RIGHT NOW… my hands on in my pockets, and will most likely stay there for a while, especially since reading the recent postings in regards to 2018. There are really only two things I “want” at the moment, full 64bit support, and a more recent SQLite. Both are in the most recent release, but that other issues are holding me back.
iOS support has no appeal for me… not when there are superior alternatives for free
Android has no appeal at all… period
Web … same …no desire, need
So, from my point of view, updates/enhancements/new features etc to those three areas earn no brownie points from me.
I realize that Xojo needs a steady revenue stream, but as I said earlier… you need to keep existing customers, as well as attract new ones. Existing customers need more than a “altruistic” reason to shell out $$$ each year, and part of attracting and retaining new customers is the comments (such as these) that potential customers see and hear. I’m betting that this thread alone, has cost a few new customers (which of course is a shame)…
Another thing… I have heard that supposedly “new customers” account for the most of the revenue… perhaps that is because there is less and less incentive for existing customers to keep up? The goal isn’t to maximize the percentage of one group over the other, but the total $$$ on the bottom line regardless of which class of customer it comes from.
Matter of fact… I would probably still be sending in a yearly subscription, if it were still the 50% model… but instead of me sending in $150 for the past 2 years, I sent $0 (since other wise it would have been $600)… I won’t bore you with the math here
That is my impression as well. By prioritizing new features and chasing new users, I think Xojo is leaving a lot of money on the table. I haven’t found a new feature worth using in the last 7 years. I still use RS 2010r5.1 in production. I stopped renewing in 2014. I don’t see ever using Xojo for web, even though my company is transitioning toward mostly web projects. I bit the bullet on that and learned other technologies. I can’t imagine using Xojo for Android, especially after seeing iOS.
Yep, that’s a LTW. Long term waiting. I’m curious with the advances, soon I’ll download the latest one to see if the complex line object is “already” working and you now finally can drag and put its ends where you wish, or it does not get randomly crazy at runtime.
I am not so sure grumpy old timers like us are representative of Xojo’s future. The attitude towards Android attests of a relative incapacity for change.
Like it or not, Android represents over 50% of all OSes combined. And iOS some like 20 or 25%, right behind. Each of us has his pet bugs that should be fixed, but by the same token, most of those have been worked around.
The market is shifting like a carpet pulled under our feet. And the same happens to Xojo. After iOS pitiful failure, I hope Xojo has understood the lesson, and that Android will, indeed, be on par with historic Desktop. I hope cross platform won’t be an hollow promise, and that, for real, existing code could be compiled for Android with little to no refactoring. Call me naive, but I still hope the company that went through all Apple system and hardware changes in stride is able of the same feast today.
I did stop renewing this year. 2016R3 for Windows and 2017R2.1 for Mac do what I need. But if Android lives up to what I have known for 17 years with desktop, I will be glad to resume supporting the company that made my business so smooth for all these years.
The line example, is not a my pet bug, I, can work around it, or as people always say, don’t use it, it doesn’t work, for ages; but it’s a sales killer, someone should say it. Xojo devs got used to “don’t complain, work around”, but newcomers, don’t complain; they just move away when having premature bad impressions. Any new potential customer will try some features before buying, guess what happens when you try to interactively draw a line using that tool? I believe I’m saying again something stupid simple to solve, that helps to avoid people’s aversion having contact with such kind of thing, and that potentially can increase sales a little bit. The other option is removing that component from the already small set of components, but that will trigger the “I can make a rectangle, but don’t we have a way to draw a line?” question. QA vs UX.
As for Android, it’s a must, and it’s late for years. It’s for phones and tablets what Windows is for desktops, the largest global user base.
The attitude towards Android has nothing to do with the incapacity for change. In fact, I think everyone here is either excited or indifferent to the addition of an Android target. The attitude is a result of the past example of Xojo adding something half-baked to appease the crowd and those who have requested it. Adding an OS target is a huge undertaking which means that a whole lot of resources are going to be allocated to the project. The attitude of the users is that those resources should be redirected to complete the current toolsets (read: iOS) and fix the existing problems rather than start something new.
I would love for Xojo to be able to add that feather to their cap. When iOS was first announced I was excited and had every intention on renewing at the time of its release but after the initial negative response by the community at large I held off. If you read the comments through out the forums many people are afraid that, when released, the Android target will be just as limited as iOS was. You are certainly correct that Android is needed to complete the package but there are viable alternatives out there until Xojo is ready to release a complete package. In the mean time, Desktop, WE and iOS will continue to suffer until Xojo is ready to devote the necessary time needed to make them feature rich and bug free.
If Xojo does not get its act together with Android, it might as well close doors. Some of us may live in a time capsule (look who’s talking), but the biggest market is now Android. That is a fact. Ignoring Android would be pure suicide for Xojo, just as bad as if they had ignored Windows, twenty years ago.
I do hope they got the message from the dismal failure that is Xojo iOS. If they did not, well, indeed there are other solutions around…
Xojo needs to pick a direction and become a “World Class” leader in that direction. Unfortunately because they don’t have 1000’s of engineers like Apple and Microsoft, they have limited resources to apply.
Better to be the best in a few disciplines, than be mediocre (or worse) in all of them
My opinion… give up on mobile. there are too many existing alternatives and the race to become better than any of them was over years ago. However, Xojo have a leg up in the Desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux, PI) area (and perhaps Web). But the iOS offering is (again my opinion) a mitigated disaster, so I’m not holding out any hope for Android.
It’s obvious they are resource constrained. The rapid release model is not the solution but instead contributes to the problem. There is a certain amount of overhead doing a release and I suspect it not directly related to the size of the release. Doing four releases a year is a major resource suck. Four testing cycles, etc. If they did two releases a year instead of four I am certain it would free some resources and add stability to those releases. This would give the engineers more time to polish the new features and tackle more bug fixes.
I’m not sure how they came up with four releases a year is the sweet spot. Why not eight or two or one for that matter?
[quote=390616:@Joseph Evert]It’s obvious they are resource constrained. The rapid release model is not the solution but instead contributes to the problem. There is a certain amount of overhead doing a release and I suspect it not directly related to the size of the release. Doing four releases a year is a major resource suck. Four testing cycles, etc. If they did two releases a year instead of four I am certain it would free some resources and add stability to those releases. This would give the engineers more time to polish the new features and tackle more bug fixes.
I’m not sure how they came up with four releases a year is the sweet spot. Why not eight or two or one for that matter?[/quote]
This. This is why an LTS model won’t work. There’s a reason the dot releases take a least a week. The time it takes to build the IDE, its plugins, the installers, test, prepare release notes, marketing, upload, translate press releases… it all takes time. There is a LOT that goes into every release. An LTS branch would still require all these things, on top of the normal schedule.
I don’t think there will be enough Desktop market at the end of the next decade to sustain Xojo.
What I call “get their act together” with Android is what they should have done with iOS : a RAD that for all intents and purpose looks and feels like the Desktop Xojo, uses the same language, and controls that have the same properties and events when applicable.
After all, the champion of cross platform should understand that today, cross platform means much more than compiling for Mac, Windows and Linux. Ideally, one should be able to load a project in Xojo Android, and build for a 10" tablet pretty much the same way it happens for a Windows tablet. THAT would go much beyond the contraptions around, and would ensure that most of current Xojo developers crowd would take an interest.
This is called history. For us who have used RealBasic/Xojo for a long time, that model is quite natural.
Maybe thats part of the problem. The product has become too big to constantly ship in its entirety and it is time to look at ways where individual parts of the product can be shipped and updated by users between full releases.
For example, if the framework was split up and built as plugins (like how the database integrations are implemented) it could potentially allow individual parts to be worked on and then shipped as soon as they were ready.
[quote=390621:@Kevin Gale]For example, if the framework was split up and built as plugins (like how the database integrations are implemented) it could potentially allow individual parts to be worked on and then shipped as soon as they were ready.
DLL Hell was slightly different. This was mainly caused by multiple applications installing different versions of the same library into the operating system.
What I am proposing would just mean a few more files supplied by default in the Xojo plugins. There would then be the potential to swap them for newer versions (or possibly older versions if a regression was introduced).
I’m sure there would be challenges to solve such as dependencies and licensing but this is probably no more complicated than what Christian @ MBS has to deal with.
I get that. I’ve been using RealBasic since 2006 or so. I’m just curious why the four releases per year cycle has not been re-evaluated as the product has changed and grown in complexity over the years. Back then I think there were only three platforms, now they have six and trying to add another.
I really don’t think having four releases a year is a compelling selling point for new users, and it certainly does not seem like existing users are too thrilled about it either. Certainly new users will quickly realize the downside to this as a simple forum search will reveal that. I don’t know of any other software companies committing to this type of release schedule. There’s just too much overhead in doing this many releases - it’s just not an efficient use of resources. I’d rather have fewer high-quality releases.
It used to be that the first release of the year would showcase some big new features and the subsequent releases would iron out the major bugs, so by r4, the product was reasonably stable. I don’t know if that was intentional, but it did allow us developers to catch our breath and stay current. I’d like to see Xojo focus on producing a release that is really solid before they launch the next new thing.
