PC Software for Consumer Electronics

A post in recognition of the efforts put in by the people who ship PC software for consumer electronics products (MP3 Players, Digital Cameras, Mobile Phones).

I picked up a new mobile sometime back. One of the features I really loved was that I could connect the phone to my PC, synchronize the calendar on my PC with that on my mobile, and vice versa. I could transfer whatever content I required between the phone and PC.

Well, the world we live in, is changing everyday. So do products, support software, and everything else. I completely understand this fact, and so accepted that the synchronizing software on the provided CD was not the latest version available with the vendor. The moment I completed my installation, I realized that there was a newer version available on the internet. Since the software kept popping up reminders, I decided to go for the upgrade.

The upgrade is done. I hook up the phone, and surprise surprise! It doesn’t get detected! I do this, I do that, I uninstall the upgrade, I uninstall everything that has to do with the phone, it doesn’t work! It just doesn’t work!

I give in, and take the help of Google, and ended up on a forum where people had faced similar problems. One of the guys suggested uninstalling something called “> Connectivity Cable Driver” or something like that, and re-installing the whole package. I tried, and it worked.

I realized that there was an update for the cable driver, which did not get installed with the application upgrade. Finally, got it working.

The second mishap was very recent. My prized possession, my Network Walkman, that I’d given excellent reviews scared the day lights out of me recently.

It all started out like this. I wanted to wipe my player clean of all tracks. I did that, and wonder of all wonders, the PC software would not respond! I searched the internet for the error message that I got, and I ended up here. Thanks to that person, who has documented every problem that can be encountered on a Sony MP3 Walkman (Sony, did you hear that?). I figured out that the version of the PC software I was using had those issues. I performed an upgrade of the PC Software, and things have been better since. Duh, is that why they ship the player with two or three songs?

Anyway, I wish such things would be documented, and presented to the user. I can understand that no software can be without bugs, but hey, how many people out there would be fine with buying a product that the manufacturer has mentioned has issues?

All said and done, let me go mess with them again.