Self inflicted in the sense that the lack of proper beta testing caused Roon 1.8 to be released before it was ready. A poor initial impression makes folks cranky and then everything else gets interpreted in that crankiness. This could’ve been avoided with far more beta testing and bug/ design fixes prior to public release.
I like guacamole. I have 3 avocado trees on my property. If I served the world guacamole made from unripe avocados, the world would think guacamole is a terrible dish - hard, bitter, unappetizing. Using properly ripe avocados transforms the experience.
Roon made the mistake of putting out unripe avocados. A significant number of people have revolted. Yes, there’s a certain degree of forum mental health issues, but the root cause of the storm is Roon’s decision to release unripe avocados. And that, is, self inflicted.
I live in the USA. We are knee deep in conspiracy theories. The notion that the forum feedback is somehow part of a deeper anti Roon conspiracy, is well, nothing but fully rotten avocados. I find the unproven conspiracy theory line of thinking absurd.
Who is Roon’s competition? ITunes? Roon is so tiny, Apple could care less. Audrivana? Hard to imagine Audirvana users have waged a slander campaign against Roon. There’s really no one in the market who cares how successful Roon is, or is not.
what else could it have been after lots of invited users like me reported it last saturday in the beta section of the forum? The decision to go live was probably not stoppable at this moment. But it could have been communicated as a known issue upfront.
I also believe that this sh*tstorm about localization would have happened even without any change in the UI. I think it would be wrong to condemn all the negative reactions as only being caused by an UI change
I appreciate this seemingly balanced review. What I saw in the video does not comport with many of the angry comments I have read here. Thanks for sharing this.
Hans B. talked about what he saw in the forum here in his video.
A handful of people trying to put more flames on because they didn’t get it their way.
Even so called Beta testers turning up the heat, because they feel they weren’t listened to.
And this is my friendly and naiv interpretation of what
I saw.
what I saw were lots of people complaining about this issue after release and blaming it on the „beta testers“. After that some of the very late invitees to play with 1.8 prior to official release told the community that this was discovered pre release day… I do agree that these people (including me) were not proper beta testers. I think nobody claimed that they were.
There are a few bugs and design missteps for certain, but I suspect what bit them the most was the server problem that occurred shortly after release. That they did bring on themselves with their 5 day leadup marketing. No doubt it caught them by surprise. That created a ton of initial, justified concern which is likely what triggered the avalanche of negative comments. But Roon’s responsiveness to that and the prompt release of the update soon after is hugely commendable. Got a feeling quite a few folks got little sleep that night.
Sadly, there is a huge mess left behind in these forums the stench of which will last a long time. Thank goodness for the likes of Hans B for creating a sane and balanced view of it.
Yes, the whole world takes note of it with astonishment, amazement and fear. To follow up: Let’s make Roon great again *. That shouldn’t be difficult. They should revise the UI a bit and think about whether it is better to leave the choice of color to the user, reinstate lost properties, make the tags usable as they were before and correct the errors that are justifiably part of the S * &% tstorm . Then the situation will ease significantly again.
I only use the slogan. Otherwise, I distance myself entirely from this man’s ideas.
Just bring back the damn track tags. I can deal with bugs as long as they’re fixed in a reasonable timeframe. The new UI is pretty nice. But when a core feature is removed with no warning and no explanation and for no discernable reason, after I just paid the hefty annual renewal fee - that’s when I get testy.
Yes I know, just saying what they said in the interview about being responsible to stakeholders. As I said it might not be financial, but who knows, things change.
JRiver cares, for sure. They went on a customer fishing expedition Here’s a quote from the LONG email I got from them last night:
Why Choose JRiver?
You might well ask. We did ask, and our customers told us why they love JRiver:
A Big Thank You to Matt and the guys at MC for “actually listening to your users” and, where possible, making the changes we ask for instead of doing what a lot of other Software Companies do; pretending to listen and imposing Solutions/Updates that the majority of users don’t want or need, frequently because their so called updates breaks more things than they fix.
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They didn’t mention Roon by name in the email, but that sounds to me like a quote from a disgruntled Roon user which they were quick to leverage…
I work in an industry where updating customer hardware (numbering millions of units) we get around 2% casualties. Knowing that we still need to update. What then matters are the mitigations put in place. Customer Service cover, dealing with known issues discovered after embargo and enough spare hardware to replace bricked units. Sometimes you can’t put things off. Especially when getting the necessary resources together is not an easy task. It may not be great, but in this instance you and others were simply part of the 2%.
That said, an issue that impacts most or all none English users might have been sufficiently focussed to justify a postponement.
Perhaps Roon has become like companies that used to routinely ship products with known defects and plan to fix them later. Think of GM, Ford and Chrysler. The Japanese took over the automarket.
Who will take over if Roon doesn’t fix 1.8 as quickly as possible and offer compensation to those disgruntled users?
When a company stumbles this badly, they haven’t cracked the door open to their competitors, they’ve thrown the welcome mat down.
Could have been talking about Plex too, describes them to an absolute T. It’s been a bit distressing to see Roon appearing to follow the Plex playbook. Contrast it to an endeavor like Launchbox, which is literally one guy, who discusses new features with users, polls are conducted… and then, amazingly, those most requested features show up exactly as discussed in the actual application shortly thereafter. Amazing! So transparent and user focused, unlike the murky alterior motives of Plex, and increasingly, Roon.
Here’s a quote from the LONG email I got from them last night: