“I am a multi-award winning writer ...” “ ... learn some humility.”
Thanks for your advice.
Learn some humility! Learn some respect! Learn how to treat other people with respect! Learn how to keep your promises! Learn how to not be great big disappointments. Please don’t go broke in the meantime.
And yes, I am a multi-award winning technology journalist, the most recent of which I earned just this past Thursday. I am very proud of that. Are you proud of your delays? Are you proud of ignoring TBD and everyone else at every turn? Are you proud of having needed to shadow ban so many people?
Shame on you, Mark Knighton. Everyone, presumably even DBK, sees right through you.
A splendid Saturday night to you as well. More examples of craft above. A word count shows who’s wasting time here.
Your word count shows how much time you spend on smarmy comebacks, and how little of your time is spent finishing a 4+ year delayed product.
Priorities, Mark - if you had any respect you wouldn’t show your face here again until it was to say “We have proudly finished TextBlade and we have reached GR at last. Indeed we did it two weeks ago so those who ordered in Jan 2015 should already be receiving TextBlades as I type, and with each passing day we are fulfilling orders as never before.
“We also want to thank you for your great AMA questions, and we wholeheartedly apologise for 5+ years of delay.
"We delivered on Keys for Kids, and we are so proud to see TextBlades in the hands of the next generation at last.
”Please enjoy your TextBlades, and for those of you who wondered, the free gift was a bonus TextBlade!”
Will you ever write with such humility and respect, Mark, or is your modus operandi merely the one we’ve had slapped in our faces the last 4+ years?
If you could have proven that to us we’d have seen it long ago, but each response from you drips with anger, arrogance, indignation and a false sense of being the victim.
It’s really sad to see, Mark. You are obviously a very clever person with the potential of being a Musk or Jobs, but those guys delivered.
Please, I await your next smarmy comeback, your next unjustified insult when it is YOU that refuses to answer questions and refuses to deliver.
I’m waiting for your next take-down, your next thwarting twist. Lay it on us, it's entertainment if nothing else.
Finally, Dear Lord, please genuinely bless Mark Knighton, Waytools, its employees and customers. Please, please calm Mark’s heart, please direct his considerable energies and intellect towards TextBlade, and please deflect Mark from posting on Internet message boards, please help Mark to do the right thing by himself, and by us.
Please help Mark achieve the genuine greatness he deserves, and please help him speed up TextBlade completion and delivery. It would be a great blessing for this entire saga to end positively, with a happy, healthy, growing company set to release the MouseBlade and whatever else is being planned, and with overjoyed customers who have quickly forgotten about 2015-2019 because the end result was so incredibly good, as Mark promised.
Oh boy, I think a lot of "reading in" is going on here. Okay, another longish post but I'm sure it is brilliant if you read carefully (no skimming allowed!).
Over-reactions all over the place. It seems to me that if even so much as one word could, quite fairly, be considered a kind of insult (especially in the "context" of at least 3.5 years of blatant attacks), maybe it would be best, just for a little while, that is forgotten by everyone. Even if some of those recent things are milder childish attacks, if the GENERAL tone of the posts are better.
One thing that maybe should be dropped is the stuff about WayTools spending a lot of time with remarks that many don't like instead of working on the product. But looking back at the recent posts they have made, they all seem to be after working hours. I've seen some that may be during working hours, but they tend to be pretty short so not a big deal anyway. So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work.
Let me explain how I think it should work. And I'll use Alex for my example for the simple reason that he certainly has said some pretty bad things about me here, as well as on a certain subreddit whether I was there or not, and I suspect if I looked it up, probably on the WayTools forum as well long ago. Nor have these been just recent outbursts, but have quite a long history. So I would have little motivation to even try to get along. HOWEVER:
What do I see very recently? Well, there was his apology. And there were other comments since then about me which I took as positive things. What do I make of those? Well, there are two possibilities I can see. One is that he is sincere, which means I don't have a problem with him, regardless of the past. The other is that he is just pretending and will soon change back - or that by being more positive about me, he's using me as a contrast to WayTools. You know, to make some attack on them seem reasonable because he isn't attacking me as well.
Yep, those bad reasons are possible! And it also doesn't matter. Because if it is temporary, I'll deal with any negative change WHEN IT HAPPENS. And if he makes what I consider to be silly arguments against WayTools, I will naturally point out why I think they are wrong if I think they matter enough. In the meantime, I CHOOSE to accept the change as sincere.
BTW, none of this is theoretical. I've had critics play games like this before. But as long as they were nice (pretending or not), I reciprocated until they stopped being nice.
Personally, I'd kinda suggest most of the questions people want answers to are just held off until the end of the Month (or sooner if they post the update sooner). I just don't think you are going to get any details before then. Which, of course, is another reason why I push WT to get something out to us this month. Maybe just make lists of things you'd like to know that fits a tech update. Doesn't mean you'll get all you want, but doesn't hurt to list them. I've done that myself.
I'd also recommend considering what questions you want answered. No, I'm not censoring anyone. But some things I think have been pretty clear that WT won't answer (sometimes I may have an idea of why and agree with them - sometimes I have no idea why at all). But one question in particular stands out to me which, based on criticisms for years, really seems kinda meaningless to ask: "When can we expect GR?" I know it is something we all want to know so seems logical to ask. But here's why I think there is little reason to ask:
No matter what date they gave you, would you suddenly think, "Great, now we know"? I doubt it! My point being, when you complain (understandably) about the many missed shipping estimates and typically add in comments like they'll just keep missing the next one, etc, what meaning would any date mean to you if they gave you one? Doesn't matter why they were missed before, you are going to have serious doubts.
I can only think of two answers they could give which would POSSIBLY be informative at this point:
1. They give a date much further in the future. Let's say "early 2020". That would certainly imply they see a lot of things to work on so that even if they beat that date, we wouldn't be "close" at this time.
2. They give a date that is very close. Let's say, "August 2019". That would imply they feel they are really doing good about progress (thus, hopefully, less potential for new problems to show up). It would also be at least possible from what we do know, little as that is. Tech update this month, maybe another month before sending to Treg, and if Treg doesn't find issues, maybe a month for them to test to be sure. Of course, many things could be found to delay it, but at least it would be possible, thus even if it doesn't make it, we can feel we are much closer.
But, even with those two possibilities, we'd all be saying, "I'll believe it when I see it".
One thing that maybe should be dropped is the stuff about WayTools spending a lot of time with remarks that many don't like instead of working on the product.
Why? It is perfectly valid to criticize Mark Knighton (not 'they' or 'them' - Waytools_Support is Mark Knighton) for wasting his time bickering with people while providing none of the info people are requesting. It is a complete waste of time the way he is responding, while he is 4+ years late on the shipping deadline for a product people already paid for, so nothing less than the most disciplined use of his own time is going to be acceptable behavior at this point.
But looking back at the recent posts they have made, they all seem to be after working hours. I've seen some that may be during working hours, but they tend to be pretty short so not a big deal anyway. So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work.
How do you make the vast speculative leap that if Mark is posting here, that proves he is actually working? It is no such proof. Mark Knighton could be kicking back at home, bickering with people on the internet whom he does not give a damn about, while he sips Margaritas and lights cigars with $100 bills provided courtesy of the thousands of Textblade customers who paid him and never received a product. There is no evidence here that he is working on anything. In fact, all observable evidence would suggest the opposite, that he is not working at all. He is 4+ years late and seems to spend most of his time and energy bickering on the internet, or providing free Apple tech support on his own forum, or keeping irregular hours doing who knows what, vs managing a staff and operating a company. Mark appears to be a total disaster at managing anything. Why are you trying to spin his bickering illogical replies as evidence he is working? That is ludicrous.
The only thing your latest comment proves is that once again you are unable to control your neurotic impulse to troll everyone in any Waytools thread anywhere on the internet with speculation and spin on behalf of Waytools, all the while claiming you do not work for Waytools and do not represent Waytools and do not speak on behalf of Waytools. You are behaving like a shill and a troll. Stop behaving like the company spokesperson if Mark Knighton isnt paying you to do it.
-Promise at the start of order acceptance in January 2015 (announced on the Web and estimated delivery time at the time of ordering)
We will ship at any time because we are ready for production. (It is not ready because there is a problem with production later. And corrected → I announced the result lie)
The shipping estimate is answered at the end of March of the same year. (fact)
Charges to registered credit cards are fixed at the time of order and paid (in fact, is not a violation of credit card company terms?)
Doubt
Q. Did you not re-estimate the cause of the delay and the timing of the solution when it was found that the timing of the estimate for the customer's order was delayed?
(As far as I can tell, I have never received a notification email about late delivery)
Q. Re-estimates on delivery are being revised frequently, what causes the re-estimation to be made several times as follows?
The end of March 2015 → in April 2015 → in May 2015 → in June 2015
.... TREG announced in March 2016 (GR announced several weeks later)
.... During the summer of 2018 → during the fall of 2018 → during the winter of 2019 → during the summer of 2019 (current status)
Even if there is no reason to delay it, isn't it a commerce problem to announce late after the estimate deadline has passed?
Q. Shipment to TREG is the same as the product version. Said Waytools_support. So why can't we ship to regular customers?
Hardware problems may need to be replaced, but with firmware, customers should be able to handle software updates, but I want to know why they do not.
Sira - we have posted much info about our work. If you are not comfortable with what we are doing, please allow us to send you a refund.
You can post the first 4 digits of your order number here, and we will be happy to take care of it for you. Thank you.
@WayTools_Support: I don't want to talk for Sira, but you seem to take every comment or question as an attack. It could even be a complaint made in frustration but it may not necessarily be an attack. And not everything is resolved by banning and refunding. Quite the opposite. You are much smarter than that. Let's have peace. Even if you feel attacked you should just say your piece about the TB and do not engage in a war of words. It would help quite a lot if your responses were more detailed in product- technical & project data, and 100% on the TB and nothing else (no sarcasm, snide remarks, anger, etc). It does not look good of you as you represent a company. It works against you. (And if you truly believe there is an obscure "Oppo PR" against you, you are just helping them out this way. I obviously do not believe in it BTW). You sometimes draw parallels between Waytools and Apple and Tesla. Have you ever seen Apple, Ford, Logitech, etc. having this kind of arguments with customers / ex-customers on forums ? Pls reflect on that. (And no, this is not an attack. I am trying to help you).
@Alexonline: ; It really shows you can write. A lot of the stuff you post is top notch and I imagine spontaneously written. The prayer is very well crafted. If I were part of WT I would take it in good natured humor and even post at WT site with your permission.
Our Keyboard, who art in California, Textblade be thy name. Our keyboards come When deliveries be done On Earth as it is in Treggen. Give us this day our daily Textblades And forgive Waytools their trespasses, As we forgive Waytools their trespasses against us. And lead us not into Logitechs, But deliver us our Textblades, For it is the king of keyboards, With the power, and the glory, When customers can buy it For ever and ever.
Amen and Awomen who all want Atextblade.
A few quotes: "You gotta just laugh at yourself and let it go and not take things too seriously because life is too short." ~ Ally Hilfiger "If you can laugh at yourself, you are going to be fine. If you allow others to laugh with you, you will be great." ~ Martin Niemoller "Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century." ~ Barry Humphries "Love who you are and what you are and what you do. Laugh at yourself and at life and nothing can touch you." ~ Louise Hay "Laugh loudly, laugh often, and most important, laugh at yourself." ~ Chelsea Handler
> It is perfectly valid to criticize Mark Knighton (not 'they' or 'them' - Waytools_Support is Mark Knighton) for wasting his time bickering with people while providing none of the info people are requesting. It is a complete waste of time the way he is responding
Did you miss this part?: "So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work."
Oh, you didn't miss it because you quote it, in bold even, next and completely miss the point with:
> How do you make the vast speculative leap that if Mark is posting here, that proves he is actually working? It is no such proof.
Uh, exactly what does that have to do with pointing out that these posts people complain about are mostly done AFTER working hours???
> It is perfectly valid to criticize Mark Knighton (not 'they' or 'them' - Waytools_Support is Mark Knighton) for wasting his time bickering with people while providing none of the info people are requesting. It is a complete waste of time the way he is responding
Did you miss this part?: "So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work."
Oh, you didn't miss it because you quote it, in bold even, next and completely miss the point with:
> How do you make the vast speculative leap that if Mark is posting here, that proves he is actually working? It is no such proof.
Uh, exactly what does that have to do with pointing out that these posts people complain about are mostly done AFTER working hours???
Because it is unhealthy and soul destroying for Mark to be replying to everything with such anger all the time.
How much more refreshing it would be to see Mark speak in plain and simple English, and with happiness and joy, despite the delays.
In the great tech breakthroughs thread at the Waytools Forum, we see Mark discuss cool tech with great joy, and he even expresses what a fantastic conversation is being had in the thread - he is among friends and happy Treggers, although the shadow banned like me (and others) could have shared plenty of cool tech stories, too, save for the banning.
Mark is basking in the glow of happy people talking awesome tech, and it is easy to see him imagining TextBlade being spoken of in such a manner by everyday customers, not just Treggers.
We see what Mark is like as a normal person, not “Under Siege” Mark being hunted by justifiably pee’d off customers, or an imaginary Oppo-PR campaign that seeks Mark being stalked by Steven Segal in his prime, or Liam Neeson at just about any age, angry that Mark has “taken” his money and not delivered any product.
Mark has seemingly already extrapolated the love from Treggers to the eventual general population, but as always, it is wise not to count your chickens before the eggs have hatched.
TextBlades will hatch once GR is achieved, until then, the gestation process continues.
Q. Shipment to TREG is the same as the product version. Said Waytools_support. So why can't we ship to regular customers?
This has been covered multiple times.
Yes, but to no-one’s satisfaction. Sira is asking the question that any regular person would ask - if the hardware is good enough for Treggers, and the company has said so, then why the delay?
I know from following the saga that this was never true though, 11 hardware revisions and various issues Treggers have uncovered and etc etc is what you mean by “covered multiple times” though.
Arkorott - many thanks for your kind words. The ideas generally are spontaneous, they pop into my mind, but then I do need to write what I’ve thought, and refine and edit it.
I did make a few changes to the Lord’s TextBlade Prayer before I was happy, and to Charles Clickens, June/Dune and Star Wars. I love doing this in my general tech writing too, it’s definitely not unique to TextBlade posts.
It’s also much easier to write and publish than it is to create something new like TextBlade, manufacture it at scale and ship it around the world. I acknowledge this and celebrate entrepreneurs and inventors!
The manufacturing process for writing takes place in the mind, on the screen and via a keyboard (hence my excitement over TextBlade and being one of the first people in the world to see this and say Yes! This is a very cool product that I want to buy! And to marvel at the minds that make such things possible.
The manufacturing process for hardware is vastly harder, and when you are trying to do something breathtakingly new, there can sometimes be major problems along the way.
We see this in Kickstarter and Indigegogo campaigns all the time. I am also awaiting a notebook sling bag with awesome batteries and charging systems called LAER from a company called ARROE.
It is well over a year late, probably even longer, and still not finished, but the company posts regular updates, isn’t rude or condescending towards customers, explains where things are up to in plain English (or at times broken Chinglish) and is the opposite of the way the highly literate Mark talks to people.
It does look like LAER mass production will begin this year though.
The one point about that which has been raised many times in the past is that TextBlade was offered for sale as a finished product, ready to go, before keypad problems required remanufacturing - it was never a Kickstarter or Indiegogo product, but that’s effectively what it morphed into.
I used to watch the cool progress update which was very detailed in my order page, looking forward to delivery just weeks away. I never imagined I would voluntarily cancel after two years, nor that in 2019, we’d all still be waiting.
Arkorott, your advice is great, and from the heart - it is genuine!
I’ve seen variations of it before given to Mark, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.
All of us is here simply hope that Mark’s team is closer than ever to final release, and that it might actually happen this year.
I’ve read rationales why 2019 is now impossible given time constraints and the glacial pace progress takes, but there is the eternal hope that Mike’s progress report from this month will give a clearer picture in plain English.
We also all hope Mark will voluntarily decide to become a softer and gentler person, spending his after hours time peacefully and not in fierce battle with customers past, present and future on message boards, be it his own or those of others.
It may well be a forlorn hope, but let’s hope not.
I don’t think anyone has been part of any Oppo-PR campaign, that just seems so fantastically fanciful, but maybe Mark knows something we don’t, or has skeletons in his closet that make him think such a scenario exists.
What we all just want is a small multitouch keyboard with long battery life and extreme portability as promised.
Ok, so this is probably my least inspired rewrite, but it’ll have to do:
With Apologies to Disney:
Type Right and the Seven Bladwarfs, Some Day TextBlade will come.
(Looks like there’s a fuller version of the song online, these are the words from the clip above that Google lists as the lyrics, so I went with those. Anyway it’s all just fun)
Regarding Sira’s comment - Whether it’s intended or perceived as an attack or not, is not the question. What’s operative is this simple principle -
If a customer uses terms like “Lie, violation, and unprofessional”, we take these words at face value. If that’s really how he sees it, we must remedy with a refund.
For any manufacturer, you must refund when accused of this, whether you feel it’s fair or not. It’s an obligation of reasonable commercial policy, not a choice.
If Sira doesn’t really mean the words he said, then he can let us know, and we’ll resolve it in another mutually agreeable way.
Q. Shipment to TREG is the same as the product version. Said Waytools_support. So why can't we ship to regular customers?
This has been covered multiple times.
Yes, but to no-one’s satisfaction. Sira is asking the question that any regular person would ask - if the hardware is good enough for Treggers, and the company has said so, then why the delay?
On the first item, like I said, if people don't like how WT posts, fine. I simply pointed out that the parts about doing so taking away from work on the TB isn't really the case.
For the second, it isn't going to be satisfying until they ship, but the question has been addressed and I'm pretty sure it isn't going to change if it is asked more times.
WT has said they needed to redo the firmware to free up space for various things, but the one that really matters is the need to be able to handle problems new customers are going to find. The way it is with the old firmware, they would not only have to rewrite the revealed problem, but usually rewrite other parts every time they needed to make a fix. This just isn't a good situation. It could be argued that people would prefer to get it anyway and, if they have real issues, just put up with it until the new firmware is done and tested. And it may well be satisfactory to those of us here. But it may not be so for the other customers. Or enough of them that the complaints would offset any advantage. No way to tell, of course. But that's why the decision can only be made by the company which is taking the far bigger risk.
Think of it this way, now that they have said the level of the existing software is good enough. Under the premise that they should have shipped under those circumstances, shipping would have started something like last October or so (depending on how long Treg testing would have been required before making that decision). So, we are 7 months past that with the new firmware not ready yet and we don't know when it will be. Now, regardless of how long we still have to wait for that, think how much slower it would be if they had to divide their time up between fixing problems found during GR and also doing the rewrite!
I have no problem if some people think the earlier shipping would be the better choice. And I have no problem with the approach WT is taking. Nothing to do with my having one, but rather I can see a good argument for both views.
Regarding Sira’s comment - Whether it’s intended or perceived as an attack or not, is not the question. What’s operative is this simple principle -
If a customer uses terms like “Lie, violation, and unprofessional”, we take these words at face value. If that’s really how he sees it, we must remedy with a refund.
For any manufacturer, you must refund when accused of this, whether you feel it’s fair or not. It’s an obligation of reasonable commercial policy, not a choice.
If Sira doesn’t really mean the words he said, then he can let us know, and we’ll resolve it in another mutually agreeable way.
Maybe it’s just a true statement of fact that you lied about delivery dates on multiple, multiple occasions, that you violated trust with customers time and again, and that the whole thing has been an incredible example of extreme unprofessionalism on your part?
Sounds like telling the truth has become a revolutionary act.
Why not just admit Sira is right, apologise and promise to do better - all in plain speaking English? Isn’t that the simple principle you should be abiding to?
People would be astonished if you did just that, it would be the beginning of you regaining trust with customers past, present and future, and most importantly, it would be the right and honourable thing for you to do.
Instead I fear you will be at the ready with some new nasty insult or comeback, which in yet another slap to all our faces will be “Typed on a TextBlade” - or even worse, a regular keyboard or your phone’s on-screen keyboard.
Prove me wrong, Mark, be a real man and apologise to us all.
Force-refunding people is the coward’s way out, an abdication of responsibility. Force-refunding is no-one’s standard business practice - but it is at Waytools!
What does that tell you, Mark? That we’re all part of an Oppo-PR campaign when all we wanted to buy was the small keyboard YOU advertised as being effectively ready to go in a very short timeframe?
C’mon, Mark, tell me I’m wrong with a straight face.
In in the meantime, Happy Mother’s Day to your Mum, and if you have kids, to the mother of your children - and to all Mums out there!
The above post provides a fair measure of the sincerity and goodwill of Alexonline.
Alexonline is speaking in jest as he highlights some of your flaws. He is nudging you to behave differently. I have done the same. Where is your AMA thread to show good faith?
All these signals people are sending bounce right off you. Its as if your mind is shielded from seeing others points of view. I do not say this as a slight towards you, just a statement of fact. You are the worst communicator I have ever encountered in business. Your style of speaking and the nonsense you write to customers in public forums is borderline insane. You either have a personality disorder, or you are behaving this way intentionally and maliciously.
If a customer uses terms like “Lie, violation, and unprofessional”, we take these words at face value. If that’s really how he sees it, we must remedy with a refund. For any manufacturer, you must refund when accused of this, whether you feel it’s fair or not. It’s an obligation of reasonable commercial policy, not a choice.
Then you should refund everyone, because everyone feels that you are at least one or more, if not all, of the following: incompetent, negligent, unprofessional, unethical, liar, scam artist.
If you really want to keep some of the money, you could announce the refund is forthcoming for everyone, and ask that anyone who wishes to leave their money with you opt-in. That would be borderline ethical.
What you really should do is just refund everyone. Acknowledge your failure up to this point, then focus on the development of your product. When it is truly ready, offer it for sale again.
I'm always amazed at how some people somehow think they know what everyone else feels. Of course, there is the circular argument that "everyone" feels that way but anyone who doesn't must work for WT or some such nonsense.
The above post provides a fair measure of the sincerity and goodwill of Alexonline.
I can't tell if you mean the above positively or negatively, but whatever angry posts I have made here, to you, DBK, or at Reddit (as I never had the chance to write an angry post at Waytools Forum, I was shadow banned for "noise" before I could actually get angry), the simple truth remains:
1) I wanted and still want a TextBlade. It is one of the reasons why I was among the very first on the planet to order one. 2) Your communication style is abrasive and comes from a position of anger, fear, victimhood, when you should simply drop all of that and be honest. I has been 4+ years, we get it that this tech is revolutionary and HARD - if it were easy, GR would have happened long ago. Just be honest with yourself and your customers - we are long past recriminations that have any meaning. Just be honest at long last, tell us the truth, and guess what, you'll be forgiven!
I know that TDB and others are really, really pee'd off at you at the moment, and surely it is with full and complete justification, you have NOT been a gentleman, Mark. Even you could agree with that, surely.
It's never too late to turn a new leaf and be a better man. An honest man. A man of truth and honour. I write this with full sincerity and goodwill.
I even want to be a customer again, when you reach GR and are ready to ship.
A truly upset customer would just tell you to stuff off and never engage with you again, but that's not what I want (and I'm sure your customers don't want that either).
We send you love in the hope that you will change, will finish the product, will live up to your potential and promise, and will succeed in making TextBlade a massively successful product.
I'd never have been among the very first to order your product if I hadn't seen the potential all those years ago.
Please live up to your potential and promise, Mark. On this Mother's Day, will you make your mother proud and make amends to us all?
There is time for redemption. Luke saw the good in his father. I see the good in you.
Live up to your potential, be honourable, do the right thing.
It's up to you, Mark. I wish you every success - not in jest, but genuinely.
I know that TDB and others are really, really pee'd off at you at the moment, and surely it is with full and complete justification, you have NOT been a gentleman, Mark. Even you could agree with that, surely.
Thats right. And I am not going to bend over backwards to placate Mark Knighton. Anyone including myself who has signaled a gesture of compromise or conciliation or goodwill with intent to reset the relationship has been responded to by either Mark Knighton or more often Kahuna with an aggressive or patronizing response, as if they are more interested in scoring points each time someone attempts to bridge the divide, or has been ignored entirely, so I do not perceive them as good faith actors here.
Mark needs to make a major change in a communication style. Offer an AMA and answer every question, something to that effect.
Or just refund everyone, finish the product, then offer it for sale. The ethical approach.
Comments
And yes, I am a multi-award winning technology journalist, the most recent of which I earned just this past Thursday. I am very proud of that. Are you proud of your delays? Are you proud of ignoring TBD and everyone else at every turn? Are you proud of having needed to shadow ban so many people?
Shame on you, Mark Knighton. Everyone, presumably even DBK, sees right through you.
Priorities, Mark - if you had any respect you wouldn’t show your face here again until it was to say “We have proudly finished TextBlade and we have reached GR at last. Indeed we did it two weeks ago so those who ordered in Jan 2015 should already be receiving TextBlades as I type, and with each passing day we are fulfilling orders as never before.
“We also want to thank you for your great AMA questions, and we wholeheartedly apologise for 5+ years of delay.
"We delivered on Keys for Kids, and we are so proud to see TextBlades in the hands of the next generation at last.
”Please enjoy your TextBlades, and for those of you who wondered, the free gift was a bonus TextBlade!”
Will you ever write with such humility and respect, Mark, or is your modus operandi merely the one we’ve had slapped in our faces the last 4+ years?
If you could have proven that to us we’d have seen it long ago, but each response from you drips with anger, arrogance, indignation and a false sense of being the victim.
It’s really sad to see, Mark. You are obviously a very clever person with the potential of being a Musk or Jobs, but those guys delivered.
Please, I await your next smarmy comeback, your next unjustified insult when it is YOU that refuses to answer questions and refuses to deliver.
I’m waiting for your next take-down, your next thwarting twist. Lay it on us, it's entertainment if nothing else.
Finally, Dear Lord, please genuinely bless Mark Knighton, Waytools, its employees and customers. Please, please calm Mark’s heart, please direct his considerable energies and intellect towards TextBlade, and please deflect Mark from posting on Internet message boards, please help Mark to do the right thing by himself, and by us.
Please help Mark achieve the genuine greatness he deserves, and please help him speed up TextBlade completion and delivery. It would be a great blessing for this entire saga to end positively, with a happy, healthy, growing company set to release the MouseBlade and whatever else is being planned, and with overjoyed customers who have quickly forgotten about 2015-2019 because the end result was so incredibly good, as Mark promised.
Over-reactions all over the place. It seems to me that if even so much as one word could, quite fairly, be considered a kind of insult (especially in the "context" of at least 3.5 years of blatant attacks), maybe it would be best, just for a little while, that is forgotten by everyone. Even if some of those recent things are milder childish attacks, if the GENERAL tone of the posts are better.
One thing that maybe should be dropped is the stuff about WayTools spending a lot of time with remarks that many don't like instead of working on the product. But looking back at the recent posts they have made, they all seem to be after working hours. I've seen some that may be during working hours, but they tend to be pretty short so not a big deal anyway. So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work.
Let me explain how I think it should work. And I'll use Alex for my example for the simple reason that he certainly has said some pretty bad things about me here, as well as on a certain subreddit whether I was there or not, and I suspect if I looked it up, probably on the WayTools forum as well long ago. Nor have these been just recent outbursts, but have quite a long history. So I would have little motivation to even try to get along. HOWEVER:
BTW, none of this is theoretical. I've had critics play games like this before. But as long as they were nice (pretending or not), I reciprocated until they stopped being nice.
Personally, I'd kinda suggest most of the questions people want answers to are just held off until the end of the Month (or sooner if they post the update sooner). I just don't think you are going to get any details before then. Which, of course, is another reason why I push WT to get something out to us this month. Maybe just make lists of things you'd like to know that fits a tech update. Doesn't mean you'll get all you want, but doesn't hurt to list them. I've done that myself.
I'd also recommend considering what questions you want answered. No, I'm not censoring anyone. But some things I think have been pretty clear that WT won't answer (sometimes I may have an idea of why and agree with them - sometimes I have no idea why at all). But one question in particular stands out to me which, based on criticisms for years, really seems kinda meaningless to ask: "When can we expect GR?" I know it is something we all want to know so seems logical to ask. But here's why I think there is little reason to ask:
No matter what date they gave you, would you suddenly think, "Great, now we know"? I doubt it! My point being, when you complain (understandably) about the many missed shipping estimates and typically add in comments like they'll just keep missing the next one, etc, what meaning would any date mean to you if they gave you one? Doesn't matter why they were missed before, you are going to have serious doubts.
1. They give a date much further in the future. Let's say "early 2020". That would certainly imply they see a lot of things to work on so that even if they beat that date, we wouldn't be "close" at this time.
2. They give a date that is very close. Let's say, "August 2019". That would imply they feel they are really doing good about progress (thus, hopefully, less potential for new problems to show up). It would also be at least possible from what we do know, little as that is. Tech update this month, maybe another month before sending to Treg, and if Treg doesn't find issues, maybe a month for them to test to be sure. Of course, many things could be found to delay it, but at least it would be possible, thus even if it doesn't make it, we can feel we are much closer.
But, even with those two possibilities, we'd all be saying, "I'll believe it when I see it".
How do you make the vast speculative leap that if Mark is posting here, that proves he is actually working? It is no such proof. Mark Knighton could be kicking back at home, bickering with people on the internet whom he does not give a damn about, while he sips Margaritas and lights cigars with $100 bills provided courtesy of the thousands of Textblade customers who paid him and never received a product. There is no evidence here that he is working on anything. In fact, all observable evidence would suggest the opposite, that he is not working at all. He is 4+ years late and seems to spend most of his time and energy bickering on the internet, or providing free Apple tech support on his own forum, or keeping irregular hours doing who knows what, vs managing a staff and operating a company. Mark appears to be a total disaster at managing anything. Why are you trying to spin his bickering illogical replies as evidence he is working? That is ludicrous.
The only thing your latest comment proves is that once again you are unable to control your neurotic impulse to troll everyone in any Waytools thread anywhere on the internet with speculation and spin on behalf of Waytools, all the while claiming you do not work for Waytools and do not represent Waytools and do not speak on behalf of Waytools. You are behaving like a shill and a troll. Stop behaving like the company spokesperson if Mark Knighton isnt paying you to do it.
You can post the first 4 digits of your order number here, and we will be happy to take care of it for you. Thank you.
I don't want to talk for Sira, but you seem to take every comment or question as an attack. It could even be a complaint made in frustration but it may not necessarily be an attack. And not everything is resolved by banning and refunding. Quite the opposite. You are much smarter than that. Let's have peace.
Even if you feel attacked you should just say your piece about the TB and do not engage in a war of words. It would help quite a lot if your responses were more detailed in product- technical & project data, and 100% on the TB and nothing else (no sarcasm, snide remarks, anger, etc).
It does not look good of you as you represent a company. It works against you.
(And if you truly believe there is an obscure "Oppo PR" against you, you are just helping them out this way. I obviously do not believe in it BTW).
You sometimes draw parallels between Waytools and Apple and Tesla. Have you ever seen Apple, Ford, Logitech, etc. having this kind of arguments with customers / ex-customers on forums ? Pls reflect on that. (And no, this is not an attack. I am trying to help you).
@Alexonline: ;
It really shows you can write. A lot of the stuff you post is top notch and I imagine spontaneously written. The prayer is very well crafted.
If I were part of WT I would take it in good natured humor and even post at WT site with your permission.
Our Keyboard, who art in California,
Textblade be thy name.
Our keyboards come
When deliveries be done
On Earth as it is in Treggen.
Give us this day our daily Textblades
And forgive Waytools their trespasses,
As we forgive Waytools their trespasses against us.
And lead us not into Logitechs,
But deliver us our Textblades,
For it is the king of keyboards,
With the power, and the glory,
When customers can buy it
For ever and ever.
Amen and Awomen who all want Atextblade.
A few quotes:
"You gotta just laugh at yourself and let it go and not take things too seriously because life is too short." ~ Ally Hilfiger
"If you can laugh at yourself, you are going to be fine. If you allow others to laugh with you, you will be great." ~ Martin Niemoller
"Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century." ~ Barry Humphries
"Love who you are and what you are and what you do. Laugh at yourself and at life and nothing can touch you." ~ Louise Hay
"Laugh loudly, laugh often, and most important, laugh at yourself." ~ Chelsea Handler
Edit: typos. I have them everywhere, ha.
Did you miss this part?: "So if you don't like the remarks, that's one thing. But it isn't taking away from their work."
> How do you make the vast speculative leap that if Mark is posting here, that proves he is actually working? It is no such proof.
Uh, exactly what does that have to do with pointing out that these posts people complain about are mostly done AFTER working hours???
This has been covered multiple times.
How much more refreshing it would be to see Mark speak in plain and simple English, and with happiness and joy, despite the delays.
In the great tech breakthroughs thread at the Waytools Forum, we see Mark discuss cool tech with great joy, and he even expresses what a fantastic conversation is being had in the thread - he is among friends and happy Treggers, although the shadow banned like me (and others) could have shared plenty of cool tech stories, too, save for the banning.
Mark is basking in the glow of happy people talking awesome tech, and it is easy to see him imagining TextBlade being spoken of in such a manner by everyday customers, not just Treggers.
We see what Mark is like as a normal person, not “Under Siege” Mark being hunted by justifiably pee’d off customers, or an imaginary Oppo-PR campaign that seeks Mark being stalked by Steven Segal in his prime, or Liam Neeson at just about any age, angry that Mark has “taken” his money and not delivered any product.
Mark has seemingly already extrapolated the love from Treggers to the eventual general population, but as always, it is wise not to count your chickens before the eggs have hatched.
TextBlades will hatch once GR is achieved, until then, the gestation process continues.
Yes, but to no-one’s satisfaction. Sira is asking the question that any regular person would ask - if the hardware is good enough for Treggers, and the company has said so, then why the delay?
I know from following the saga that this was never true though, 11 hardware revisions and various issues Treggers have uncovered and etc etc is what you mean by “covered multiple times” though.
Arkorott - many thanks for your kind words. The ideas generally are spontaneous, they pop into my mind, but then I do need to write what I’ve thought, and refine and edit it.
I did make a few changes to the Lord’s TextBlade Prayer before I was happy, and to Charles Clickens, June/Dune and Star Wars. I love doing this in my general tech writing too, it’s definitely not unique to TextBlade posts.
It’s also much easier to write and publish than it is to create something new like TextBlade, manufacture it at scale and ship it around the world. I acknowledge this and celebrate entrepreneurs and inventors!
The manufacturing process for writing takes place in the mind, on the screen and via a keyboard (hence my excitement over TextBlade and being one of the first people in the world to see this and say Yes! This is a very cool product that I want to buy! And to marvel at the minds that make such things possible.
The manufacturing process for hardware is vastly harder, and when you are trying to do something breathtakingly new, there can sometimes be major problems along the way.
We see this in Kickstarter and Indigegogo campaigns all the time. I am also awaiting a notebook sling bag with awesome batteries and charging systems called LAER from a company called ARROE.
It is well over a year late, probably even longer, and still not finished, but the company posts regular updates, isn’t rude or condescending towards customers, explains where things are up to in plain English (or at times broken Chinglish) and is the opposite of the way the highly literate Mark talks to people.
It does look like LAER mass production will begin this year though.
The one point about that which has been raised many times in the past is that TextBlade was offered for sale as a finished product, ready to go, before keypad problems required remanufacturing - it was never a Kickstarter or Indiegogo product, but that’s effectively what it morphed into.
I used to watch the cool progress update which was very detailed in my order page, looking forward to delivery just weeks away. I never imagined I would voluntarily cancel after two years, nor that in 2019, we’d all still be waiting.
Arkorott, your advice is great, and from the heart - it is genuine!
I’ve seen variations of it before given to Mark, but it seems to go in one ear and out the other.
All of us is here simply hope that Mark’s team is closer than ever to final release, and that it might actually happen this year.
I’ve read rationales why 2019 is now impossible given time constraints and the glacial pace progress takes, but there is the eternal hope that Mike’s progress report from this month will give a clearer picture in plain English.
We also all hope Mark will voluntarily decide to become a softer and gentler person, spending his after hours time peacefully and not in fierce battle with customers past, present and future on message boards, be it his own or those of others.
It may well be a forlorn hope, but let’s hope not.
I don’t think anyone has been part of any Oppo-PR campaign, that just seems so fantastically fanciful, but maybe Mark knows something we don’t, or has skeletons in his closet that make him think such a scenario exists.
What we all just want is a small multitouch keyboard with long battery life and extreme portability as promised.
Ok, so this is probably my least inspired rewrite, but it’ll have to do:
With Apologies to Disney:
Type Right and the Seven Bladwarfs, Some Day TextBlade will come.
Once there was a TextBlade
Where’s my TextBlade, Mark?
And I fell in love
It was not a lark!
Well, it was very easy
Anyone could see that TextBlade was charming
The only one for me
Was it cool, so handy?
Was it new and small?
There's just nothing like it anywhere at all
Did I say I loved it?
Did I just want this?
Tech seemed so romantic
I could not resist
Someday TextBlade will come
Someday I'll type again
And away to my iPhone we'll go
To be happy forever I know
Someday when Blade is here
I’ll type my love anew
And the users will tweet that GR bells have rung
Someday when Blade dreams come true
https://youtu.be/HLQ2sYxktMQ
(Looks like there’s a fuller version of the song online, these are the words from the clip above that Google lists as the lyrics, so I went with those. Anyway it’s all just fun)
If a customer uses terms like “Lie, violation, and unprofessional”, we take these words at face value. If that’s really how he sees it, we must remedy with a refund.
For any manufacturer, you must refund when accused of this, whether you feel it’s fair or not. It’s an obligation of reasonable commercial policy, not a choice.
If Sira doesn’t really mean the words he said, then he can let us know, and we’ll resolve it in another mutually agreeable way.
For the second, it isn't going to be satisfying until they ship, but the question has been addressed and I'm pretty sure it isn't going to change if it is asked more times.
WT has said they needed to redo the firmware to free up space for various things, but the one that really matters is the need to be able to handle problems new customers are going to find. The way it is with the old firmware, they would not only have to rewrite the revealed problem, but usually rewrite other parts every time they needed to make a fix. This just isn't a good situation. It could be argued that people would prefer to get it anyway and, if they have real issues, just put up with it until the new firmware is done and tested. And it may well be satisfactory to those of us here. But it may not be so for the other customers. Or enough of them that the complaints would offset any advantage. No way to tell, of course. But that's why the decision can only be made by the company which is taking the far bigger risk.
Think of it this way, now that they have said the level of the existing software is good enough. Under the premise that they should have shipped under those circumstances, shipping would have started something like last October or so (depending on how long Treg testing would have been required before making that decision). So, we are 7 months past that with the new firmware not ready yet and we don't know when it will be. Now, regardless of how long we still have to wait for that, think how much slower it would be if they had to divide their time up between fixing problems found during GR and also doing the rewrite!
I have no problem if some people think the earlier shipping would be the better choice. And I have no problem with the approach WT is taking. Nothing to do with my having one, but rather I can see a good argument for both views.
Sounds like telling the truth has become a revolutionary act.
Why not just admit Sira is right, apologise and promise to do better - all in plain speaking English? Isn’t that the simple principle you should be abiding to?
People would be astonished if you did just that, it would be the beginning of you regaining trust with customers past, present and future, and most importantly, it would be the right and honourable thing for you to do.
Instead I fear you will be at the ready with some new nasty insult or comeback, which in yet another slap to all our faces will be “Typed on a TextBlade” - or even worse, a regular keyboard or your phone’s on-screen keyboard.
Prove me wrong, Mark, be a real man and apologise to us all.
Force-refunding people is the coward’s way out, an abdication of responsibility. Force-refunding is no-one’s standard business practice - but it is at Waytools!
What does that tell you, Mark? That we’re all part of an Oppo-PR campaign when all we wanted to buy was the small keyboard YOU advertised as being effectively ready to go in a very short timeframe?
C’mon, Mark, tell me I’m wrong with a straight face.
In in the meantime, Happy Mother’s Day to your Mum, and if you have kids, to the mother of your children - and to all Mums out there!
All these signals people are sending bounce right off you. Its as if your mind is shielded from seeing others points of view. I do not say this as a slight towards you, just a statement of fact. You are the worst communicator I have ever encountered in business. Your style of speaking and the nonsense you write to customers in public forums is borderline insane. You either have a personality disorder, or you are behaving this way intentionally and maliciously.
Then you should refund everyone, because everyone feels that you are at least one or more, if not all, of the following: incompetent, negligent, unprofessional, unethical, liar, scam artist.
If you really want to keep some of the money, you could announce the refund is forthcoming for everyone, and ask that anyone who wishes to leave their money with you opt-in. That would be borderline ethical.
What you really should do is just refund everyone. Acknowledge your failure up to this point, then focus on the development of your product. When it is truly ready, offer it for sale again.
1) I wanted and still want a TextBlade. It is one of the reasons why I was among the very first on the planet to order one.
2) Your communication style is abrasive and comes from a position of anger, fear, victimhood, when you should simply drop all of that and be honest. I has been 4+ years, we get it that this tech is revolutionary and HARD - if it were easy, GR would have happened long ago. Just be honest with yourself and your customers - we are long past recriminations that have any meaning. Just be honest at long last, tell us the truth, and guess what, you'll be forgiven!
I know that TDB and others are really, really pee'd off at you at the moment, and surely it is with full and complete justification, you have NOT been a gentleman, Mark. Even you could agree with that, surely.
It's never too late to turn a new leaf and be a better man. An honest man. A man of truth and honour. I write this with full sincerity and goodwill.
I even want to be a customer again, when you reach GR and are ready to ship.
A truly upset customer would just tell you to stuff off and never engage with you again, but that's not what I want (and I'm sure your customers don't want that either).
We send you love in the hope that you will change, will finish the product, will live up to your potential and promise, and will succeed in making TextBlade a massively successful product.
I'd never have been among the very first to order your product if I hadn't seen the potential all those years ago.
Please live up to your potential and promise, Mark. On this Mother's Day, will you make your mother proud and make amends to us all?
There is time for redemption. Luke saw the good in his father. I see the good in you.
Live up to your potential, be honourable, do the right thing.
It's up to you, Mark. I wish you every success - not in jest, but genuinely.
Mark needs to make a major change in a communication style. Offer an AMA and answer every question, something to that effect.
Or just refund everyone, finish the product, then offer it for sale. The ethical approach.