When I first got my Samsung Galaxy S4 last year I was a bit disappointed. While it had a nice big screen, it didn’t feel any faster than the Galaxy S2 it replaced. Then last fall Samsung released the Android 4.3 update and the device finally felt as snappy as my good old S2. Recently the Android 4.4 update was released and again the device feels faster and more polished.

What I find interesting is that I absolutely expected the S4 to get better over time and I was disappointed at how long it took for that to happen. This seems, for me at least, to be the new level of expectation for software based products. My PC gets better every time I update Fedora (same goes for Windows users). Even my thermostat has auto-updated with new functionality. Manufacturers that don’t build this into their product life-cycle plans will disappoint their customers and lose them over time.