[gnemeth]

The review unit that engadget was given was a beta unit. We made the reviewer aware of this and unfortunately he didn't cut us any slack.

As he mentioned we fixed the bugs that we was experiencing. Also we should not that he was using an Android unit, which was the most buggy of all the platforms. The UX on the iPhone and Blackberry for review units, was much more stable.

[TimStevens]

Hate to do this here, Greg, but...

I specifically asked whether devices were shipping to customers and you indicated that they were, at the same time that you sent me a replacement WakeMate unit. If this is not final hardware I reviewed then what is being sent to consumers?

Secondly, you never expressed any concerns about my testing on Android and I was quite clear with you about the issues I was having, and even delayed the review so that I could use a more recent version of the software.

Finally, when you contacted me and offered me a WakeMate in the first place the subject was "WakeMate review unit" and inside that e-mail you repeatedly used the word "review."

I'm sorry, but I can't cut any slack on a reviewable product that is shipping to customers.

I'd also ask that if you have further concerns you contact me directly rather than posting here.

Sincerely,

-tim stevens (dude who wrote the review)

[gnemeth]

Tim - sorry for any confusion - lets finish this discussion offline.

[MichaelApproved]

Wait. Don't leave us hanging!

[jberryman]

What am I going to do with all this popcorn :(

[TimStevens]

Well, I won't share the fun interplay behind the scenes, but I will say there's an update in the review. WakeMate shipped me another wristband to try, the third, plus another new version of the app. This performed no better than the previous ones.

[blasdel]

Don't worry, this is Wakemate!

There'll be a new HN thread soon enough, and they always blunder just enough in each that their company stays at log(n) on the Cuil scale (where n is the number of threads).

[sdoowpilihp]

There is a lesson to learn somewhere in all of this.

[jrockway]

Everyone has the same Internet?

[edw519]

This reminds me of one of my favorite movie scenes, from "Annie Hall" when Woody Allen's character has a disagreement with a man in the line for a movie:

MAN IN LINE: It's the influence of television. Yeah, now Marshall McLuhan deals with it in terms of it being a-a high, uh, high intensity, you understand? A hot medium ... as opposed to a ...

ALVY (More and more aggravated): What I wouldn't give for a large sock o' horse manure.

MAN IN LINE: ... as opposed to a print ...

Alvy steps forward, waving his hands in frustration, and stands facing the camera.

ALVY (Sighing and addressing the audience): What do you do when you get stuck in a movie line with a guy like this behind you? I mean, it's just maddening!

MAN IN LINE: Wait a minute! Really? Really? I happen to teach a class at Columbia called "TV Media and Culture"! So I think that my insights into Mr. McLuhan-well, have a great deal of validity.

ALVY: Oh, do yuh?

MAN IN LINE: Yes.

ALVY: Well, that's funny, because I happen to have Mr. McLuhan right here. So ... so, here, just let me-I mean, all right. Come over here ... a second.

Alvy gestures to the camera which follows him and the man in line to the back of the crowded lobby. He moves over to a large stand-up movie poster and pulls Marshall McLuhan from behind the poster.

MAN IN LINE: Oh.

ALVY (To McLuhan): Tell him.

MCLUHAN (To the man in line): I hear-I heard what you were saying. You-you know nothing of my work. You mean my whole fallacy is wrong. How you ever got to teach a course in anything is totally amazing.

ALVY (To the camera): Boy, if life were only like this!

[Alvy, fast forward to 2010 and Hacker News. It is now.]

(I don't mean for this comment to judge either person's opinion, just that I find it so interesting that you never know who's going to drop by Hacker News and join the discussion.)

[TimStevens]

All I can say is long live the internet.

And Woody Allen, too.

[MichaelApproved]

You waited all this time to ship the product but then you sent a very buggy beta unit to a reviewer and allowed him to review it with the worst platform?

You couldn't wait a bit to send a final version?

[jlgosse]

I would think that Android is a lot better than the BlackBerry, but mostly because I've spent time developing and sleeping with both. The BlackBerry is a serious pain in the ass to develop for, so it has been tough.

[levirosol]

You can review the down hill roller coaster for yourself with a quick google search, but the summary is "just two more weeks! we're so sure it will only be two more weeks!" for the last 9 months (giving them a 4 month buffer since that's what was originally promised).

Now we top it off by chastising a reviewer in public?

Really?

[jamesaguilar]

I don't understand why you would send a unit you weren't happy with to a reviewer. If you knew the unit was buggy, unless you wanted a bad review, why send it out at all?

[weaksauce]

Has the battery life indication been improved since the demo units? I know lithium ion battery life estimation is hard but I am curious if you have made any improvements since then. My work android phone crashes all the time and so I empathize with you for having to program for it. My personal iPhone is much more stable and I would imagine that it would be roughly the same for your app.

[brown9-2]

Would you guys care to elaborate on some point in the future just what it was about the Android platform that let to your app being the "buggiest" on it of the three?

Your experience might contain some good tips or lessons learned for other Android developers.

[jlgosse]

I disagree with Greg 100% on that statement. It has been a real pain working with the Android bluetooth APIs, but the same can be said for the BlackBerry APIs as well. They work great for something that is persistently connected, but since we don't actually stay connected all night, managing the bluetooth connection can get messy very quickly.

In my experience (since I developed the entire BlackBerry app, and did a lot of work on making the Android app a lot more stable than it was), the apps are working great right now, and they get better every day or two. I mean, I push updates to the app VERY often, and our users have no problems with it, besides the occasional bug, which I generally fix in the following hours.

My only real comment on the matter is that writing code that works well with Bluetooth is REALLY hard, so if you can keep a persistent connection when the app is open, try to go that route.

[brown9-2]

I can't tell if he is stating that Android was the buggiest of the platforms that Wakemate is available on, or if the Wakemate app on Android happened to (initially) turn out to be the buggiest of the various Wakemate apps on the various platforms.

[jlgosse]

Now that you mention it, I don't know either. As a whole, I'm sure the Android platform is buggier, especially in devices with an OS less than 2.1, but overall I think BlackBerry the OS is buggier.

One big problem with Android though, is that some of the phone manufacturers decided that it was a good idea to tamper with the standard Android Bluetooth code, so that caused (and still causes) some seriously problems.

[rufo]

So is the estimated and/or actual battery life better in the shipping units? That seemed to be his main complaint, and that complaint seems like it would apply equally to both iPhone and Android WakeMates.

[gnemeth]

We have worked quite a bit on battery life and will continue to. Right now you can use the WakeMate for 2 solid nights and then you will need to recharge.

The issue with battery estimation occurs when you do not fully charge the unit (as we indicated to him) and we are currently working on improving the estimation even further.