All I wish to add (reinforce) is the bit about crashes. How on Earth have we arrived a point where it seriously feels like I’m a beta tester - at best. Is this what to expect of high priced software these days?
To have to pay so much for the privilege seems incongruous, perhaps this is a good example of the best ‘buck for bang’?
I’ve already got v2 and have been trialling v3 for a few days now (less than a week). I’ve lost count of the number of times this thing has crashed, to the point where the attempted humour (sample text) in the crash report is irritating (again, we’re not beta testers). If you can spend the time to do that, as well as the cringeworthy videos - perhaps efforts/resources/investment could be better directed.
I’m sorry if this comes across as a flame, but I was about to drop a few hundred myself to go Pro straight away (I normally use the App Store), when I tempered my enthusiasm and decided to try it first. But that’s 30 days. Then what?
I seriously am interested in getting the full version (I already have SG PP), but it needs to be a lot, lot more stable. It needs to be worth the (re)visit.
Aside from SW, I’m involved in the evaluation and selection of digital electronic equipment (think modern audio-visual gear)…
There are many big players. Some are eager to get to market. We’ve been bitten by the eager beavers. We now cast a wary eye in their direction, whenever they pop up with new stuff.
On the SW side, my heuristic is as follows:
If the best MTBF unit of measure is months (value being >> 1), you have a stable (mature) production release
If IMTBF is best measured in weeks (value > 1), it could be considered production ready. It depends on the application and where it’s deployed, of course. This also affects (1) above
If MTBF UoM is days (value, perhaps > 0.3), it’s beta
If MTBF UoM is best as hours (value > 0.5) - alpha
More frequent - the animal shouldn’t have been let out of its cage.
I have seen 3.0.2 fit category (5) above
I have seen 3.1 fit category 3, if not 4 (I stopped using it).
Recommendation: Pull v3 until it’s production ready. No PR is going to avoid annoyance, not even silver service.
You’ll find people may be willing to pay a higher price - for quality. Quality includes stability, not just a feature list.
Expensive toys that break every time you sneeze are soon discarded.
Kind regards,
Paul
PS - don’t use the above if you wish to deal with Boeing, Airbus and the like. We’ve recently been exposed to a 49.7 day bug (easy to figure out what it is) that killed > 100 rather critical systems: they froze up. A fix was provided, but wasn’t tested properly. It has now been acknowledged and the vendor is not going to release the fix’s fix (MK II) until a full, rigorous test (e.g. hang around for over 49.7 days).
OmniPlan 3 has been very stable for some people (including most of the people who used the app during the extended public test period we had leading up to the release), but as long as anyone is seeing frequent crashes it’s not where we want it to be.
Please do continue to send in crash reports for any crashes you’re seeing: tracking down and fixing crashes is our top priority.
OP may be stable for some people. I guess it depends on what they’re doing. I know for a fact I’m not the only one frustrated at the thing dying every few minutes;
“(Including most of the people … test period)”. Can’t comment on that, what people were doing nor what features were available at the time.
I repeat, I know for a fact I’m not the only one frustrated at the thing dying every few minutes.
This is not beta, this is alpha at best. Spin can’t change that.
The autoleveler crashed OP3 repeatedly for me when I upgraded from OP2. I sent email to the OP support team whenever this happened, and included the info in the crash message. The support team was prompt to get back to me, and even the PM got involved. With 3.1, I no longer experience crashes, either due to the autoleveler or anything else.
So, I recommend working with the support team, rather than griping publicly. Send in the info from the crash messages and explain what you were doing just before the crash, so they can piece together the cause.
Yes, it most certainly does depend on what they’re doing. To be clear, the vast majority (over 95%) of our customers haven’t reported a single crash since the 3.1 update. But our goal is to make the app stable for all customers, not just most—which is why (as noted above) tracking down and fixing crashes remains our top priority.
If you’re still seeing crashes, please do send in those crash reports so we can identify what’s causing those crashes.
Several more crash fixes are coming in our next update, OmniPlan v3.1.1. It will be shipping later this week, but in the meantime I would invite anyone who is currently experiencing crashes in v3.1 to try the public test builds of OmniPlan to see if v3.1.1 has already fixed them.
Agreed, griping publicly is not ideal, and the tone should stay constructive. But I can fully understand e.g. pnm’s frustration. Keep in mind it was posted originally in the context of the high price for the upgrade.
“People not reporting a single crash” can be a misleading indicator.
3.1 crashed multiple times for me in less than an hour of use. And it corrupted my project file, which I had to recover from a backup. Error messages is one thing, but complete crashes…?
I have tried the test builds (until Monday, can no longer do so now because my trial license has expired), with same result.
And yet, I have not reported the crash.
For one, because I am asked to describe in detail what I was doing. I could not simply reproduce it without first recovering a backup, and documenting+clarifying the steps prior to crashing.
And secondly, enthusiasm to spend time on reporting+troubleshooting is directly linked to the perceived stability of the product.
