alexonline

dabigkahuna said:

TextBladeDenied said:

> 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. 

dabigkahuna said:

sira said:

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. 

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)

WayTools_Support said:

On cue, remarkable case study above.  Using one’s writing gifts to spin more narrative, seeking to denigrate anything said at all.

The writer clearly has the intellect to understand the rhetorical reference to “blue skies” above. Yet even this, became fodder for a fresh angle of dig.

Being smart enough to know the difference, necessarily shows intent.

The irony is not lost.

The irony is not lost that the truth hurts you deeply, Waytools_Support. 

Were you honourable, you would not again have twisted words, thwarted customers, or pretended that anything I said is the slightest bit wrong. 

You said the word “thwart”. It is obvious that you meant critics were trying to thwart people from becoming your customers, given your “Oppo-PR” paranoia. 

Saying “thwart customers” was no Freudian slip, it was very deliberate, as it is an extremely accurate description of your very own behaviour! That you wilfully do this is astonishing but it is true. 

And, on cue, you have delivered yet another remarkable case study in the way you do business and simply communicate with people!

At least I am a multi-award winning writer and technology journalist, no-one will ever give you an award for PR or customer support.

You may well most genuinely deserve an award for TextBlade, but you need to ship it first! Until then, you win a Gold Medal for obfuscation, delays, rudeness and more. 

Please Lord, help Waytools_Support see that the world does not revolve around them, and please help them to learn some humility. 

Please help them them to stop responding with such arrogance, please help their developers to finish the job. 

Thank you. 

PS: As the famous joke goes, what is the difference between God and Waytools_Support?

God doesn’t go around thinking He is Waytools_Support. 

God also shipped. In 7 days!

PPS: Your second response mentioned a “new critique”. The critiques are essentially the same and little changed for going on 4+ years now. The answers from you are little-changed too, just more of the same. 

Please, please, stop wasting your time with nothing-burger responses, please get back to work!

Make us all happy with actual results, not smarmy, smug comebacks that merely lower your reputation even further. 

Edited multiple times to add further reflections upon Mark Knighton’s absolutely astonishing responses - he continues to show us what is under the kimono and it ain’t no cherry blossoms from Mt Fuji. 

Also we know the source of Knighton’s bad publicity, it is his own Oppo/bad-PR generator, Waytools_Support!

WayTools_Support said:

Biblical verse, even.  And those Star Wars parodies.  The guy can write. 

Arkorott - per our earlier reply to you, we’ll post news of several exciting advances on our forum. We hope you like it.

Here, if we post “blue skies are beautiful”, rabid comments will follow.

With every word twisted to spin and thwart, no meaningful conversation flows. By design.

So we’ll let them talk to each other, or themselves, as they please. 

And we’ll focus on advancing the good news of our progress.

Dear Waytools_Support. I'm actually an award winning technology journalist, Best Feature Writer 2017 - Consensus IT Writers Awards, and just last Thursday, Best Technical Writer 2019, same awards organisation (which has just celebrated its 20th anniversary), so yes - I can definitely write. And I type a lot! It's one of the many reasons why I was one of the first to order on January 15, 2015. 

I'm sure I could write an award winning article about the TextBlade, but let us all be very clear, no-one wants a "blue skies are beautiful" motherhood statement from you, Waytools_Support, and no-one has asked for that.

We merely want the truth - what are the real "gating" issues preventing general release, what is a realistic timeframe for the development to end, and when do you expect GR to occur? Do you even actually know?

Once you have that, you'll have actual REAL customers who can "talk to each other, or themselves, as they please". 

Please let it also be on the record that the true person to "spin and twist every word" and "thwart customers" so that "no meaningful conversation flows, by design", is Waytools_Support. This cannot be denied - you are the obfuscators-in-chief, everyone can see it. No-one is fooled by you anymore, even DBK has been, for years, trying to nudge you into releasing info in the timeframe you promised, and even he, in these 750+ posts, has been ever more strongly hinting that you need to, you know, answer people. Give answers. Be better. Be honourable! Even DBK knows this perfectly well - we even see that in his reply to Rolanbek in the post directly above this one. 

Thank you DBK for trying to keep Waytools honest, I know I have written frustrated messages at you in the past, for which I have apologised for (and am genuinely apologetic about), but I have never missed the fact that, since effectively the beginning, you have genuinely tried to get Waytools to honour the timelines for updated info, and that you (and many other Treggers) have genuinely tried to be helpful in what has been a difficult situation over the last 4+ years. 

Dear Waytools_Support, please focus not only on advancing the good news of your progress, but actually advancing your progress. That is the key issue, and we await the truth. Not the truthiness, but the actual truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

Please Lord, help Waytools_Support to seriously cut down on (or even eliminate) the smarm and to actually respond and reply to customers past, present and future with genuine charm, to truly kick the development process out of neutral and into gear, may Your hands guide those of Mark and his team to finish the project this year and in this decade - please don't let the 2020's be the years during which TextBlade arrives, instead, Dear Lord, please let 2020 itself be the year that TextBlade THRIVES.

For ever and ever, Amen. 

P.S. It is so refreshing to have a forum where, within the AI Forum posting rules, one can post freely, and even get a response from Waytools. Sure, the answers are clearly still not the real ones we want, but at least if AI decides to shadow ban me, it won't have been Waytools_Support doing it, but a genuine, independent third party. 

Obviously I do not want to be shadow banned or actually banned, and I don't think I deserve that one bit, but again, it is so refreshing to be able to post freely in a forum without the dreaded Imperial @Waytools banhammer hovering over the fingers that are typing out this message. 

A sincere and genuine thanks to AppleInsider for having written the TextBlade article, and for having this forum. I also genuinely and sincerely look forward to thanking Waytools for releasing the TextBlade to retail when that magical moment finally happens. 

Thanks also to Waytools_Support who has written more answers in the last few weeks than Waytools_Support has likely written in all of the last four years. It's great to see Waytools being held to account, may it hasten general release for all customers, past, present and future, given an actually available and released Textblade will certainly excite and interest former customers like myself into re-ordering, so the promise of January 2015 will finally be honoured and delivered. 

Thank you. 

WayTools_Support said:

Alex - if you have a look here, you’ll we were silent after Mike asked for folks to stop and read the rules.

The first folks to post were you, tbd, and Rolanbek, all of whom repeated the same kind of criticisms which unjustly impugn our work.

As discussed, some of this posting flies directly in the face of the forum rules.

if you wish us not to respond to such posts, please consider just not making provocative claims.  

We didn’t initiate, we only responded.  

It would be really nice for everyone if there we’re no attacks to answer.

Dear Waytools_Support,
 
There was no “unjust” impugning of your work when you consider the 4+ years of unjust delays and the unjust ways in which you have spoken to customers, past, present and future, even in the AI forum.

It also “would be really nice for everyone” if there were Textblades to buy at retail, at Amazon, and the Textbladelays would finally end. 

Dear Lord, please help Waytools_Support to take a Dale Carnegie course in how to win friends and influence people, to finish their work, and to get to general release, all without ever once referring to imaginary “Oppo PR” campaigns ever again unless they are talking about how well Textblades work with OPPO phones (and Huaweis, iPhones, Samsungs etc).

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. 

PS It genuinely would be really nice for everyone if you didn’t waste time responding to me, and genuinely really nice if you responded to Arkorott above. 

He deserves a response that actually genuinely answers his questions, as opposed to any other kind of answer, and he deserves an answer from you directly, and not anyone else attempting to answer and rationalise on your behalf. 

I’ll say “unjust do it” for comedic value, but please, just do it. 

Thank you. 

Masteroftheobvious said:

alexonline said:

WayTools_Support said:

Ericpeet - maybe have a look at the bullet points in our post, if you like answers more than questions.  Or perhaps your point is to frame knowns as unknowns.

Alexonline - people have already received properly working units.  Since you don’t have an order, and you say it’s vaporware, it’s curious you still spend time on it.

You people are incredible and ridiculous. I had an order for two years. You banned me because I posted in the RANTS section. You refused to re-instate me. Every few months I come back to see if you lot have launched yet, but all you get is smarmy, condescending, rude remarks from YOU - the Waytools support rep who is only less slightly wordy than DBK. 

Listen you sanctimonious people - ship your damn product. It has been FOUR YEARS. You lied to us in the start, you've continued to lie, and you suggest that sending out beta test units to people is "properly working units" as though you'd shipped to customers. That is another blatant lie from you, Waytools. 

When, or rather if, you ever ship, chances are very high that I'll place an order - as a technology journalist who has been using tech since 1979, I love all new technologies that look like they are going to change the world. It's why I ORDERED A TEXTBLADE from you! But after four years, and lots of overly wordy nonsense from you, it's no wonder that plenty of us reside in the Reddit forum, having been BANNED BY YOU, and come back every few months to "curiously spend time on it". 

If only YOU curiously spent some time on FINISHING YOUR DAMNED PRODUCT, you might have some happy customers (not BETA TESTERS) who would be happily using your product. 

Instead you have a few hundred beta testers. Clappity clap clap. 

Wake me when you ship. Until then, stop answering people like me and bloody well GET BACK TO WORK.

Another poster criticizing this company years after receiving a refund for a $99 product.  I ask again, why?  Time to move on with your life and let go of the bitterness, Alex.   

I'll "let go of the bitterness" when people like you rack off, and when Waytools SHIPS.