Beta group? I always thought that being for a few incrowd people. I would like to join, have been streaming Naim since 2015 and occasionally have some ideas for improvement.
See further up in the thread (and others about issues), the invitation to join the beta group has been extended many times by Richard. Simply send an email to beta@naimaudio.com and ask to be included.
Absolutely, but in the context of a commercial product I find it difficult to accept. It is a bit like MS Windows during the nineties, using costumers as beta testersâŚ
I did report to Naim all the details and actions that lead to a crash of the my streamerâs embedded system. And I did it as it should be done.
I did share my knowledge, competences and experience for free software projects (as mentioned above) aimed to actually help people.
But being part of a beta testing group for a commercial product I paid for⌠Well, it makes me feel Iâm paying twice for the same product.
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Thatâs good news then.
It is annoying, but unfortunately, with the complexities involved, itâs part of the new world. I have had to work with firmware/app developers for all similar devices I bought in recent years - robo lawn mower, robo vacuum, two different bluetooth receivers, âŚ
And I work as a software support & testing manager for a product with a million professional users that is now 17 years old - and still the users in the field are finding ways to trigger fault conditions, sometimes in code that has been there from the start. (And we are spending a great deal of time on code quality and have been forever, we are not letting things rot)
Edit: Regarding the earlier Ferrari example, I am pretty sure you would be doing just that. Itâs a challenge for the support department too. My users also complain if they run into an issue, and rightly so, but sometimes I just have to tell them, âlook, you are the only person among a million in a decade who experienced this, and the only option to get it fixed is you working with us so that we can find out what is going onâ
But being part of a beta testing group for a commercial product I paid for⌠Well, it makes me feel Iâm paying twice for the same product.
Well I run a Beta version of Office 365. I donât feel Iâm paying twice. I get the chance to identify and help eliminate existing issues and try new functionality.
Itâs like buying a Ferrari, having problems with the software controlling the engine and having Ferrari telling you should help them debugging the software embedded in the care you paid a fortune for⌠really!?!
I would have thought the analogy is more along the lines of: We think weâve found a fix. Can you try it and see if it has sorted the problem for you? It is not as if Ferraris donât have recalls.
It is not just about fixing issues being part of the beta team. I recently had the good fortune to try out the new HD tuner stations many weeks before launch. And the Qobuz testing was just a treat. Real pleasure being on the beta teamđ
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Another way to look at being on the beta team is that if I discover an issue with the way a beta works for me then I can report it and it will likely get looked at and sorted out. I can remember a couple of times over the last couple of years where I reported an issue and a new beta with a fix in was released the same day. That has to be better than discovering an issue that is rarely seen by others and then spending months hoping it might get fixed.
Best
David
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God no, I would send the car back.
Luxury cars, luxury hifi, luxury watches, etc⌠is no more no less then luxury.
Thanks, happy to contribute!
With all due respect, you are.
It would be a different thing if you were beta testing Open Office, or LibreOffice.
But Microsoft Office⌠common. Microsoft is one of the richest companies on earth.
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And even for them it is impossible to recreate in testing every possible condition that their hundreds of million of users are creating in the field. How would they.
Plus all the above & add that some of us enjoy being involved, like playing with something that interests us, have a wish to explore, the need to learn, sustenance for the techie nerdish âŚ
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Honestly, this is potentially more problematic here than the bugs in the software themselves.
I am not aiming this at Richard as he communicates what he can.
But the idea of waiting for the âperfectâ software before a release has proven itself to not always be the best idea. This is why Agile and Kanban and Scrum has become the huge buzzwords in software dev that they have.
Perhaps there are very good reasons not to do this and if so I concede, but now there is a case of a release then months and months waiting for a release that will definitely be released the next week.
Prior to joining Beta here that was actually far more frustrating than the issues cause I knew if I had an issue I was stuck with it for weeks or months. While that if the release came out quick and agile, remaining issues or small new ones would be more bearable. This is exactly what I am finding on the beta team.
So unless it is absolutely prohibited by the architecture, I think it could benefit everyone if there were smaller, faster incremental releases of the public release as well.
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Microsoft has an enormous beta program called Microsoft Insider, with more than ten million beta testers:
It would be impossible for them to simply release âperfectâ software without extensive field testing, and the software would be unaffordable if they would have to hire/pay people to test and report every conceivable scenario in which the software is used (apart from the fact that this would be practically impossible).
Similarly every Tesla driver is basically a beta tester for the company. Itâs a bleeding edge product with continuous updates and fixes, in contrast to a much more static product such as a Ferrari.
Itâs just the way things work in a connected world, where the hearts and brains of many products are basically general purpose computers and software that depend on humans programming them.
However, youâd only know as a forum member, so most Naim users probably never hear about this
Join beta. Vent your frustrations there.
You will not have the answers, but you may well have the problems.
I have found reporting things in beta has resulted in fixes. Right now my ndx2 looks, feels and sounds as it should.
Dear Thomas -
Although I donât quite share your perspective on the broader issue, I think thatâs because my efforts to manage expectations (most certainly including my own) have been a focus for a few years now and not because I do not see the logic in what you are saying. My view, using your term and my (respectful) interpretation of your phrasing is that everyone is âpaying twiceâ - once when we buy the product, and once when the experience doesnât meet our expectations.
Some choose to live with the frustration, awaiting improvements to be released; this group continues to pay through prolonged disappointment. Some choose to join the test community; this group continues to pay through the time and effort required to observe and share their observations with the developers. This latter group, as expressed better by others, is compensated in return through the new community spirit, the sense of being part of the solution, and occasionally through early access to new fixes and features before they are quite ready for prime time. For many, thatâs a great trade and not something to resent. For others, I expect, not so muchâŚ
I feel your own pain and frustration. Itâs annoying, no matter how much you paid (Naim or Sonos or Topping; Ferrari or BMW or Hyundai) when something doesnât always function as advertised or anticipated. I notice things wrong with Apple and Microsoft and Samsung and Ubiqiti⌠and probably as you point out, other things have flaws that are embedded and occur but which happen to go unnoticed. That some of these are luxury items, at least for me, heightens the disappointment. That others are more like âtools of the tradeâ, again for me, weakens my level of confidence since their flaws can impact my own productivity or output. Different categories, different experiences, different reactions⌠possibly due to different expectations and expectations management?
I really hope you get a good run of stress free listening enjoyment, sans distractions and disruptions from glitches and reboots. This has been a very stressful year for everyone, and I for one have tried to acknowledge and take pleasure in the (relatively fewer?) things that âgo rightâ as a way to find peace and contentment, even though for most of my life and career I put all my focus and effort on the things that âgo wrongâ in an effort to understand and thus improve. I sense you have a very ordered mind - and iirc you also enjoy hobbies that demand extreme levels of care and attention (climbing, if Iâm not mistaken?). Itâs essential to have perfection when the risks are so high. But I have found, as I grow older and strive to be wise and not just smart, that there is a great deal to be gained by acceptance, even if we are simply accepting a situation that we do not agree with. Then, you get to choose your reaction and recover a tiny bit of control.
Apologies for the sermon, if it came out that way. I donât see this as a fan boi versus paying customer issue, though⌠it feels more and more to me like a tiny representative example of how we are moving through our lives, heightened perhaps by the stresses of losing much of our secure and familiar basis for interpreting our surrounding world.
Enjoy it when you can. Turn it off and choose to enjoy something else when you canât. Await the (imminent?) update. Prepare for some hitherto unforeseen bad behaviour to reveal itself shortly after that⌠I was not trying to judge or criticize your reaction or perspective, rather inviting you to step outside this one issue as a way to seeing it from a different angle. My very best wishes to you and yours.
Regards alan
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Yeah it is true for the estimate part but many will read the forum and not take the time to respond and all users know the release cycle. So faster releases will be noticed by all. But itâs my opinion and I know what they say about opinions tooâŚ
No software is perfect.
So Iâm happy to be involved (along with probably millions of others) and get to try some of the new functions often well before they are generally available. You can view it as paying twice, I donât. I get more functionality for the same price for the (usually very small) risk of encountering a new issue and checking whether a pre existing issue has been resolved and having the ability to suggest improvements. I see the Naim beta testing as being similar albeit only from what I have read as I am not a tester.