Garmin Express - A Question To Garmin Management

I have been a user of Garmin's personal navigation devices pretty much from the beginning.. early 1990's, was a user of MapSource from the beginning to it becoming obsolete, to the beginning of BaseCamp, a beta tester and current user and same for Garmin Express..

Given that most of my career was as a product development engineer and manager from the world of multi million dollar hardware and software products.. I can fully appreciate not only SUSSAMB comments, but also the complexity and near infinite number of variants of software running on a Wintel platform, maintained ?? by end users and the very evolutionary nature of the Windows OS, and constantly evolving critical subsystem software e.g. Microsoft Net, Visual C++ run time libraries, video systems and drivers.

We are all running on an operating system that is never finished, with weekly updates and over the life of the OS, pretty much fully replaces itself with updated code. Over time with the install, removal (and who hasn't experienced failures here), the OS and core subsystems can and do incur damage over time that can lead to instability, especially for any code that makes use of the Wintel runtime libraries. Take a look at the events logs in your OS and you'll see a bit of the broken stuff on your system, even on machines that by and large are stable.

There's no way in hell any one company can test an app for all the variants it will end up running in, and even more importantly if they tried, getting timely fixes from offending owners of the numerous independent developers of various pieces of code that end up on a PC.

An lastly.. OK you bought a Garmin GPS.. How much have you paid money to Garmin for their free and enhanced functionality over the decades? I pay annual license fees for a lot of other software I use that frankly is far less sophisticated and with fewer enhancements over time and no forums for end user feedback..

If you find a problem, define it to the level of detail that a developer has enough information to begin to diagnose it, and post it.. Never seem any developer complaining, except maybe pointing out a poorly defined problem without enough information to evaluate..

I do appreciate that it's difficult to cater for every conceivable setup however, the hardware is within Garmin's gift and I've read numerous comments about the download fault being due to a "corrupt" activity on the device that GE can't read. Sorry that's not a user problem, that's either a rubbish Garmin device that damages data or a piece of software that has a hissy fit if it encounters something that's not perfect. With the removal of the Sync button that means praying that it will decide to download as you can no longer force it - it just sits there like a sulky teenager - no error message, nothing. That's what's so frustrating.

I don't have this problem with other pieces of software which equally have to cope with a plethora of setups and don't have the luxury of dealing with a single make device. Also it is possible to get the "corrupt" activity to download - there is a plugin on SportTracks that does it when GE fails. So please don't blame user error for software that is simply not resilient enough for real world use and it would be nice f just occasionally Garmin admitted that there might be a bit of a problem rather than denial.

Finally, if it really was down to my computer setup, how come my ability to download suddenly stopped when GE upgraded one day then suddenly worked again two upgrades later? It's only GE that has changed.

In my opinion, professionals who refuse responsibility for the failure of their product are bad professionals, no matter what. In the company I work, every single employee assumes the responsibility for the final product. We never ever blame the customer when things go wrong, and things do get wrong. Only weak professionals do this because they are unable or unwilling to improve. These kinds of professionals are not tolerated where I work. This is why our company has been the number one address of its kind in our city for over 20 years. When things go wrong, you have to change. You cannot ask or even tell the customer to change. This is where all GPS-watch providers go wrong, no matter if this is Garmin, Suunto, Polar, or any other. All of them try to blame the customer or tell the customer that it is normal when things go wrong. If one of them wakes up and actually provides a reliable quality watch, it will sweep away the competition. But that means the company would have to listen very closely to what customers want, and that is a point where all of them have utterly failed until this moment.

Interesting comment but rather flawed in my opinion ....

It's a companies fault when users expect a product to do something it was never sold to do?

It's a companies fault when a customer expects the latest device to work regardless of whatever state their PC is in?

It's a companies fault when people complain that there device won't do X when it's clearly explained in the manual that they simply didn't bother to read?

I could go on but you get my drift.

My opinion is spot on. I never said that the device should do something it wasn’t intended for. I never even mentioned the word PC, and I won’t because this is not the point here. However, I do expect the device to do things which it was made for. And my 910XT does not do several things that are clearly stated in the manual. This is what I am talking about and nothing else. If you do not like my opinion, then I am fine with this. However, it should not give you the right to put words into my mouth. Check what you are doing, moderator.

Well you said 'We never ever blame the customer when things go wrong', you didn't specify what things :)

I agree that your 910XT should do things that are in the manual. You raised one issue in the Express forum that I can see, and it's been answered (and responsibility accepted) by Express Customer Care, so it's difficult to follow your argument. If you have issues with your 910XT not doing things stated in the manual posting here won't help you, try the relevant forum. Problems with a 910XT not doing something that the manual says it should are off topic for this thread and off topic for this forum. Thanks.

I see that you are seeking confrontation by pushing the conversation into the direction you want. I will not give you the pleasure of giving you a reason to ban me. You should not be a moderator. Moderators should not try to put words into other people's mouths and should be able to respect other people's opinions, which apparently you are not. Please don't bother responding; this conversation ends here.