Sony Ericsson P990 and W950 users will be pleased to hear that there will be another firmware update for their phones available shortly as mentioned in this SE Developer World Forum thread. The updates will be made available in August. Credit to Sony Ericsson for listening to their users in this matter.
Read on in the full article.
On a personal note I'd say that I hope Sony Ericsson get the recognition they deserve for this, especially after the rather vocal reception to earlier announcements.
p.s. since I've just been asked via IM - the background to this as an earlier announcement that there would be no further updates. Obviously that has now changed.
Good on them, perhaps the thread of legal action from owners with phones still under warranty helped to focus their minds 😉
I think it would be important for SE to announce, and get user feedback on, exactly what bugs will be addressed in the August firmware release. Once the joy over this announcement has settled, the finality in the August release can only be measured by its content.
this is obviously good news.
but do they really deserve credit for supporting their phones during the first year of sale?
"but do they really deserve credit for supporting their phones during the first year of sale?"
Well, that's a good point, but I think they do at least deserve credit for publically acknowledging complaints. Most companies just press on regardless when they do something controversial.
I suppose the problem is that firmware is still a very obscure topic, most people don't even know what it is. The average person's idea of support is having their phone fixed when it breaks down, the concept of upgrades to the OS doesn't even enter their heads.
I think that situation will change though as home firmware upgrades become more commonplace, not just on phones but also on digital televisions, games consoles, computers etc. More people will start to demand firmware upgrades throughout the support period (although how that will square with shops that carry on selling particular models after they've stopped production is unclear).
I think this is really a key point in the relation between SE and its users...
Thank you SE, but it's too late. You should have finished the firmware _before_ the release of the p990 and m600.
"Thank you SE, but it's too late. You should have finished the firmware _before_ the release of the p990 and m600."
Well, its not possible to 'perfect' the firmware before the release of a phone. Where there is software, bugs will always creap up. And these need to be fixed through firmware updates. No matter how much testing you do, it is no replacement for actual use of the product.
Even though I prefer Nokia, i think its admirable for SE to still try and fix things (read p990i) that have been declared a failure...
actually, the P990 sales weren�t so bad...and the device is also not bad at its actual state
but it did fail to meet some of expectations
"Well, its not possible to 'perfect' the firmware before the release of a phone. Where there is software, bugs will always creap up. And these need to be fixed through firmware updates. No matter how much testing you do, it is no replacement for actual use of the product."
It's especially difficult for phone manufacturers, because they sell on such a huge scale that almost any problem will be noticed by someone at some point.
If there's a problem in a phone model has a 1 in a thousand chance of happening, the testers might miss it. If that model then sells ten million there will ten thousand people suffering from the problem and demanding that it's fixed. Many phones sell a lot more than ten million, so there's even more pressure on manufacturers to get rid of bugs, even the really rare bugs.
Phones are also used a lot more than any other device, you probably carry your phone with you everywhere and perhaps even have it on your bedside table as an alarm clock. When you spend that much time with a device you are bound to notice its flaws (and all devices have flaws). It's perhaps the technological equivalent of getting married... 😉
krisse, sounds like for quite a few P990 owners it's time for a divorce!
Sorry Rafe,
But i just can't agree with your statement of
"I hope Sony Ericsson get the recognition they deserve for this,"
You have to be joking they released a product that wasn't fit for purpose on launch spent two months at a time on releasing firmware upgrades all whilst maintaining a wall of silence and then announced no more Firmware after releasing a final firmware that brought new problems. They have now backed down from this position not due to their kindness but due to the outcry and protests from their dissatisfied and extremely patient users. Just what exactly do they deserve any credit and praise for as i can't see anything other than criticism is all that they deserve and hopefully the may have learnt you can't treat your loyal supporters and paying customers in this appalling manner.
Marc
1. To those who demand "firmware to be perfect before first release".
This is both impossible and undesirable. First, there is no way a maker of advanced and complex phones can tell exactly how the use pattern will be nor to test all possible use cases. Second, are buyers ready to wait another year or so for launch? I think not. We all want the devices as soon as they are first announced, or even when the grapewine spreads that something is in the making. We push the vendors to release as fast as possible.
2. To those who state that the P990 wasn't fit for purpose at launch.
The P990 was a very good device already when launched. There were serious issues, yes, it was the very first device for the quite complex v9.x + UIQ3 combination, but I cannot see it fail on any of the original claims made when it was launched. From what I can see in the marketplace, the P990 is still very attractive. It's usually the case, and one can notice this on a lot of WM and PPC devices, that failed devices start falling significantly in price about 4-6 months after launch, sometimes even faster. The P990 still maintains a price near its introduction price; perhaps some 10-30 percent off; that's at least from what I can see from the shops in Asia.
I maintain that the analogy with the SE P800 (first on v7 + UIQ2, very unstable), the Nokia 9210 (first on v6 + S80, serious memory problems, slow speed an hangings at first) and even the Psion Series 5 (first on Symbian v1 very buggy at first but now celebrated as an engineering marvel) is relevant.
martinharnevie: I agree that there are explanations for the bugginess of the P990, but there are no excuses. You're of course right that you can't release _perfect_ software, but you can make it pretty good before release.
Apart from whether or not the P990 was "fit for purpose" when it was launched, there were plenty of reviews pointing out its faults; this website was certainly very critical of its stability. Apart from those purchasers who were new to smartphones, anyone else who had an interest should have already been aware of the problems...
I'm not excusing SE, but I am pointing out that the P990s faults WERE well known.
They ARE known and documented here: uiq3.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/R6D23
The list of fixes in progress is here: uiq3.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/R6E28
Sorry for non-clickables, ask admins for url policy.
my p990i is too slow even with the latest firmware and the bugs are countless.hey sony ericsson give us a firmware with linux in it.