In message , at 21:21:03 on Wed, 17 Sep
2014, Mizter T remarked:

The vapour was the 2+ years that it was "coming soon".

2+ years? Well, if you want to be precise about your vapourware
allegation then at least get it right - contactless on buses was
initially announced for being in time for the Olympics (so July) but
actually arrived in December '12, then contactless on the rest of the
system was initially stated to be coming in "early 2013" ('early' in a
year doesn't have a defined meaning).

So let's say April 2013 - actually arrived September 2014. Difference
of a year and a half.

Are you saying that when they announced it for the buses for the
Olympics they didn't also say "and soon after that the tubes". Really?

Obviously, once such a product has beaten the odds and actually
appeared, it comes off the vapourware list.

"Beaten the odds" - what odds?

The odds that the product would every appear. To give TfL their due,
they aren't that bad about announcing things which *never* come to pass,
although I'm sure if we dug around a bit on the fringes we might find
something (maybe a fare structure for the dangleway that got scrapped
before it launched because the eventual sponsorship agreement made it
untenable, but I didn't actually follow everything that was said).

It wasn't heavily advertised to the public at large for years either.
Yes, there were vague, broad time scales on the relevant project page
of the TfL website that slipped, but (apart from people who take joy
in pointing out how rubbish everything is) people weren't waiting on
baited breath for it to appear.

TfL met their announced, specific , solid 'go-live' date of 16 September.

Except Boris promised a date last year, and others promised dates before
that.

Cite? I'm after a specific announcement of a date.

Probably the "early 2013" you mention above. Something doesn't need a
calendar date to enter the world of vapourware.

I can't be bothered to trawl back old announcements for Oyster (although
in the past I've posted chapter and verse for false-starts by ITSO on
Prestige).

But just for fun, from 13th May 2014:

"Kit Malthouse, the Deputy Mayor of London, announced today that
London’s entire transport network would accept contactless
payment cards by mid-July.

"Speaking at the 4th Smart City Event in Amsterdam, Malthouse
said that the new payment methods would be available across
London’s transport network "within two months’ time" after
extensive trials on the city’s bus network took place last
year."

But what's the doubling of a timescale between friends

Delayed (but working), not vapour.

The delay is what made it vapour.

Seems you expend a lot of vapour worrying about these things! I can't
remember hearing anyone else get quite so agitated/excited by it.

As someone from a product development background, where one of the
things you should always worried about is not just someone else beating
you to market, but also someone else convincing the public to wait for
their [fictional] product rather than buy yours, I've always had a keen
eye for it.

Latterly I've become interested in decoding (largely to be able to
predict when promises from government and the public sector will come to
fruition) phrases like "Late Summer".

This year it happens that the Parliamentary Summer Recess ended on 31st
August, so exceptionally their "late summer" (which means by the last
day of the recess) is the exactly same as the Met Office's, although
astronomers will say you'll have to wait another few days yet.
--
Roland Perry