I'm convinced that the remaining NI fanboys belong to that group of people that have really low standards and impossibly low expectations.
It's such a fine group to sell to! Sell crap, they'll buy it and the best thing is they'll sing your praise for it and find reasons why the crap is gold. How cool is that.
Time for me to market them a few things I need to get rid of.
Hmm...so... has the "whole community" built ICS yet? because there's no ETA from NI. Of course they're waiting for the "community" to do their work for them so they can give them a "bounty" (here boy, candy for you) and perhaps use that as their own ROM (remember Honeycomb? After blogging and misleading people that they were doing their own release for months, they just took Tabletroms!) . Why invest in resources and develop when you have people doing it for you for a low price. How sweet.
Hurry up "community", NI doesn't have all month long for you to finish it!
They do not have any fanboys left. These are NI paid mouthes or Rohan & gang itself. Some people never learn from their mistakes and Rohan is the best example.
ReplyDeleteNI blamed Google for Honeycomb source and every other issue. They had source before Honeycomb and what they developed whole world knows.
NI is "working", but on what for last 6 months? Support software is already a dud. Conclave and live support was dead from the day one.
ICS for Adam will be out and NI will lay their claim, pathetic.
May the common sense be with fan boys.
I don't think those are paid astroturfers, but just some fanbois who need to find another cause in their lives. NI seems to be FUBAR, and Rohan and his binary 100 strong team have completely failed to redeem themselves by demonstrating no action on ICS. So much for big talk.
ReplyDelete[snipped]
It's a really interesting case study to look at the fanbase's trajectory over the last year. The few remaining loyalists (which shouldn't be confused with the hobbyists who are building and tweaking out of love and interest in recouping their investments and those that feel stuck with a $400+ piece of shit) seem to fall into a few categories:
ReplyDelete* People that have some sort of indirect financial or ego-based relationship with NI. I'm not saying these people are paid NI mouthpieces, just that they have an emotional attachment, likely based off of the allure of being recognized by Rohan back when that shit mattered.
* People that invested a lot financially and emotionally and don't want to give up or face reality that they got sold a lousy product.
* Delusional fanboys who for whatever reason still have low expectations and think NI is going to change the world.
The third group I think has basically dried up. Unlike the Amiga (which if you want to see some pathetic fanboys clinging onto the past, look back at that community's history. It's freaking fascinating, considering the amount of snake oil salesmen, con-men and neerdowells that have been praying on the same 900 people or so globally since like 1995 (probably 200 or so remain active on the forums, most either hobbyists for fork projects and maybe 10 or 15 diehards who still believe in the spirit of Amiga rising from the ash. It's kind of insane)), NI burned out too fast to engender long term support.
In the end, most people bought an Adam because of its overhyped specs (that all fell apart) and because a year ago, it seemed cheap. It still wasn't any cheaper than an iPad after shipping/VAT, but hey, let's stick it to the man.
But now we have tons of almost decent $200 tablets (look, I wouldn't buy a Nook Tab or Kindle Fire but the review units I used aren't bad. I'd still rather spend $500 on a iPad 2 for screen, battery and apps), lots more in the $400 range and a rotor with actual OS support.
What's fascinating to me is that NI actually registered for CES this year. Last year Rohan had a badge and just walked around the Hilton. Not sure if they managed to get a tiny office cubicle in the South Hall or what (it's expensive to do that and that's usually reserved for OEMs -- but it's cheaper than trying to get an actual booth) or if they are just attendees again. I'll be working non-stop over CES (I started getting briefing requests in October -- which just shows how stiff competition is this year.) so I certainly won't try to find out anything, though it will be interesting to see if they get any where are they now coverage. I fully intend to tweak Nilay and Joanna at the Verge (formerly Engadget) and give them shit next time I see them in the city.
Good to hear from you. Yes, you should spend at least a tiny bit of time to check NI out in CES. I'm sure people often wonder why I even bother with my posts, even if few. Or rather "why flog a dead horse?" For me the horse isn't dead. About the costs of Adam, when you factor shipping/VAT and exports that people paid, combined with the headache of dealing with it the total cost of ownership far exceeds owing an iPad. I've read comments of users who are "pleased" that NI responded to their support requests "both times they had to send it for repair", It's just sad - just imagine if I had to send my iPad back to repair 2 times! I would be livid.
ReplyDeleteAs long as they're out there making announcement, I'm going to keep commenting - remember the "support system" fiasco? 4 months of "study" led to a non-working basic ticketing system. And now the fun on ICS which to me looks like it's all on TR's shoulders to deliver it. It's like I can't stop amusing myself.