Here is an interesting article in Wikipedia on Vapourware and the ability of rival companies to announce products including software that doesnt or never will exist just to hurt competitor current and future sales http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapourware
Usually, vaporware consist of a mockup screen showing what could be a great product, together with an announcement saying that it exists, BUT – and all sorts of fanciful explanations why it is not yet to market. Xojo iOS had that great status for a good year, and if it does not make it by the end of this year, it will have been vaporware for a long time. Only actual issuance can cancel the vaporware status.
Also, some individuals here have been know to boast about their fantastic product which they show only a screen shot at every turn with lots of nonsense about why it will not be made available.
Mind you, I have a perpetual motion machine in my basement made with Xojo I will not release into the public because the oil industry would kill me if I did 
[quote=117570:@Michel Bujardet]Also, some individuals here have been know to boast about their fantastic product which they show only a screen shot at every turn with lots of nonsense about why it will not be made available.
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Theres an old saying that goes ‘you never get a second chance at a first impression’ If you want to make that first impression via fakery and lies, then the crowd will soon work you out. personally, I couldnt be bothered trying to impress my peers with gob shite (Irish word for bull Sh!t)
Sure, and I have written a bug free app. Years ago there was a guy here who created an engine that was supposed to consume only 500MPG. He conducted an IPO to publicly list his company and made millions overnight. It wasnt until an investor asked the silly question ‘Can we see the engine running’ that his little lie fueled scam fell to bits.
If Vaporware refers to deception as the wikipedia definition then Xojo iOS does not fit… They HAVE been working on it.
BTW Cocoa was a longer trek because the initial approach they took for it proved untenable and they had to start over.
Web was another very long term slog from the first announcement to actual product (anybody remember when the first mention of Swordfish was?)
In none of those cases was there an intent to deceive IMO… just very mistaken estimates about how long it would take…
- Karen
[quote=117597:@Karen Atkocius]If Vaporware refers to deception as the wikipedia definition then Xojo iOS does not fit… They HAVE been working on it.
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This was never meant to be a veiled dig at Xojo Inc. I thought it was interesting that companies would manufacture lies of such astounding proportions. Maybe I am just naive . Who knows, maybe the fuel companies will tell us that we will run out of fuel in the mid 70’s
I am not Wikipedia, so I consider two kinds of vaporware : the deceptive one, where a company invents a ghost product to hinder the activity of a competitor, and what I would construe as the idealistic vaporware, which implies announcing a product much, much too early. Then for the longest time consumers are left with an announcement and no news about the product besides “working on it”. Idealistic because a wiser company would NOT announce the new development until it has a reasonable time to market estimate. Xojo made the mistake, out of enthusiasm, to show something that was probably no more than an experiment, two years before it gets (maybe) in Alpha. So for me, although no intending harm, Xojo did engage in vaporware by showing a a demo of a non existing product that remains non existing to this day. With no release date yet.
Take Apple or Microsoft, on the other hand : when they announce anything, release is already scheduled and everything is planned.
Because I love Xojo does not mean I should not look at the unfortunate adventure of the iOS product with a blind eye. Precisely because I have had a positive ongoing relationship with that company for a long time, I am just as disappointed as anybody else by the inconsequent premature show off that happened two years ago, and the “it will be ready when it will be ready” attitude since. As developers, most of us would not survive with such a poor customer relationship. But some of us are emotionally attached enough with the company that we tolerate a never ending wait. It does not mean in any way we have to love it or consider that normal.
Next time you have some marvel in your pocket, Geoff, please refrain from showing off until you have an ascertained release date. Will be good for your company, and for your customers.
Vaporware iOS Xojo remains, until a release date is officially announced.
Vaporware demands never showing up. AFAIK it was demonstrated on XDC and few select people are trying it as alpha or beta testers. If people are accompanying its development right now, it’s not a vaporware, just a delayed product. Xojo itself lived this. I was a beta tester when people was claiming “Where is the R1!!! ???”
And by the way, it’s not on sale.
Computer Vaporware and competitive damage goes back a very long way. There were two companies back in the 80’s working on a word processor for the Amiga - Word Perfect and Lotus. Word Perfect released a workable, but flawed version of their PC product with the idea of getting Amiga users on board. Lotus then turned around and started sharing slide shows and screen shots of their offering, specifically calling out the failings in Word Perfect. People started clamoring for the Lotus solution and Word Perfect finally gave up and dropped support for the Amiga. The Lotus product was never released.
All hail Symphony (or is it Sym-phony?)
[quote=117611:@Michel Bujardet]Next time you have some marvel in your pocket, Geoff, please refrain from showing off until you have an ascertained release date. Will be good for your company, and for your customers.
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Eminem surveying the decay of hip hop after he takes a couple years off does not know the pain I feel right now.
Since Chris’ original post was just supposed to be a link to a good read and not a direct poke at Xojo, much of this thread is a bit sideways.
However, I am in a position to state without caveat that the iOS-capable version of Xojo is real stuff. I have it in my grubby little fingers and have witnessed it work with my own test code.
[quote=117668:@Tim Jones]Since Chris’ original post was just supposed to be a link to a good read and not a direct poke at Xojo, much of this thread is a bit sideways.
However, I am in a position to state without caveat that the iOS-capable version of Xojo is real stuff. I have it in my grubby little fingers and have witnessed it work with my own test code.[/quote]
Thanks Tim. So I’ll upgrade from vaporware to ‘one of these days’ 
A bit like some small town shops that advertise brands they dont have just to lure some customers…
[quote=117668:@Tim Jones]Since Chris’ original post was just supposed to be a link to a good read and not a direct poke at Xojo, much of this thread is a bit sideways.
However, I am in a position to state without caveat that the iOS-capable version of Xojo is real stuff. I have it in my grubby little fingers and have witnessed it work with my own test code.[/quote]
I love it when someone takes hold of the wheel and puts us back on course.
Vaporware, IMHO, is not what was defined here. It is an [ANN] that ends with no product at all, thus the use of the word “Vapor”. Ware is you know what it is. *
And, Vaporware exists in the U.S.A. (and some other countries ?) because there is no laws against that.
It is, in fact, used as a (bad) Business practice to avoid users buy a product from a concurent company and eventually be released (eventually).
Another use of vaporware is like a “Market Study”: if there is massive public demand for the product, the vaporware company may run the real creation of the product and eventually release it.
Michel: les avions renifleurs de pétrole (the planes breathers of oil).It was between vaporware and real crook ! [Something that happens in France, many years ago].
‘Vaporware’ is a cute name for a practice that has existed in all walks of life since the advent of man. It is in fact a lie. White or malevolent but telling something else than the truth. From the imaginary girlfriend to the non existing car, adolescents and sometimes adults practice it regularly. All kinds of commerce practice some forms of misinformation about their products when they happen to be out of stock of the hot item a customer is requesting. I ranges from “we are going to have it tomorrow” to “it is difficult to find. I can order one for you”. In all these cases, there is a grey area between outright lie, make belief and pious wish. Sometimes it is a somehow white lie, fingers crossed in the back, that it will become reality (girlfriend, car). Sometimes it is a more seasoned misinformation practice, like shopkeepers out of cookies, not to mention car salesmen who will invent anything to catch the customer.
Call it vaporware or false announcement, pure malevolent information without any intention to deliver is not a prerequisite, nor is it necessary that it be part of a strategy to stifle competition. Or worse, that it be part of a scam with an imaginary good used as bait.
It is human nature to avoid conflicts by bending the truth. And sometimes, it involves sweetening the picture. When an apartment owner tells a potential tenant that the area is safe and quiet, is he lying outright, or slightly exaggerating ? Maybe the street is indeed calm and serene weekdays, and stranger on week ends. So its only vaporware 2 days out of seven.
I frankly do not believe computer vaporware (including hardware) is different from all other goods in existence, from strawberries to the next dress collection. Sometimes dishonest people use false announcements for deception. Sometimes honest people make a big blunder by boasting much too prematurely about a product they have all difficulties delivering, in spite of their best efforts. That was the case for the Panama Canal, which France started in 1881 with great hoopla (it is cultural) and the project got stuck in mud and mosquitoes until Americans opened it on August 1914. It was announced 33 years before it became reality. I call that vaporware.
Until things become reality, by any other name, they are non existent. Call it unachieved, delayed, uncompleted, fantasmatic, fantastically late, yet to be seen, not yet slated, slightly out of sync, needed last minute tuning, it has as much reality as the prince that has not come. Sure, one certainly hope everybody is struggling to complete the project. Fact remains the absence is compounded by the total uncertainty about release date. Will it come ? Yes, one day. Soon ? Cannot tell. This year ? Non disclosed. But someone has seen it. Cross my heart.
Hundred of people have seen UFOs and some even have been abducted. Cross their heart.
Michel, Are you sure that you are not a Lawyer. You certainly argue the point like one.
Nope, I’m not a lawyer.
But I have seen quite a lot of vaporware when I was a computer journalist. Not always intentional 
That explains a lot (in a good way of course).