A standard statement millions of people have made over the decades concerning new-to-market consumer electronics is this:

I’ll wait 6 months before I buy it.

If you ever wondered why 6 months is the magic number, there’s really nothing magic about it. In the business world, that’s two fiscal quarters. Generally speaking, any consumer electronic product that survives 2 quarters is safe to buy at that point. Conversely, if the product fails completely, it will be pulled from the market before those 2 quarters are up or have some major revision/fix/whatever done to it to make the whatever-it-is more saleable.

Given the lightning-fast speed tech is released today, does the 6-month wait still apply for new-to-market tech?

Yes and no.

On the hardware side, yes, 6 months is still the appropriate wait time. Anything that would go drastically wrong with the whatever-it-is will occur within those 2 quarters. If for example a smartphone was released and there was a nasty problem with exploding batteries, only the fools who were early adopters will end up with an extra hole in their head and not you. The company who made the phone would quickly change battery suppliers well before the end of the 2nd quarter, and by the time you buy it, everything will be a-okay.

On the software side, the 6-month wait is not necessary due to the fact patches and fixes can be deployed much quicker since there is no physical product. Because of this, you can chop the wait time all the way down to 30 days.

When software is released with much fanfare, you’ll see tech blogs, journalists, Twitter and Facebook ignite with conversation almost instantly about the product. If something in the software doesn’t work, you’ll most likely know about it in 2 days or less. In the way software is released these days, revisions can be deployed in as little as 48 hours if the bug found is nasty enough to warrant a hotfix.

Also bear in mind software patches do not require you to go to a store to get them. All software patches and fixes are deployed by means of internet these days, so as soon as they’re available, you can get them conveniently at home.

After 30 days, any first-release bugs should be patched by that time. Granted, there will probably be some more bugs along the way, but as for the core function of the software, anything majorly wrong on release will have been attended to by that point.

Can’t wait 6 months for that hardware?

It’s inevitable that the new-to-market Product Y does something Product X doesn’t do that requires you to buy it right now. If that’s the situation you’re faced with, all you have to do is ask the age-old question:

Do I want or need this?

If you want it, don’t buy it. If you need it, buy it. Yes, you’ll pay maximum dollars because of Product Y’s newness, but if it does something you need, that’s worth the extra cost.

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