I wish we could control things like this but the bottom line is, if the boss says somethings gotta go out then it’s gotta go out, mediocre or not.

comment by Kelly about an hour later

The biggest problem with releasing something that is just “good enough” is that once you’ve got something it often doesn’t get re-visited and improved.

comment by Aaron about an hour later

This totally goes against the “throw it out there and see what feedback you get, then improve on it.”

I’d love to be able to test it thoroughly before “putting it out there”, but I’m going to need to release it to get the feedback I need.

Is the difference that in this case Apple was just working on a feature and I’m trying to develop a product?

comment by Adam 1 hour later

My high school English teacher had a poster hanging in his room that said “Deliberate mediocrity is both a heresy and a sin.” I used to spend quite a bit of time thinking about what exactly that meant.

With all things there must be a balance. Perfect being the enemy of good, etc. It’s important to strive for the best, but equally important to know when further effort isn’t worth the payoff.

comment by Adam Harvey 2 hours later

I think mediocrity means not trying to be better. Cool for Apple for nailing a particular feature, but this isn’t the first version of the iPhone they’ve released. Apple’s products continue to improve, and it doesn’t make their earlier versions mediocre. (If they really waited til a product were perfect before they released it, we’d still be waiting.)

comment by amy 5 hours later

@Jason, that was in response to “Deliberate mediocrity is both a heresy and a sin.” I don’t think that quote is about product releases, but our personal approach to life and the work we do. And so many people are afraid of not being amazing right out of the gate, that they never try, never improve. I think “fear of mediocrity” is just as widespread and damaging as “mediocrity” itself. Good enough is often best.

When it comes to versioning and product releases, it depend on clients and company, but there are a lot of advantages to soft launches and real-time, continuous improvement. Google is a great example of this; Gmail is still in beta due to “very, very high standards for the product,” but their pre-release is only helping them improve. Maybe it violates the “better nothing at all than something less than great” axiom, but, as they say in some circles, “success isn’t always achieved on the first trip to Jerusalem.”

comment by amy one day later

If this is the “Apple way”, I think it’s flawed. If I need a device to have function X, I’d rather have a clunky implementation of it than nothing at all. I work with imperfect tools all the time, and yeah they piss me off, but not half as much as it not having them would do.

And what’s so difficult about cut & paste anyway?

comment by Chris Hunt 2 days later

@Adam Harvey, I agree that balance is key… testing and feedback are very important, and in some agile environments putting things out piece by piece is crucial.

I think though if we start from a base of putting out the best that we can, we can release great products/projects that make an impact and continually get better.

nice read… love the discussion!

~ Aaron I

comment by Aaron Irizarry 2 days later

I think that there’s a difference between companies that settle for mediocrity on a product/site/feature and companies that are continually trying to improve even though what they put out there for feedback isn’t “great”.

It seems a little old-fashioned to wait for the big-bang release. I’m in favor of what Adam said about throwing something out there to get feedback – as long as it’s a step in the right direction. If you’re just throwing trash out there then it’s better to wait until you have something “good” even if it’s not “great”.

comment by Melanie 2 days later