[wdtarver]

In my considerable experience as an engineer, BETA means a product has all intended features, and those features work the way they are intended to work in the official production release. it seems clear that this is not what BETA means at RIM. What they are calling OS2 BETA is apparently a buggy, incomplete ALPHA.

I'm tired of waiting for RIM. Already jumped ship from my 9700. Sadly, I'm afraid PB is next. RIM gives me nothing but a keyboard and familiarity to hang my hat on.

[lawguyman]

This is a developer beta, not a consumer beta.

I'm glad it was released but I would have rather had a release of the complete OS or at least a beta of the complete OS.

[Motoberg]

In my considerable experience as an engineer, BETA means a product has all intended features, and those features work the way they are intended to work in the official production release. it seems clear that this is not what BETA means at RIM. What they are calling OS2 BETA is apparently a buggy, incomplete ALPHA.

I'm tired of waiting for RIM. Already jumped ship from my 9700. Sadly, I'm afraid PB is next. RIM gives me nothing but a keyboard and familiarity to hang my hat on.

Can I buy your old Playbook for much cheapness then given it hasnt had any useful updates ?
ta

[wdtarver]

developer BETA = ALPHA.

[rickgainsmith]

I am enjoying the Beta, for what its worth...

Android app developers are testing their apps, hopefully have them ready for when the consumer release is out.

Heck, it took only a few minutes to get kindle up and running. Amazing!

Many apps work without the need of the developer to change anything, imagine the thousands of apps that are just around the corner.

If you want native email, an android app can be installed now...no need to wait if you domt want to.

Really is great work! I look forward to Consumer 2.0 but loving the extra Apps the Android Player provides us and the potential I can see with it.

[lawguyman]

developer BETA = ALPHA.

I am not sure why you are getting so hung up on a word. Call it what you want. It is what it is. There have been leaks from people describing feature complete versions. They are out there. There are probably several reasons why RIM has not released those instead but I would not get discouraged solely by what you see in this beta/alpha/whatever-you want-to-call-it.

[wdtarver]

i intend to check out the official 2.0 release before making a final decision regarding my PB, assuming it comes out before next year. if RIM wants to have a prayer at reviving PB sales, better have a solid release out well before xmas, and preferably before Kindle Fire ships. i just can't believe the ineptitude of the WLOO bunch. Still, I am hoping they will get it together, like YESTERDAY!

[lawguyman]

i intend to check out the official 2.0 release before making a final decision regarding my PB, assuming it comes out before next year. if RIM wants to have a prayer at reviving PB sales, better have a solid release out well before xmas, and preferably before Kindle Fire ships. i just can't believe the ineptitude of the WLOO bunch. Still, I am hoping they will get it together, like YESTERDAY!

No argument there. This has to get done as soon as possible AND it has to be great.

Seven months after launch and this is beyond ridiculous at this point.

[s219]

To be honest, the Tablet OS 1.0.x releases often had less polish and more bugs than beta releases I have seen on other platforms. Some glaring bugs in fact. But I wouldn't get too hung up on what they call it either way. RIM definitely has a loose definition of software releases.

Whether they hide features is a separate issue. iOS 5 had a long developer beta period (4 months) yet we didn't find out about certain hidden features until the very end (ones tied to the iPhone 4S and/or ones that would give a competitive advantage). The rest of the beta OS was feature complete, but nonetheless, they held back stuff.

It's entirely possible RIM is keeping many things under wraps. As far as I know, the current 2.0 beta was given out strictly so developers could compile against it. That's really the main purpose. It is much less feature complete than developer betas of iOS for instance, but again, RIM is pretty loose with their approach. They probably like it better when customers are confused . God forbid we have expectations, or something to look forward to...

[wxman123]

In my considerable experience as an engineer, BETA means a product has all intended features, and those features work the way they are intended to work in the official production release. it seems clear that this is not what BETA means at RIM. What they are calling OS2 BETA is apparently a buggy, incomplete ALPHA.

I'm tired of waiting for RIM. Already jumped ship from my 9700. Sadly, I'm afraid PB is next. RIM gives me nothing but a keyboard and familiarity to hang my hat on.

Totally, 10000% agree. I would gladly try a REAL beta, i.e, basically what the developer thinks is done but for real world testing. That RIM is only at this incomplete stage at this point is simply preposterous. The people on this forum who tolerate such things are either tech hobbyists who enjoy debugging (fine with me) or delusional. Perhaps RIM really wanted this release limited to true developers, but that doesn't sweeten the story even a little bit at this late date.

[FF22]

Even if this is a DEVELOPER "beta" how can they really test unless everything is engaged and normal? I know that supposedly the OS "isolated" apps from one another but we all know that if too many apps are running under OS1.x, the Browser will implode. Will a developer run into similar issues once the "real" OS is released - that is, will they find their apps imploding or causing other apps to implode?

Just asking....

[Innovatology]

Seven months after launch and this is beyond ridiculous at this point.

April 19th to October 20th = six months & one day.

IOS took over a year to go from 1.0 to 2.0. Android took seven months. Those were much simpler devices.

[rs422a]

I am an engineer too -electrical. But being an avid Linux user I can tell you that a Beta version of release of Linux is a fool's folly if you think everything is supposed to work like it is supposed to in the release version. And learned a long time ago to not recognize a Beta version as experimental at best. There is no way I would install any Beta on any box and expect compliance. Especially if said box held any data not considered as throw-away. And I even hold back on final release versions of any OS until I consider them safe for implementation. The reason for this is I learned many moons ago that by trusting my data to a Beta usually meant disaster, and I learned from my mistakes.

[melander]

I am not sure why you are getting so hung up on a word. Call it what you want. It is what it is. There have been leaks from people describing feature complete versions. They are out there. There are probably several reasons why RIM has not released those instead but I would not get discouraged solely by what you see in this beta/alpha/whatever-you want-to-call-it.

Look in my hands. My tablet has an app that correctly predicts lottery numbers. Buy my tablet. Now, when you get it, it won't have that feature, but it will. Just a few months later, I will whisper that that update you want will come. But you won't get it. That will be a developer beta, so the GA release still won't have the Lotto numbers app.


.. Was I a little misleading in my first statement? No.

[sportline]

beta means something unfinished, dodgy. don't really know where its actually coming from, beta is the most common..never heard of alpha release or gamma release.

[Mystic205]

I would love to start this post with 'as a former CEO and world traveller", or even "with considerable engineering experience" but i wont..

IMO the release you describe below is a production release... not a beta..

I would not ever expect beta to have all features working as intended..to me Beta would best be described as "may or may not have all intended features, but those that are in the release are thought to work as described, or if we know they dont we told you about it in the readme.txt file"

basically it means if you brick your machine i told you it was beta.. so dont bug me about it..just calm down and report it like i told you.

in the worlds general list of disclaimers like use at your own risk, objects appear closer than they are, dont drink and drive and this coffee may be hot, simply add "dont ever ever trust a beta release"..

In my considerable experience as an engineer, BETA means a product has all intended features, and those features work the way they are intended to work in the official production release. it seems clear that this is not what BETA means at RIM. What they are calling OS2 BETA is apparently a buggy, incomplete ALPHA.

I'm tired of waiting for RIM. Already jumped ship from my 9700. Sadly, I'm afraid PB is next. RIM gives me nothing but a keyboard and familiarity to hang my hat on.

[melander]

beta means something unfinished, dodgy. don't really know where its actually coming from, beta is the most common..never heard of alpha release or gamma release.

alpha is the initial cut and sometimes HEAD/trunk in a dev tree. Beta once lived as alpha code, but some features have been tested as working. Beta is close to release candidate. Then you have a release and sometimes GA release. All these terms are common in code development.

Regardless, three weeks ago, the stage was not in question. And no one was arguing over whether there would be a Dev Beta or Consumer Beta "Released" at Decon. All anyone outside of RIM engineering knew was that 2.0 was being released. Betas do not have to be released at such an event since they are incomplete.

Duke Nukem Forever was a game that was hinted at being released, but remained in beta for years (over 15) and is a famous example of perpetual development with no release. Announced in 1997 with various promotional announcements over the years, it was released this year.

[esqlaw]

Look in my hands. My tablet has an app that correctly predicts lottery numbers. Buy my tablet. Now, when you get it, it won't have that feature, but it will. Just a few months later, I will whisper that that update you want will come. But you won't get it. That will be a developer beta, so the GA release still won't have the Lotto numbers app.


.. Was I a little misleading in my first statement? No.

He was trying to say that it doesn't matter what you call it, its an unfinished product put out there so that developers may test their apps... Absolutely nothing you wrote in response is relevant to that.

OT: This is a beta with an old build. Its not a complete build because it was meant for one clear purpose, not only one purpose but at least one primary purpose, to let devs test their android apps on the playbook directly. Alpha/beta doesn't speak to the readiness of the product directly, rather its arbitrary pre-designed stages of development.

[easydoesit99]

In my considerable experience as an engineer, BETA means a product has all intended features, and those features work the way they are intended to work in the official production release. it seems clear that this is not what BETA means at RIM. What they are calling OS2 BETA is apparently a buggy, incomplete ALPHA.

I'm tired of waiting for RIM. Already jumped ship from my 9700. Sadly, I'm afraid PB is next. RIM gives me nothing but a keyboard and familiarity to hang my hat on.

a keyboard without TAB, DEL, or arrow keys is like working in unix. i thought this was a business tablet.