Thanks for the quick reply, and letting us know what is to come in the next release. As a developer myself I am well aware that publishing a detailed roadmap creates pressure. However, your first post in this thread does state:
“I will reveal details about new functions as soon as I am far enough into the implementation to decide if they will work well enogh to be useful.
If you have ideas for new features let me know.”
So the only reason for my post was to see if you would be willing to let us know what we might expect in the near future. Clearly, you have your “own vision” that you follow and as you say, features are not “up for public discussion”. That’s absolutely fine, however I would respectfully suggest that your attitude should sit somewhere between “democracy” and “dictatorship”... maybe “diplomacy”?
What I meant with my first post:
Often I mention here what will come up in the next release. Just like I did in the previous post.
Sometimes I reveal details about upcoming functions when I am at a point where I understand if /how it will work. For example I started talking about details of VR only after I found a working approach. That took weeks and a handful of prototypes that were all just too slow for a good FPV experience.
Why a public discussion of a roadmap / wishlist doesn't work:
There is maybe 20 users on this forum that speak for themselves individually but I have to keep the needs of a thousand users in mind. I have to make the masses of average users happy, not just the power users here on the forum.
I have to keep a much broader view of TelloFpv than a user: In terms of feature scope, value proposition, UI, usability, code structure, complexity, reliability, maintainability, etc. And I have to keep the excellent average rating on google play. Low rating => low sales => little future development.
That doesn't happen by following an unstructured set of ideas. Ask ten users and you get twelve conflicting approaches. Look at the comments regarding notifications / warnings for an example (no offense: its just different people articulating different needs).
If I followed user wishes and added a half functional flight record / replay feature this function would realistically lead to a handful downloads at best.
But the cost is: maybe 40hours development time, lots of added complexity, a cluttered UI, a few dozen emails about unclear functionality or crashed tellos, and a clear negative impact on the important Play Store rating. Even if it makes a few "power users" very happy for 10 minutes this sounds like a bad deal to me.
Just to give you a real world example: I recently added a feature for doing correctly overlapping photos for a 360 panorama, but left out the stitching. Realistically I can't do that as good as a free dedicated stitching app like bimostitch. Guess what: I get a handful of emails and some 4 star review because its missing stitching. Without the 360 photos these users would have given 5 star reviews most likely.
Many users here have asked for facetracking, onscreen flight plans, follow me, ... But anything that works only in strictly controlled environments, has no real use, confuses users, clutters the UI, etc has a negative impact on rating.To get 5 stars it needs to be clearly structured, and working well and reliably in all kinds of conditions.
Bottom line: Yes, I do look at user ideas - even at those that pop up every week because you never know. But I decide which features make it. I sometimes explain my rationales and decisions but that is it. Its no democracy and no open source software - its a commercial product under benevolent dictatorship. So far I haven't heard many complains.
I remember only one user who convinced me to implement something I did not want to do. But that guy used the joker: making his kids smile with flips.
but it's waaay cooler than I thought! it feels like you are inside the tello and it makes you more confident and precise while going through windows and other obstacles. For all of you who already have a wired controller but don't have vr goggles, you are missing something! Get some cheap vr goggles you will see what i'm talking about. I bought the Blitzwolf vr3 goggles and tellofpv works great with it.
