all so for you it is a different situation and you should change environmet completely. (920->930->950 here)

You may consider yourself an 'early adopter', but the vast majority of people just go out and buy a phone and that is it. And while I agree that you cannot expect some cutting edge technologies to work right away (e.g. Cortana, Continuum, maybe something else), camera use, messaging, browsing, music playback and the rest are not cutting edge and should work right out of the box.

 

[RumoredNow]

...you have to google it...

...I used Bing...

Score one for Rich.

 

[mark233]

... and there's this :straight:
Amazon Germany pulls the Lumia 950 XL, says its "faulty" - WMPoweruser

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

Score one for Rich.

The funny thing is that I said google it and not bing it because in Italy google search engine returns the right link at first position while bing will show it down the list

 

[Paolo Ferrazza]

Another funny thing is I thought this thread was about Lumia 950 and not 950 XL, sorry

 

[Zeem Frostmaw]

rushed release deadline

You can't possibly be serious.

 

[snakebitten]

As far as recommending the 950(XL) to anyone, I am someone who by my very profession get asked for recommendations continuously.
I suspect if I did a poor job of it, it would cut way down on the demand.

I admit that I would recommend the 950(XL) to far fewer people than I would recommend a 1520 or a 640 to. And there are plenty of folks that I don't recommend Windows Phone too at all. (almost entirely based on if they would experience a painful "app-gap"......not everyone does)
There are folks who absolutely LOVE Windows phone that I have thought they would.

I'm just honest with people. And I am willing to support them with my advice.

A good example is the Surface Pro 4. I have deployed quite a few, and all but one succesfully. (defective. Exchange was fine) But I flat out almost demanded that I be the one that set it up for each user. I knew the average user wouldn't know the solution(s) to many of the out-of-the-box issues that a newly released bleeding edge platform would come with.

I feel the same way about the 950(XL). If I get my hands on it and I do not have a defective unit, I am more than capable of handing over a really nice phone for the user(S) that I pre-qualified.

In a way, I am both defending Microsoft, yet agreeeing with many of the complaints. Such is my life.

And my 640, 1520 and 950XL are awesome devices with Windows 10 Mobile. But then I obvioulsy must like Windows 10 mobile.
And full disclosure: The 950XL is my "daily driver", as many folks put it. And I MUST trust it, just as most would.