#reasonableness — Public Fediverse posts

Atomos, Firmware, and Fraud

A reasonable person would conclude, after looking at this Sony FX3A page on the Atomos site and reading the word “Yes,” that the “Touch to Focus” function on the Shinobi II monitor works with the Sony FX3A camera. And a reasonable person might then rely on that “Yes,” that affirmation, that assurance by the manufacturer, to make a decision. A reasonable person might decide, say, to purchase a Shinobi II monitor in order to take advantage of its Touch to Focus feature. But a reasonable person would be wrong to do so.

And wrong in a very specific way: the reasonable person would not have taken into account that the word “Yes” here means “No,” or, more precisely, “No, actually, not at the moment, but take our word for it, we’ll eventually get around to it.” That is, the Touch to Focus feature is not usable now, not with the FX3A, but the people at Atomos tell me (in the passive voice, almost as if Atomos has no say in the matter) that “the Shinobi II is expected to receive…support” for Touch to Focus “soon.”

The problem is firmware. In an email, Atomos tells me:

The Ninja RAW, Ninja TX Go, and Ninja TX running firmware version 12.5.1 have received support for camera control and touch focus tracking for several new cameras, including the Sony FX3A. This support is not implemented on Shinobi II yet.

Shinobi II is expected to receive this support in upcoming firmware soon.

What “soon” means is anyone’s guess. In mid-October of 2025, Atomos told another (presumably reasonable) person that “Touch to focus support” for the FX3A “has already been added to the feature request list for future consideration,” but at the time Atomos could offer “no official confirmation or timeline.” Nearly six months later, support still has not materialized, and Atomos is still “unable to confirm an exact date,” they tell me in another email. But “rest assured,” the “Atomos Team” adds, “the update is scheduled for release in firmware version 11.07.” The clear, positive assurance of “Yes” on which I (and other reasonable people) relied has been converted to another kind of assurance: a promise of good things to come, deferred to an upcoming release.

Maybe there are people who buy camera equipment or other tech with the expectation that they won’t be able to use it now, or won’t be able to take advantage of all its features now, but might be able to do so at some point in the future. I’m not among them. Maybe that has to do with my age, my pecuniary habits, or with how I think reasonable people should act.

In any case, it looks as if we still have a little way to go before firmware version 11.07. How long is unclear and Atomos is evasive or doesn’t want to be pinned down. The Shinobi II currently runs firmware 11.06.02, which was released on 27 January 2026. The release just before that, according to the company site, came out on 16 June 2025. So version 11.07 could come out next month or it could come out six months from now — or longer. There could be 11.06.03, .04, .05, and so on before that. So far as I can tell, there is no regularity to the releases, not even any consistency in the numbering of firmware releases published on the site (the list of releases jumps, for instance, from 11.05 to 11.06.02) — nothing, once again, to rely on.

We’ve grown accustomed to tech companies rolling out features and support over time. Cory Doctorow has written and spoken about how this process can be abusive, entrapping people and contributing to what he calls enshittification; but iterative rollouts, proprietary lock-ins, right to repair, and other issues that Doctorow focuses on are not really the issues crying out for remedy here. The more immediate issue is the blatantly misleading information on the Atomos website. Touch to Focus? “Yes.” That’s good old-fashioned fraud. It doesn’t matter, from the customer’s perspective, if the company plans one day to include that feature in a software update; a reasonable person will assume that Yes means Yes.

The law sees it that way, too, doesn’t it? Deceptive or misleading product descriptions like this one are among the Deceptive Acts or Practices covered by Federal Trade Commission Act Section 5. California state law and New York business law also have provisions covering deceptive practices and misleading statements, whether by commission or omission. (Other states do as well.) I don’t know if these laws have ever been tested against firmware releases (I should look), and I can’t say how plaintiffs would fare. Tech companies might want to take refuge in fine-print, heavily lawyered disclaimers, as Atomos does on its site, or argue that the product they are selling is both hardware and software, and that software is an iterative product, so product descriptions are really just promises companies make or break along the way. But that argument would make a mockery of the law, reinforce Doctorow’s point, and just further erode trust in tech companies.

The question is what to do about all this. Like other Atomos customers, I am a member of a misled or, as I might prefer to put it, defrauded class. That’s a fact to consider, but it doesn’t solve my immediate problem. In the near term, I need to decide whether to return this monitor or hang on to it, wait for 11.07,** and hope that this time Atomos means what it says. I’m open to suggestions.*

*PS 28 March 26: After trying some different camera setups this morning, I am leaning toward returning the Shinobi II, using my old but serviceable Feelworld F6 5.7″ monitor, and just doing without the touch focus feature on the monitor. It would be nice to have but it’s hardly essential.

**PPS 6 April 26: Atomos just released firmware update 11.07, which supports tap to focus for the Sony FX3A. With B&H closed for Passover until Friday the 10th, I haven’t yet been able to return the monitor, so I am going to update the firmware, see if and how the Touch to Focus works, and then make a decision.

PPS 11 April 26: Yesterday B&H Photo opened after its holiday recess, so I returned the monitor. The firmware update got the Touch to Focus feature working, with the camera set to flexible spot, but after playing with it a bit I decided it was not for me. It will probably work just fine for others. Anyway, the broader point about firmware, and how tech has trained us to buy and live with products that are captive to unpredictable and irregular updates of proprietary platforms, stands.

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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

REASONABLE, adj. Accessible to the infection of our own opinions. Hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Reasonable,” The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/bierce-ambrose/77857…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #ambrosebierce #devilsdictionary #openmind #persuasion #reasonableness

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