I’d like to chime in here and say I agree with a print driver so that we can use our machines with CorelDraw or Illustrator etc directly using a bridge of some sort. I don’t like the idea of being dependent on the internet either. Say you’re in the middle of a product run and your internet connection gets interrupted either by the provider, or your modem/router takes a dive. These things happen. Now I do have cloud-based subscriptions but the diffference with those are the that the software still sits on your computer ready to use whether the internet is working or not. The GF software doesn’t have that option… period. So in case of an internet blip, you’re screwed. When I bought this machine and they said the software would be cloud-based, I assumed that meant the software would still reside on my computer like cloud-based Photoshop and MS Office subscriptions do. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my machine, but the software… not so much.
Ummm…nothing untoward, it keeps running.
The GF loads the whole job in the machine’s buffer before starting the job.
Of course you won’t be able to send another one until your Internet connection is restored but it’s not going to leave you with a bed full of half-done work.
That was kind of my point 
I guess I should have said “production run” instead of product run. My fault for not being more clear
well, for contrast, I have a Zymatic, which is a beer making appliance (basically you load the grain, the hops and it turns it into wort, which you then chill and inoculate with yeast) and the machine runs completely from the internet: if you lose connection to wifi (and it doesn’t take ethernet) it will stop! and while technically it can restart once it reconnects, that very likely ruins -or at the very least alters- the whole batch.
I love the machine, use it often, but the necessary internet connection feels like a ball & chain…
I did know it was cloud based, but didn’t know how limited it was considering it took years to even get a login to look at the “software”. Not only is it extremely limited, but also extremely buggy. I’ve been in I.T. for over 10 years, and I know when you run “programs” off of a browser, today it will be working fine, tomorrow in the next update it will break.
I do not want this. It is extremely frustrating working for half an hour making changes and then the browser crashes, and now I have to start all over again, because nothing was saved, which is another issue.
The cloud has it’s uses, and to me that’s only for storage, for 100% functionality, I want the software living on my computer that doesn’t rely on the internet to work.
The problem is, you can do everything you want locally on a program, and then go to the cloud and get some kind of message that something isn’t supported yet, and you don’t know how long it’s going to take, until it takes it sweet time calculating and sometimes crashing before it even lets you print. Mind you, 28 Million dollars, that can buy you a lot of programmers to make a product better that continued to get delayed for years.
Even with Adam Savage as a consultant, I think this product could have been better developed before it was sent out to the customers, and NEVER, EVER rely on browsers who on a whim, can turn off a functionality or break something in the next update, and are never on the same page.
My point is, for $8,000 MSRP, I don’t want a device that is useless if I loose internet for whatever stupid reason that happens on the internet. ISP out, NOC out, DDoS attack, etc.
When is the last time you used your unit? Any and all changes made in the User Interface are now saved immediately.
The reason you’re getting a lot of flak here is that the argument you’re making against the cloud has little to do with the cloud. You could just as well do everything you want on a program, and then click print and get some kind of message that something isn’t supported yet, and you don’t know how long it’s going to take until it takes its sweet time calculating and sometimes crashing before it even lets you print. Many other lasers have exactly those issues. The one we had at work functioned as a Windows printer driver and it was a huge pain.
People have leveled legitimate complaints about having to use a cloud service: it doesn’t work if you’re offline, you have to trust them with a copy of your files, etc. But what you seem to be mad about fundamentally boils down to “I don’t like the software”, and it doesn’t logically follow from there that running it locally would change any of that. It’s like complaining that the soup is too salty so you want it served in a different bowl.
I don’t have the same concerns as @donjuan28. Having a web based solution means it is easier to support a wide range of platforms. It is also faster to push updates to everyone (change it on the cloud server and it changes for everyone).
And considering that it took them less than 3 years to get this far, I think the UI is in great shape. I certainly expect to see more improvements as time goes on, but I’m certainly not criticizing them for what they currently provide.
My concerns with the cloud-based solution are strictly related to privacy. I have some projects that I cannot do on the GF because I cannot export the data to a remote cloud. If I could run my own copy of the cloud locally, then there wouldn’t be any problems for those restrictive projects.
Complaining about The Cloud can be therapeutic, but that ship has sailed, gone over the horizon, been hit by a US Navy frigate, sunk, been raised and refitted, sailed again, sunk again, and finally made into an attraction for scuba divers.
Even if the company was willing to change course, which we’ve never seen a hint of… I would rather they continue development and make the online GFUI as good as it can be, with all the features promised, before making an offline version.
For most things you could have written this about I’d say it was beautiful prose but a wee bit of hyperbole. For this, I’ll leave out the hyperbole claim as it is pretty dead on.
The decision to be cloud/server based was made before the first campaign website went up.
Yep. If it’s really an issue, either the GF is not the tool to use or it’s @scott.wiederhold’s posts to pay attention to see when the alternative is announced for public consumption
I’m saving that analogy for later!
I love this!
