Plasma Active (4) is awesome, and I know that ;)

[Thomas Pfeiffer]

Hi everyone,
sorry for coming across as being too negative regarding Plasma Active (4).
I know that Plasma Active has loads of great things going for it (why 
would I still work on it if that wasn't the case?), and I want people to 
get excited about it, to spread the word and everything. That's why I 
wrote that article for The Powerbase back then, that's why I happily 
complied with Carl's request for my quotable opinion of PA4.
There are just some words that trigger my "Marketing Speech Alert", and 
one of those is "polished".
When Carl put the word into perspective by adding "relative to PA1", I 
totally agreed. I just hope that users will read it like that as well.

I guess I'm more of a classical "usability" guy than a "user experience 
guy" in the sense that I focus more on reducing frustration and problems 
to a minimum then on creating excitement. That doesn't mean I don't want 
excitement, but for me personally, a product that merely covers up 
problems with excitement would not be a good product.
I know full well that Apple products sell well because people are so 
emotionally attached to them that they simply ignore the practical 
problems they face when using them. That's not something I'd want to do, 
though.

I think both positions are important. We need people who spread the - 
well earned - excitement and push things forward, but we also need 
people to care about limiting frustration and anger.
So I'd say keep on doing what you do so well, guys, and I'll keep doing 
what I do well (perhaps trying to tone down a bit so we do not spend too 
much time arguing), and in the end we'll have a product that is both 
exciting and has few problems.

Looking forward to the release and the public's reactions to it,
Thomas