Who picked the institutions that handled the money?
Craig. He even told the bank there's a lot of money coming, they said it would be okay.
It was the same bank where he did gather all the preorder money for the gp2x F100 FE years ago - and that worked out.
There was NO way we could have guessed it would work like that.
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Or made the errors in the boards and cases that require minor fixes?
Nobody DID do errors in the boards or in the cases on purpose. We hoped that everything will work out fine and then we gave estimations (and usually said it's an estimation if nothing goes wrong).
The problem is, one thing can cause a lot of delays. The banking thing actually did cause a delay of about 2 months alltogether. The worldwide crisis also did cause a delay since we can't just buy all the parts needed (not even for devboards) but we need to wait until they are manufactured (a lot of companies actually stocked them up before the crisis but don't do that anymore).
The nubs also caused a delay of about 1 month, and we didn't even think about that that company would just close down...
It just adds up. And of course we had delays since we were very optimistic because of inexperience.
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This is what irks me - please take some responsibility, man. I think that most of the True Believers here would be fine if the you said something like "Well, we picked the nub company based on their performance, not on their financial health. We screwed up." Mistakes happen, but be an adult and own up to them. Then let people decide if too many mistakes have piled up, and whether or not to keep on supporting the project.
I think you're getting me wrong - I never said we're not responsible for anything.
I just said THE REASONS why some stuff happened.
Maybe there's some slight misunderstanding... my English might be pretty good, but I'm no native speaker (I'm from Germany).
Maybe I can try to explain what I mean.
i.e. if you lose your job, you can't be blamed for picking the wrong company.
If you KNEW that the company would fire you, you probably wouldn't have taken the job. So basically, you are responsible (it's your life and decision), but you can't be blamed for that.
I'm pretty sure everyone of you bought some stuff at the internet. Of course, if you find an online shop, you try to find out how long he exists, if he is reliable, etc. But what happens, if you send him your money - and he DOES go bust afterwards.
Is that your fault? Not in my opinion, it's bad luck. You did the best you can do. Still you're responsible for the money you lost.
The same happened to us. The bank told us everything is fine - and after the money arrived, they froze the account. Basically, we've been lied to - but it wasn't even the fault of the person we did talk to (from the local branch of the bank), it was a higher instance that froze the account.
The nub company has been around for some years actually and the price was fine, that's why we took it. A company won't tell you it will go bust soon. In some countries (like in UK), you can find out about the financial status of the company... but it wasn't possible in this case.
Was that our fault? I would say: No. But we're responsible it happened.
I hope you do understand what I mean. A LOT of stuff has happened which we didn't expect. Some things were normal but we simply didn't know about that because we're inexperienced and never did such a project (like how long a case takes to tweak, etc.). Of course, that's where we are responsible. We could have checked that earlier, but we didn't... it's just something we never thought it could take that long and therefore we didn't ask.
Then there's stuff that happened that we didn't expect and couldn't do anything against. Like the bankruptcy of the nubs company.
It's like lightning struck in your car. You'd never expect it, but it could happen.
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The reason why people are upset isn't (just) the countless delays. Simply put, one spokesperson for the project gives a date, and that is shown to be utterly false the next week. Moreover, it beggars belief that Craig didn't know about the current issues still on the table when he excited everyone with news of a July release. And that's exactly what he did, unless you expect us to parse his exact words like American politicians.
Well, I'm not craig so I can't tell exactly what he knew or thought when he said July. I tend to be very careful and rarely post any dates where craig is very impulsive and posts something as soon as he thinks it's done.
Let me tell you how some stuff work: We change the case (which takes some time since DaveC doesn't have that much time to work on it).
Then we send it to the company and wait for a few days. If everything is fine, they start. If not, they do tell us.
When craig did say July, I guess it was between such a period. We sent the new case data and thought they can start, everything is set. Then there was some errors which should be fixed. If that didn't happen, the cases mould would've been started which would mean 30 days until they're ready - and that would've been July.
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I'd be even more concerned if Craig
wasn't knowingly misleading people. If this demonstrates the level of communications between project primaries, then we can expect many, many hardware and software issues.
Please don't forget there are a lot of times, timezones and other stuff involved.
As said, it takes a few days until we get a response from the company.
Then most of the people in the project have a normal job, too. On some days, I can't be online at all. On some days, only a few hours.
The same goes for Michael, Craig, Fatih, etc.
Then there are different timezones: China, where the company is, is in a very different timezone than where Fatih, me or Craig is (Turkey, Germany and UK) or where MichaelW is (Canada).
This does make communication pretty complicated - and since the company does talk to Fatih / Michael and he has to forward it to us, it can take a while until everybody else knows about it.
There's some stuff I can tell you though:
If I do post something on the blog, it's RELIABLE. There's no lie.
The HARDWARE is working. The last boards (which is being tested extensively by Michael since weeks) haven't shown ANY hardware faults or mistakes yet.
And while we are still sending case data to the company forth and back, with every model we send the errors become fewer.
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No one likes being lied to. This July foolishness is making me reconsider, probably a lot of other folks, too.
I don't think anybody lied to you on purpose.
Craig is very impulsive - I guess he thought the case was finally fine and then told July (without thinking about the consequences too much).
There's A LOT on our minds, so sadly, such things can happen. It's best to rely on the blog, that's where we all THINK about before posting.
I agree such things SHOULDN'T happen - but what shall we do?
Actually, we did start the project with no money except yours. So what will happen if something goes wrong?
I, for myself, can tell you: I've got roughly 3000 EUR on my private accounts. But I got a car, a life insurance, etc. and another company together with a colleague I've established during the last 10 years.
If the project goes bust - and I have to pay back all the preorders - the law here in Germany starts to take everything away they can from me so I can pay back the money. Which means I lose my car, my other company (which is all I have to earn the money I need for living), my insurances... basically EVERYTHING I ever bought (okay, it would also mean the end of my shop, of all the download archives, etc.).
This is something that does weigh HEAVY on my mind since half a year. Each time we faced a problem (nubs company, etc.) I could barely sleep anymore, but still had to work about 16 - 18 hours a day. For the Pandora and for making a living.
I can imagine it's the same or even worse for craig. It's REALLY hard - so please bear with us and keep that in mind. The more pressure you got, the more easily you do post some stupid stuff that should've never been posted.
I hope you do believe me that we're working as good as we can to bring the Pandora as soon to you as we can. Without any flaws.
Thanks for everything.
