Next stop: No testing at all? By now, consumers all around the world are probably aware of the fact that they're actually betatesting hard- and firmware of their consumer products they've bought. You know: You buy that new mobile phone, but you expect to find bugs in its firmware, take it to the dealer a few weeks later for an upgrade - only to find it to have fixed some bugs, while getting new features and bugs with it. It's normal, nowadays. Part of the way how companies can reduce pricing on these "goods".
Apparently, Nokia ("disconnecting people") has released an update for their business phone E70 that can render the phone a brick. They've by now pulled the update (which is still available through some forums), of course, since this beta-test obviously was successful, since one of the major bugs has successfully been found. *Cough...* Are we headed to a time where consumer electronics companies deliver products with no user-testing before release-time at all? A time where a firmware upgrade introduces "new features" only to remove them later on, if enough users complain about them? Is this the end of user interface tests completely? Let's hope not.
On a side note: You'll probably find ads for Nokia business phones etc. on webpages covering this. But explaining the serendipity of that would make a whole other article. ;) - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 16:37 [article link]