GLOBAL – A deluge of great debate and comments have flooded a number of stories this week on Conversations, ranging from the soft and cuddly to the fierce and fiery (we’re fans of all varieties). It’s been a tough one to pick, but we’ve got a winner. Read on to find out about the top discussions happening right here on Conversations, and discover who wins this week’s comment of the week award and a copy of the Twitter Gravity app.
First off, let’s cover the great debates. Yesterday we posted an article re-visiting the whole Awe-v or oh-v-ee thing, which triggered a stream of cool comments. Less lightweight was the response to a piece on tomorrow’s gadgets inevitably being better – some interesting sparks are flying in there, and it’s great to have such passionate debate happening within these walls. Equally we saw a string of top comments scribbled down in our latest poll asking What is the most important feature in a business device?. Now if we had hundreds of copies of the Twitter Gravity app (sadly we don’t), we would be inclined to give them all away to everyone that got stuck in and shared their thoughts. But there can be only one, so who wins this week’s copy of Gravity and the prestigious comment of the week award?
This week’s comment of the week award goes to Vaibhav Sharma, in response to our piece entitled It’s inevitable, tomorrow gadgets will be better. This comment was well considered, insightful, and most importantly helped fuel a fiery and fascinating debate on new versus upcoming products and the issues that surround this scenario.
Vaibhav Sharma: “I think what this post will do is bring up the issue of paid software upgrades.
Soon we will reach a time where the hardware will become exceedingly similar for most devices and the only major difference would be the form factor. A hardware refresh would only happen once in 18 months or so. Eg. Currently a 5MP camera is enough for a lot of people and so is the other feature set (WIFI, GPS etc). Therefore, these become irrelevant for people when they consider an upgrade. What matters is the experience and the software. Thus, when you have a hardware standpoint that will remain stable for sometime (say the Nokia N900’s) then the motivation for a lot of people will only be the software/experience (Maemo 6).
So instead of people having to buy a new device when a new version of the OS or a Feature Pack comes out, such upgrades could be offered for a fee. The manufacturer would then make money on the software upgrade to offset the R&D and the consumer would also find a way out of the should I buy or wait dilemma, secure in the knowledge that he would not only get access to new FW’s but also major OS upgrades.
I know many would question the profitability for the manufacturer and therefore the motivation, but if it is priced right, I see a lot of people upgrading.”
Congratulation Vaibhav, a copy of Gravity for Twitter will be winging its way to you shortly.
Click here to read the full comment, story and to join the debate.
Please keep all your fantastic comments flooding in. We read each and every one of them, and look forward to more great contenders for next week’s showdown.