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I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Optimise. Improve. This i

I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Optimise. Improve. This is why I was so upset at Sparrow throwing in the towel - they concentrated on one thing, email, and did it better than I'd seen it done before. By specialising they were able to spend the time to get it right.

mootothemax 14y ago
I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Look at the iPhone 5 discussions taking place. The most common topic you'll see is: it doesn't have enough new features. That kind of thinking is one of the reasons that refinement doesn't take place as often as you and I would like.
- momotomo 14y ago
  Crux of the discussion? It's become a market norm to have more, new, novelty. If the only selling point of an iPhone iteration was bugfixes, stability and refinement of the workflows it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product. I think from one perspective advertising refinement is perceived as perpetual incompetence with respect to your capability to deliver a quality product. Horrible inversion of logic.
  - pbhjpbhj 14y ago
    >it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product // It would actually be a list of things that were wrong with the previous product - so what's wrong with that?
    - momotomo 14y ago
      This is me being subjective and not having much marketing education so someone may want to correct the idea: From a literal perspective, not much, but in terms of perception and marketing I'd estimate a whole lot. Each product is still representing your brand and a potential option for buyers. You want to encourage someone to be excited about moving to your new product or platform without presenting the case that the old one is inferior or somehow deficient. Consider if they iPhone was released with a strong focus on the improvements and bugfixes on the existing features without many new additions. Personally this is amazing, I'd be excited about that, but for many (average joe consumer) people I'd estimate it raises some key questions - why was there so much wrong? What will be wrong with the new one? Why do these products have so many issues? Consider if iPhone was listing fixes and corrections and phone x was advertising all of their new features and updates with no mention of any rectification - personally, I'd be tempted just to pursue the one that was "best". Especially in a flooded market where it's hard to make a legitimate choice, it's much easier if one thing looks broken and one thing looks wonderful. Most companies are really just going through the process of iterative refinement but I think you need the feature icing to sell them to people, or really: to take the focus off of the fact the product needed rework, and on to the fact there's super super shiny new things! You quickly forget to engage your critical thinking when being dazzled with this kind of thing. To be hyperbolic with the example - consider cars. When a manufacturer releases a new model and advertises the safety and performance enhancements, it may be likely that they were addressing issues with the previous model, but presenting them as new functionality. This is much more appropriate for a brand than saying "we've addressed the issue with our brake and suspension package that was contributing to people losing control of the car" or "we've redesigned the porting of the heads on the engine so it's not running as inefficiency". If you have the choice between the perceived perfection of one brand versus the other admitting a few people wound up wrapped around trees and they needed to iterate their design (even if both companies are following exactly the same process), it becomes a pretty easy choice, right or wrong.
fmavituna 14y ago
Since this is HN, what do you think about the business impact of it? I know "make something small but better" is a nice motto, but will it work for Apple, Microsoft? Heck, even for a proven startup's product, is it a good long term strategy, or a long term gamble? There aren't much examples of 37Signal's model of "don't implement features but keep polishing" approach.
- SoftwareMaven 14y ago
  Even 37Signals has added new features; they just make them a new product instead. The large advantage of this approach is that the complexity is minimized. As long as your customers are OK with this (37Signals trained their customers early and well), it's a good way to go.
Firehed 14y ago
I completely agree. I'm sick of feature bloat, especially when it's taking away from perfecting stuff that's useful but not 100% there. Not every application needs to solve every problem - but it would be really nice if they did actually solve one, rather than prod at a dozen. I'm sure it's part of the reason we get attached to early-stage startups so often: they're hyper focused on scratching their own itch and haven't yet been massively distracted by all of those nuisances that come with growth (like needing to make money) Having said that, I'll point out that Sparrow (like every other non-webmail client I've used) seems to fall over when dealing with massive volumes of email. I'll get into the office with 500 new emails, skim and archive 490 of them over five or ten minutes or so, and then a few minutes later half of them will just show back up. Overall still a very solid product, so I too was disappointed to see it eaten up and killed off by Google.
prof_hobart 14y ago
Can I ask what mobile phone you currently use? Companies like Nokia made some great phone products that did the one thing (well, two if you include SMS) remarkably well in small packages, that had fantastic battery life. But then the iPhone, and Android, came out and virtually no-one was interested in the old, reliable phones anymore. They wanted the latest, shiniest gadget that they could get their hands on, regardless of how good/poor it was at doing the basic job of making calls.
- takluyver 14y ago
  Of course, plenty of people still do use 'dumb' phones, myself included. Worldwide, we're probably still in a majority. But smartphones are gradually taking over, and it would be a brave company now that decided to put their focus on making a simple, flawless phone, rather than competing for the top end of the market.
- tomflack 14y ago
  Currently, a GSM Galaxy Nexus. Previously, an iPhone 4. Various oddball WebOS and the like phones scattered over the past few years.
  - prof_hobart 14y ago
    If you're after something that does one job and does it well, is there a reason why you've chosen those phones over a very basic Nokia model (or something similar)?
    - tomflack 14y ago
      Contact sync. Application selection.
      - prof_hobart 14y ago
        But aren't these exactly the sorts of new features that you're complaining companies are putting into their products rather than perfecting their core capabilities (i.e. making phone calls and sending SMS)?

mootothemax 14y ago

I've been thinking for some years now, I wish everyone would stop implementing features and perfect the ones that are already there. Look at the iPhone 5 discussions taking place. The most common topic you'll see is: it doesn't have enough new features. That kind of thinking is one of the reasons that refinement doesn't take place as often as you and I would like.

momotomo 14y ago
Crux of the discussion? It's become a market norm to have more, new, novelty. If the only selling point of an iPhone iteration was bugfixes, stability and refinement of the workflows it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product. I think from one perspective advertising refinement is perceived as perpetual incompetence with respect to your capability to deliver a quality product. Horrible inversion of logic.
- pbhjpbhj 14y ago
  >it would just be interpreted as a list of things that were wrong with the previous product // It would actually be a list of things that were wrong with the previous product - so what's wrong with that?
  - momotomo 14y ago
    This is me being subjective and not having much marketing education so someone may want to correct the idea: From a literal perspective, not much, but in terms of perception and marketing I'd estimate a whole lot. Each product is still representing your brand and a potential option for buyers. You want to encourage someone to be excited about moving to your new product or platform without presenting the case that the old one is inferior or somehow deficient. Consider if they iPhone was released with a strong focus on the improvements and bugfixes on the existing features without many new additions. Personally this is amazing, I'd be excited about that, but for many (average joe consumer) people I'd estimate it raises some key questions - why was there so much wrong? What will be wrong with the new one? Why do these products have so many issues? Consider if iPhone was listing fixes and corrections and phone x was advertising all of their new features and updates with no mention of any rectification - personally, I'd be tempted just to pursue the one that was "best". Especially in a flooded market where it's hard to make a legitimate choice, it's much easier if one thing looks broken and one thing looks wonderful. Most companies are really just going through the process of iterative refinement but I think you need the feature icing to sell them to people, or really: to take the focus off of the fact the product needed rework, and on to the fact there's super super shiny new things! You quickly forget to engage your critical thinking when being dazzled with this kind of thing. To be hyperbolic with the example - consider cars. When a manufacturer releases a new model and advertises the safety and performance enhancements, it may be likely that they were addressing issues with the previous model, but presenting them as new functionality. This is much more appropriate for a brand than saying "we've addressed the issue with our brake and suspension package that was contributing to people losing control of the car" or "we've redesigned the porting of the heads on the engine so it's not running as inefficiency". If you have the choice between the perceived perfection of one brand versus the other admitting a few people wound up wrapped around trees and they needed to iterate their design (even if both companies are following exactly the same process), it becomes a pretty easy choice, right or wrong.

fmavituna 14y ago

Since this is HN, what do you think about the business impact of it? I know "make something small but better" is a nice motto, but will it work for Apple, Microsoft? Heck, even for a proven startup's product, is it a good long term strategy, or a long term gamble? There aren't much examples of 37Signal's model of "don't implement features but keep polishing" approach.

SoftwareMaven 14y ago
Even 37Signals has added new features; they just make them a new product instead. The large advantage of this approach is that the complexity is minimized. As long as your customers are OK with this (37Signals trained their customers early and well), it's a good way to go.

Firehed 14y ago

I completely agree. I'm sick of feature bloat, especially when it's taking away from perfecting stuff that's useful but not 100% there. Not every application needs to solve every problem - but it would be really nice if they did actually solve one, rather than prod at a dozen. I'm sure it's part of the reason we get attached to early-stage startups so often: they're hyper focused on scratching their own itch and haven't yet been massively distracted by all of those nuisances that come with growth (like needing to make money) Having said that, I'll point out that Sparrow (like every other non-webmail client I've used) seems to fall over when dealing with massive volumes of email. I'll get into the office with 500 new emails, skim and archive 490 of them over five or ten minutes or so, and then a few minutes later half of them will just show back up. Overall still a very solid product, so I too was disappointed to see it eaten up and killed off by Google.

prof_hobart 14y ago

Can I ask what mobile phone you currently use? Companies like Nokia made some great phone products that did the one thing (well, two if you include SMS) remarkably well in small packages, that had fantastic battery life. But then the iPhone, and Android, came out and virtually no-one was interested in the old, reliable phones anymore. They wanted the latest, shiniest gadget that they could get their hands on, regardless of how good/poor it was at doing the basic job of making calls.

takluyver 14y ago
Of course, plenty of people still do use 'dumb' phones, myself included. Worldwide, we're probably still in a majority. But smartphones are gradually taking over, and it would be a brave company now that decided to put their focus on making a simple, flawless phone, rather than competing for the top end of the market.
tomflack 14y ago
Currently, a GSM Galaxy Nexus. Previously, an iPhone 4. Various oddball WebOS and the like phones scattered over the past few years.
- prof_hobart 14y ago
  If you're after something that does one job and does it well, is there a reason why you've chosen those phones over a very basic Nokia model (or something similar)?
  - tomflack 14y ago
    Contact sync. Application selection.
    - prof_hobart 14y ago
      But aren't these exactly the sorts of new features that you're complaining companies are putting into their products rather than perfecting their core capabilities (i.e. making phone calls and sending SMS)?