T-Mobile retroactively removes status updates related to software updates

Hey folks,

I’d like to level set on how things work and acknowledge the feedback being provided for improvement has been received.

Let’s start with software updates

What is the basic design principle for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs)?

When OEMs build a device they do so with a specific chipset and network configuration in mind. This simplifies the production model and delivers consistency in test results. When devices are picked up by carriers most carriers implement different variants. This is because the hardware in the devices and the networks they communicate with are almost always different than the OEM preferred/designed configuration.

How is software changed from the OEM design for a carrier?

Carriers test the software before launch knowing it was designed for a different chipset and network. Carriers do that to preserve customers experience. When a misconfiguration is identified the carriers have the opportunity to agregar code to the deployment package. It doesn't modify OEM base code or security updates. It adds to it. You can think of them like translator or optimizer services between the network, hardware, and software. The carrier will also take the time to evaluate it's own apps performance against the software to make sure proprietary applications function properly.

Why does this matter if T-Mobile doesn’t change the OS? 

This is done to ensure that the experience on the device and our network meet our expectations for customers. Carriers want the best network experience for their customers. Making sure every network interaction from devices is one ingredient that can be leveraged to improve those reliability tests that everyone touts.

Now about that web content

Occasionally your steps are wrong in your content. What gives?

Completely mapped out software is hundreds of screens with thousands of words, fields, buttons, sliders, etc. I know. My team has written it for a decade. It's a lot. Testing being performed for usability does not always catch changes made by the OEM. To complicate matters menus can be different from device to device within the same OEMs portfolio which makes tracking changes very complex. When devices go through multiple updates each year sometimes things get missed. We end up on social media. It's embarrassing. We fix it as quickly as possible. Sorry everyone. We mean well.

Why’d a specific piece of content go away?

Content has a lifecycle. It's created shortly ahead of it's need. It's deployed at launch. It serves its purpose. When it's no longer necessary it's retired. When content exceeds it's usefulness we intentionally retire it.

Why would you retire anything?

For a few reasons. Most people find things with search tools, but some still use navigation. The more content you have the more search results you have, or the longer it takes to navigate to specific content. If left unchecked search engines may start serving the wrong content because the search terms and relevance are so similar that it can't understand the difference or the wrong content overtakes the appropriate content as the preferred search result. Conversely, the navigation directory gets so large people can't find the one page they need in the sea of content. This adds complexity to your website which eventually causes findability issues.

But I still needed that…

Yep! We heard you. We're going to go find out why we didn't have what you needed through the end of it's life and find the solution. It looks like some content was retired early and other content was overwritten for some reason. Hopefully the fix will be simple.

Thank you for the feedback

We appreciate you taking the time to help us improve our processes and content. We don't do things maliciously.