1.8.7 doesn't seem to change much for me - all I can see for now is they fixed the "gallery" that would always display a black image as last photo since the previous update.
I've read most of the thread today after coming across Mike's teardown videos this morning and learned a lot. Never witnessed the gradient issue myself as I got my cam 2-3 weeks ago.
I must say I'm 100% happy with my Seek and had to laugh at some of the comments. It's my entry point in thermal imaging, and I would not have gotten a thermal camera if it wasn't priced like the Seek is. So in my opinion the low price pretty much excuses any and all small defects and noise it could have. Even if it's not awesomely clean, detailed and precise it is a thing I could buy "just to try it out", and can even serve as a tool I can use "for real" should I need it. I.e. I'm the exact target customer and 100% satisfied with it, so to me Seek is right on the ball with their product regardless of the shortcomings the pros will find. Actually screw that, I'm 110% happy as thanks to the work of some on here I can even run it with my PC, which wasn't expected at all.
Regarding competition the "first" FLIR One is dead in the water because who would want to buy the only, now obsolete phone that is required to run it - I can't understand how they've gone with the sleeve design, so many companies have been bitten by that in the past and everybody now knows Apple device designs change 2 years.
The FLIR One 2015 will no doubt be better, but we don't know at what price, and more importantly it's still many months away. In the meantime there simply is no competition, and by the end of the year any improvement the FLIR would have can be passed as simple "evolution" from the Seek that will be a year old by then.