I agree. They can’t win. It’s a classic Boston square product/market dilemma.
Daniel. Thanks for the candid insights. They are welcome.
I am a long time fan of you, your team, and Dorico. And I’ve been in business long enough (40+yrs) to know that any product development decision is a complex set of trade-offs.
But I have to say, you could have silenced the mithering over D4 ‘delays’, by simply announcing that its timing is ‘contingent on factors outwith our control’ (as you have effectively done here).
He did. See the “What’s Next” section at the bottom of this blog post: Dorico 3.5.10 update released, with improved figured bass, expression maps, and more – Dorico
Or this forum post from May; Feature request: multimeasure play - #13 by dspreadbury
3 Likes
Daniel, you and the team have nothing to apologize for.
We appreciate the insight for sure; it sounds like you’ve had an unusually Herculean set of demands this year…
Sometimes I think users forget that you’re running a business, not just catering to people who love music. That means you need to make money, and if you don’t, poof no more Dorico. Consequently, even if I weren’t an iPad user, I’d still support the iPad endeavor because if that helps shore up the whole endeavor and ensure more years of development, all the better.
Thank you for all the hard work you’ve been doing.
6 Likes
Leo, let’s not fall out over this. The blog post you reference concludes: " So we are going to take some time to address a handful of these things, and so it is likely that it will be more than nine weeks before our next release." Thus putting in the mind of the reader to expect something around nine weeks later…
The other forum post is similarly equivocal.
Daniel,
That’s very generous and good customer service to explain the complications involved with D4. And, interesting to those of us that are curious about the behind the scenes processes.
But I fear that trying to explain it to some of these people is like trying to explain science to a conspiracy theorist. Their minds cannot be swayed by reason.
Thanks, never the less.
2 Likes
Yeah, people love to preach from their ignorance.
AAAAAaannnnnyhow, I have a complaint about the iPad port too, which is now it’s having me considering spending more money on an updated iPad Pro so I can get full use out of it 
To be honest though while I haven’t yet decided if it really fits into my workflow or not, I’m sure impressed with the port. It’s the first creative/productivity app on the iPad I’ve seen that is basically equivalent to desktop, and as useful as the desktop.
I think when they get the ‘live edit’ feature working, over iCloud or something so we have vis-a-vis desktop editing, that will probably decide me in favor. I’d kill for Perforce integration though 
Thank you, Daniel. The Dorico team has produced an amazing product that is a joy to use every day. I look forward to future developments even as I appreciate using Dorico today.
3 Likes
Daniel’s post in this thread is a perfect example of why this is the best forum I’ve ever seen. Not just the best notation-app forum, not just the best music-in-general forum, but the best forum, period.
Daniel’s transparency and eagerness to help, both previously at Sibelius, and now here at Dorico, are incredible and outstanding.
–Len
16 Likes
Agreed!
Agreed!
by far, the best…
1 Like
It’s hard to understand why a genuine and much appreciated “thank you” gets high-jacked by people wanting Dorico to do more. There are three alternatives - hold your tongue and wait, complain and whinge, or write your own notation software. I don’t see many people here voting for option 3, which means they are not in the driving seat and should instead stop trying to be a back-seat driver. It must be very dispiriting for the team to get more whinges than praise when actually the praise should outnumber the whinges by a factor of ten…
So I second the original post - a massive “thank you and well done”, and to those people who want more, well, what else CAN you do apart from chill out a bit
8 Likes
I think or hope that the Dorico team know that their appreciative users vastly outnumber the complainers. To go from nowhere to one of the big three in the notation world in such a short time is a massive achievement.
4 Likes
//:For they are jolly good people :// 3x
And nobody can deny !
7 Likes
I wish to express my deep gratitude towards Daniel, Lillie, Anja and others for the competent and efficient support I’m now enjoying since more than 4 years (coming from Finale, which I used since 2003 or so - not a single regret of having made the switch, on the contrary).
And no, I’m not a user who gets served by the Dorico team on all his whims. But I do get helped when I report an error - or if I make a mistake -, and when I suggest new functionalities or enhancements I get, like all of our readers, a decent explanation whether or not it is possible to consider it in a next release.
I do appreciate the enormous complexity of the software development environment of the Dorico and other Steinberg teams (or rather: I probably underestimate it). And I respect that development priorities are not decided democratically, but on business considerations. Like Romanos401 said: if Dorico doesn’t make money, then poof there is no Dorico anymore.
So, a warm applause from my part for the complete Dorico team, both developers and support!
11 Likes
I have to agree with this.
In many ways, Dorico is unquestionably an extraordinary achievement, and the support has always been superlatively good. On the other hand, some of the basics haven’t been taken care of ideally well and the default output could rarely be mistaken for the work of a professional engraver. Some basic tasks are annoyingly onerous. Bugs are impressively few, but unless they’re caught soon after a release, they’re not sorted out for the user very quickly.
Perhaps things will improve with Dorico 4 (Daniel’s explained the delays) but there’s also a fear that the Dorico team’s priorities are no longer the same as mine.
1 Like
That’s true of any program, which is why being an engraver is a profession. 
But it’s a dang sight better than Finale’s or Sibelius ‘s default output.
4 Likes
OK, I’ll put it less mildly: the results of Dorico’s note spacing algorithms can be poor (sometimes to the point where legibility is compromised) and there should be options to prioritize more regular spacing of the beats within the bar. On a larger scale, the casting off isn’t very helpful and Dorico really should be able to fit a flow to a specified number of pages. Do you really think the Dorico team don’t aspire to do any better?
Being an engraver used to be a profession requiring quite extraordinary skills. Nowadays every Tom, Dick, and Ben can claim to be one.
A truly expert typesetter could do a better job of copy-fitting than InDesign (though the work involved would be enormous) but the software works very well with minimal intervention. I’m sure Dorico will eventually be able to do much better than it does now but given how fundamental these functions are, I’m not sure why the developers didn’t aim for more sophistication right from the start.
Incidentally, I don’t want to seem too nasty but in my original post I was tempted to note that the fanboys are one of the least appealing aspects of the Dorico ecosystem.
That’s interesting. Some features that I most like are functionality that fell outside my priorities. If the developers’ priorities had been the same as mine, then they’d have spent the majority of their time on playback, and I wouldn’t now have some or any of the non-playback features (condensing, flows, complex line editing, linking dynamics, et al.) that I’ve come to consider vital aspects of the software.
3 Likes
I can see how being able to add nuances to playback through all kinds of notation is valuable. It’s less easy to see how features designed to enhance the quality of playback will do anything for the printed page.
As it happens, I use both kinds of Dorico’s output. I also understand the business imperatives. I’m just getting a bit nervous that the quality of the notation might be neglected. It would be insanity in my opinion but who knows what kind of pressure might come from above.