100% in agreement with the OP. The way some are behaving, you’d think Roon killed their dog.
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and another with insider knowledge…
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Puhleeze: “sycophants”? Really? Can you discuss your experience developing software?
I sense a little bit of jealousy? 
Vertical scrolling plus portrait mode in ipads alone makes 1.8 worth it. Nice to see bugs fixed so fast. Great job. Look forward to the next release and will make heavy use of links and recommendations in the meantime.
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I’ve not been a Roon user for long but I was shocked (I don’t use this word lightly) to see such vitriol and nastiness. I’d like to thank experienced Forum contributors for trying to inject some balance and patience into the proceedings.
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And hope that they will not disappear in 1.9 (bitter joke, but well, this thread is about negativity!!!) 
Just want to add my voice to the majority view expressed in this thread. For me, Roon 1.8 is a big step forward from 1.7. Of course there are areas for improvement, but I wouldn’t want to go back from here. And I too find the tone of some critics pretty offensive.
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Some of the negative reactions have been over the top, sure. But I find the dismissive condescension of those who, just because they like 1.8 fine and they don’t have any issues, that those who have issues should just shut up and not voice any displeasure, even worse.
People pay a lot of money for this. And when features people use like track tagging/playlist identification are ripped out with no warning, no explanation, and for no discernible reason, I don’t blame people for getting testy about it.
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I can discuss my experience using software. My wife is a PM at Microsoft so have had plenty of vicarious experience through her about builds, releases, bugs etc etc. I just think listening to a well rounded group of both critics and lovers would have headed off at the pass a lot of the issues people are having, esp in regards to wasted space, charts taking importance over more albums or actual discovery features, missing 1.7 functions like star ratings on thumbnails, etc etc.
Hey, 1.8 is snappier and the first build in a long time that actually went through and didn’t leave me with a bouncing Roon symbol and a database rebuild. It’s quicker and, perfectly stable for me and overall it’s a most definite step inn the right direction. Just more thought put into consistency and design (like readability of white on dark text) would have been kind of nice, esp considering the huge build up.
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And you speak as if you’ve never had what’s known as an idea, an educated guess, an inkling, a hypothesis, an… oh forget it.
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… is a given on this forum. Mostly from avid Roon supporters who seem to take founded criticism as personal attacks.
I myself am quite pleased with 1.8. This is a new experience for me with Roon.
But looking at the negative reactions, it seems that this update has undone a lot of work some people have put into their libraries over time. Work and effort spent in part to find workarounds for missing or poorly implemented functionality in Roon.
I probably would be very PO’d as well if I saw all that time and effort go irretrievably down the proverbial drain.
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Do you have any evidence that this is not already the case? How would you know?
I love it when people have “expert knowledge” on a topic … it’s even better when they bang on about a project at Microsoft or Google, etc.
To succeed with a product that needs to function in an environment as varied as Roon’s you need the support of a positive user base because no release “into the wild” could possibly have tested all of the potential permutations out there.
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I think you’re being willfully obtuse here. Charles is obviously speculating those steps may not have been taken, or not taken effectively, based on the result, i.e. the myriad issues that have surfaced with this update.
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No, but I think with any sort of focus group of diverse users here they would have gotten a lot of useful feedback that I think would have steered the software differently. I can’t imagine a room full of users going, oh, yeah, be sure to put those statistics big and top level compared to seeing album activity. I just don’t.
I did a photo book a number of years back, and being my fourth I thought I could parse most of the choices myself. My work, my decisions. After the fact I was kicking myself for putting in some dross I was married to and leaving some images on the floor that were as good if not better than anything I included. That’s what happens when you get too married something, it’s very easy to lose sight of your options, strengths, and weaknesses.
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I agree in that Roon 1.8 is on balance a step forward. Design-wise I liked them both.
The frustration I have heard (and felt to a limited degree) is the removal of functions that a software designer would hopefully know are relied upon by a part of the user base. How Tags work and where you can edit them, for example. Not me, but some folks were horribly screwed in their listening modes. We love music, that feels like something getting in the way.
Anyway, I still wouldn’t go back to 1.7 and am hopeful to discover more improvements.
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You are talking about bugs; I’m talking about the initial focus on which way the design and structure should go.
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[Moderated]
Often on a journey with a product you need to take a step that may result in functional compromise so that you can consolidate for for future flexibility … you cannot simply keep adding features and expect everything to be fine.
Yes, he’s speculating, and that’s the problem.
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