While the concept of a "Beta Beat" makes all the sense in the world, it really does behoove you to choose your featured beta software wisely. It's also part of your responsibility to call out the software developer when they REALLY mean "alpha." And if it's alpha software (which I think you and I can both agree, since it can cause "fatal rebooting errors"), then there's really no point in featuring it, especially on such a widely-read blog such as this.

Word.

Cry me a river.

It's definitely not Alpha, most people are having no issues at all. And there is nothing "fatal" about the issues; it simply requires that you restore your phone.

And come on, if you've jailbroken your phone you're well aware of the risk of needing to restore your phone because of some rogue hack you installed.

Cry you a river? Dude, learn what standards and integrity are. If you're a developer (or a journalist), you've got a responsibility to keep the buggy crap close to the vest until you've got it a bit more reliable for a wide audience.

Further, I know perfectly well what "works fine for most people" means. Every forum on MMi is full of the blind-leading-the-blind, everyone's got a pain in the ass or two that no one has an answer to, and it's basically general chaos.

I understand you're a-ok with doing a restore whenever crap goes wrong, but please put yourself in other people's shoes and realize that there are more points of view than just yours. I like dicking around with my phone, but I prefer not to be misled down a path to unreliability, and I don't have the copious amounts of free time required to restore my iPhone periodically.

If we post with a cautionary link, we are trusting readers to make an informed (read: cautious) decision.

If we posted the screenshot but didn't link to it out of stability concerns, the other half of the room would be annoyed that there was no link. If we didn't post at all, there would be tip emails piling up about this cool new app beta.

I agree with the commenter that pointed out the obvious: if you've already jailbroken your phone, you've assumed the responsibility for whatever may happen to it. Erica says the app is not production quality yet, so use your judgement.

And your view Michael is the one that means I will never (or at least always find it hard) to consider TUAW a professional weblog.

You are either ignorant of your influence - intended or otherwise - on a large and less tech-knowledgeable element of your readership or are too lazy to keep that influence in check. Power, responsibility, yada yada.

Do you really, honestly think that most jail-broken iPhones are used by people who did it themselves? And regardless of whether this is a 'safe' state of affairs do you really honestly think that it is decent of you to wash your hands of it?

TUAW's staff seem not to comprehend that they aren't niche anymore. It is very unprofessional and it smacks of elitism and a lack of empathy.

Eh, what do I care, you're not going to listen to me anyway. You lot are geeks first and journos second.

@paj
You're kidding yourself if you think anything involving a jailbroken iPhone is the path of reliability. There is no other point of view than that. Hacking your phone opens the door to unreliability. Period. If you don't like it, then don't hack your phone, and certainly don't use a hack that is known as "beta" - that's just plain irresponsible.

@Tom
Don't get your knickers in such a twist - if you haven't picked up by now that TUAW likes to have a little bit of fun and is at times *not* serious then you haven't been reading it for very long or your eyes have been closed. In reality, TUAW went above and beyond by taking extra care to note the possibly serious side-effects. ANYTHING in beta should be taken with a grain of salt and if you can't comprehend that I really recommend not hacking your iPhone - or anything else for that matter.

Wow you're a loser, you don't have to like her or her posts but that doesn't mean you have to tell everyone. Keep it to yourself. Actually maybe you should go die since you'll probably be a jerk to someone else and ruin their day if you live.

Anyways, I tried this app but it makes too much clutter right now. Maybe if they were tabs on the side of the screen that you touched and they moved to the center it would be better.

Even if you aren't a fan of Erica, you should be able to at least muster some kind of actual criticism against her besides "she is so lame" and "She sucks".

I agree. This is an app I would have not known about otherwise and she clearly explains to proceed with caution. I think it is a great proof-of-concept and I look forward to seeing what the developers will do with it.

hear, hear! It's really easy to skip the posts you don't care for, and as the man said on that classic album many years ago, "good manners don't cost nothing."

Fuck off Sadun bashers. She is one of the only reasons I read this site. Don't read her posts, let alone comment if you're not into her posts. I get so sick of people bitching about the content posted here and I finally had to say something.

Fourth that - I like most of Erica's posts, and the one's I don't like, I'm merely indifferent about.

Unfortunately, I think there's a few misogynists kicking around embarrassing themselves with childish comments. Just because there's a commenting facility doesn't give you carte blanche to flame - a little grace would go a long way.

this is basically the same idea as widgets for a mac. theres no reason why apple wouldnt add this to iphone at some point.