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I don't think a pre-beta product needs any defense further than the fact that it is pre-beta. Besides most of the 'reviews' were positive about the OS and critical about the hardware which is merely the conduit for the OS at this point.

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Back in the dark ages, we used to break pre-production into three stages: alpha (distribution inside the organization for comment, subject to possible radical change after feedback), beta (distribution to key customers for feedback), and gamma (more wide-spread release after feature-freeze).

I don't know how you can call something "pre-beta" if you're giving it a release outside the organization. It's not as if Google didn't know people would be commenting on it. What does that term mean?

It's just a way of saying that the beta is released earlier than it normally might be, on account of caring more about getting user feedback early and less about that feedback being taken as negative reviews.

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