{"id":2174,"date":"2012-12-26T09:40:35","date_gmt":"2012-12-26T00:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-12-26\/2174"},"modified":"2012-12-26T09:40:35","modified_gmt":"2012-12-26T00:40:35","slug":"seriously-unimpressed-with-gopros-pathetic-user-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2012-12-26\/2174","title":{"rendered":"Seriously Unimpressed with GoPro&#8217;s Pathetic User Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<p>I got myself a GoPro HERO3 camera, and I've got to say, <span class='nobr'>I'm solidly<\/span> unimpressed with GoPro (the company, Woodman Labs) so far.<\/p>\n\n<ul>\n  <li><p>You have to access their web site before you can use the camera, but the web site is mostly down.... server doesn't respond for most requests.<\/p>\n       <p>[There's an update below on this...]<\/p><\/li>\n\n  <li><p>The web site, when it loads, is one of those flashy &#8220;form over function&#8221; sites that looks good (for some definitions of &#8220;good&#8221;), but difficult to actually use, and the incessant animations are annoying. <span class='nobr'>A search<\/span> for &#8220;manual hero3 black&#8221; produced no usable results.<\/p><\/li>\n\n  <li><p>The thing arrives locked in a well-made waterproof housing, but there's no information on how to get it out.\n       After <span class='nobr'>I was<\/span> finally able to download the manual, no search that <span class='nobr'>I could<\/span> think of brought up info on how to open the housing,\n       so <span class='nobr'>I had<\/span> to visually scan the 65-page manual to find the description (on page 59!) of how to get it out.<\/p>\n\n       <p>The description in the manual is with words only... no pictures... and was impossible to follow <i>if you didn't already understand it<\/i>. <span class='nobr'>It shows<\/span> that they didn't even bother to test their manual. When <span class='nobr'>I wrote<\/span> <a href='\/'>my book<\/a> in the late 90s, <span class='nobr'>I went<\/span> to the considerable trouble of having a <i>dozen<\/i>\n       folks who had no knowledge of the subject provide feedback on the manuscript, pointing out to me where my assumptions or descriptions\n       were inappropriate, and the book was much improved for it. <span class='nobr'>I'd expect<\/span> at least as much from <a\n       href='http:\/\/www.petapixel.com\/2012\/12\/21\/gopro-sells-9-of-company-to-foxconn-for-200m-now-valued-at-2b\/'><span class='nobr'>a\n       two<\/span>-billion dollar company<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n       <p>I resorted to searching YouTube for instructions on how to open it. <span class='nobr'>The fact that<\/span> someone felt the need to post <span class='nobr'>a video<\/span>\n       on how to open it is pretty damning evidence against the company's pathetic instructions.<\/p><\/li>\n\n  <li><p>It came with a note saying that <span class='nobr'>a firmware<\/span> update is required before you can use it, but when the web page does finally\n       load, <span class='nobr'>I got<\/span> &#8220;The page you requested could not be found&#8221;, so <span class='nobr'>I can't<\/span> even try to use the thing.<\/p><\/li>\n\n  <li><p>There's no &#8220;quick start guide&#8221;, so <span class='nobr'>I guess<\/span> that even after <span class='nobr'>I get<\/span> the firmware updated, <span class='nobr'>I have to<\/span> read the 65 pages of manual\n       before <span class='nobr'>I can<\/span> play with it. (Perhaps this is better in the long run, though.)<\/p><\/li>\n       <\/ul>\n\n<p>At this point, <span class='nobr'>I haven't<\/span> figured out how to\neven turn it on, but <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> confidence <span\nclass='nobr'>a geek<\/span> like me will be able to figure it out despite\nthe apparent efforts of GoPro to make the experience as bad as\npossible.<\/p>\n\n<p>Before anyone suggests that the web problems are because it's Christmas,\nlet me point out that it may well be the <i>reason<\/i>, but it's certainly\nno <i>excuse<\/i>. <span class='nobr'>The company<\/span> very well knows that it <i>requires<\/i> users\nto download the manual and <span class='nobr'>a firmware<\/span> update before the camera can be used,\nand the company knows <i>exactly<\/i> how many they've sold. There are no\nsurprises here to <span class='nobr'>a company<\/span> with <span class='nobr'>a clue.<\/span><\/p>\n\n<p>On the plus side, we woke up this morning to find that Santa had\ndelivered the luggage that I'd gotten separated from on <a\nhref='\/blog\/2012-12-25\/2173'>my recent transpacific\ntrip<\/a>, about 30 hours after it should have arrived. <span\nclass='nobr'>I had<\/span> already gone to Walmart\nto buy some cheap clothes and gloves, but it's nice to have our proper\nstuff. <span class='nobr'>And as per<\/span> that recent trip, <span class='nobr'>I'm still<\/span> so very thankful to the\nanonymous hero, so all in all, <span class='nobr'>I have<\/span> much to be thankful for... just not\nmy GoPro.<\/p>\n\n<hr width='65%' align='center'\/>\n\n<p><b>Update:<\/b> &mdash; so, after apparently\n       being down most of the day without so much of <span class='nobr'>a word<\/span> from the company on their own site\nor even on Twitter, they're finally claiming it's <span class='nobr'>a problem<\/span> with Amazon Web Services. That would indeed be\n       <span class='nobr'>a valid<\/span> excuse on their part, because they should be able to trust Amazon. It doesn't excuse the complete lack of word on their part for so long (how hard would it be to add <span class='nobr'>a note<\/span> to their site, or type <span class='nobr'>a sentence<\/span> to Twitter?). <span class='nobr'>And of course<\/span>, all the other points about their inept support still apply.<\/p>\n\n<hr width='65%' align='center'\/>\n\n<p><b>Update #2:<\/b> &mdash; <span class='nobr'>I still<\/span> couldn't\naccess via their web site, but found no shortage of people complaining\nabout poor service and web-site problems going days back. <span\nclass='nobr'>But by chance<\/span>, the company did finally post an\nalternate link on Twitter that <span class='nobr'>I happened<\/span> to see\n26 seconds after they posted it (24+ <i>hours<\/i> after the first complains\nof an inaccessable web site started showing up on Twitter), but the target\nsite is as dead as their own. Sigh.<\/p>\n\n<hr width='65%' align='center'\/>\n\n<p><b>Update #3:<\/b> &mdash; After many hours, <span class='nobr'>I was finally<\/span> able to get the thing working and firmware updated.\nImmediately wanted to throw the thing out the window with the ear-shattering beep it kept making, but thankfully\nwas eventually able to turn the beep off. <span class='nobr'>Got as far<\/span> in the manual as setting the date (which should have been set automatically\nwhen the firmware was updated) and found that the firmware crashed when <span class='nobr'>I tried.<\/span> Sigh. Going to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I got myself a GoPro HERO3 camera, and I've got to say, I'm solidly unimpressed with GoPro (the company, Woodman Labs) so far.<\/p> <p>You have to access their web site before you can use the camera, but the web site is mostly down.... server doesn't respond for most requests.<\/p> <p>[There's an update below on this...]<\/p> <p>The web site, when it loads, is one of those flashy \"form over function\" sites that looks good (for some definitions of \"good\"), but difficult to actually use, and the incessant animations are annoying. A search for \"manual hero3 black\" produced no usable results.<\/p> <p>The [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2174\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}