Bibble Labs anounces Bibble 5 Pro

[DPNow]

Here is a summary or excerpt from an article that has just been published on DPNow:

Bibble Labs, Inc today announces the immediate availability of the all-new Bibble 5 Pro Photographic Workflow application for Windows, Mac and Linux, bringing to market a new level of power, speed and control to digital photography.

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[John H. Maw]

Re: Bibble Labs anounces Bibble 5 Pro

Version 5.0.1 came out the other day. As of the announcement above they no longer refer to this as a beta. However, many cameras that they intend to support (including many that were supported in Bibble 4) are not yet covered. There are also features (quite a lot) that they intend to implement, but that are not yet working (again, many of them were previously in Bibble 4).

My understanding is that when software goes from beta to final it is complete. It may require bug fixes in response to information from a larger group of users, but that the features, controls and functions that were envisaged will all be up and running. This is clearly not the case with Bibble 5. I asked about a couple of omissions including the support for one of my cameras and was told that these will be in later on. These were all things that worked with Bibble 4.

Why would they release what is really a beta and call it a final? Well, in 2008 they promised that version 5 would be out by New Year 2009. When they couldn't honour that promise they released beta after beta during 2009. Possibly the idea of starting 2010 still with only betas seemed too embarrassing, but I think it is even more embarrassing to release a half-baked bit of software as a final. I hope that one day Bibble will again be class leading software, as it has been in the past. Seems we might have to hold our breath for some time though.