It seems WT wants to focus on “shipped to customers”. Understandable. And that leads to the headline which gets hopes up only to be dashed in the first sentence. Others want it to say something like, Beta Units Have Shipped. But I don’t think they view it as beta units. I don’t either, though when people ask about buying one, I tell them I’m a beta tester just because they’ll understand it easier.

It is rather hard to find a wording that covers both views. “Treg units shipped” requires an explanation of what TREG is. “Test units shipped to customers” is probably not the perfect choice either. Personally, I think it is best to go with the first example and then explain it. Sure, it doesn’t attract attention as much, but anyone, even if totally unaware of TREG will see that something is shipping and naturally want to read what it means.

I think the approach WT took actually hurts them, but, as such, that is their choice.

I’d also like to address the claims that the updates are no different than before. I submit that that is not true.

It is more like the TREG updates. As I said at the time, TREG was important because it is one thing to come up with a problem every month, but TREG would have smaller windows for new things to be discovered. Plus, as a test situation, it didn’t require as high a level of perfection.

During the time between announcement and delivery, there were certainly delays but, just like now, there were differences to what came before. We had reports of problems actually being solved, but they still tested for awhile before shipping. We would learn that testing was going well over longer periods of time, just like now. BTW, I’m not sure about the first date I mentioned this, but I think it goes back to at least April 13th that I said they thought they had fixes for all HW issues and over time new info kept saying the same thing - a longer successful period of testing means less chance a new surprise will turn up.

The window to shipping kept getting smaller as a result until the TREG units actually shipped. Successful testing leads to smaller windows and that means less chance of new problems.

I’m seeing the same basic pattern now, even though the window is still fairly long still.