Batch 2 Release Date


It's not a tin-foil hat conspiracy to suggest that OpenPandora are handling things poorly. They are.
So... umm... you can handle things better?
You KNEW the money would freeze?
You KNEW how long the moulding would take?
You KNEW that our nubs company would file bankruptcy?
You KNEW that we had to make some minor fixed in boards and cases before we could test them?
Wow, you seem to know an awful lot of things.
Maybe you could tell me what problem we'll have next. 'cause I DON'T know :)


Who picked the institutions that handled the money? Or the company that made the nubs? Or made the errors in the boards and cases that require minor fixes?

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.

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.

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.

No one likes being lied to. This July foolishness is making me reconsider, probably a lot of other folks, too.
 
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It is not a tin-foil hat conspiracy to quote Craig's own posts to refute people who say "Craig never said X!"
It is not a tin-foil hat conspiracy to suggest that OpenPandora has mislead us.

It's not a tin-foil hat conspiracy to suggest that OpenPandora are handling things poorly. They are.

Not necessarily, but that's the direction the posts seemed to be headed. It starts off with a bunch of obvious truths, then opinions about what those truths mean, then descends into how those opinions affect us as if they were truths themselves. Jerry was up to the second stage, I was simply trying to steer things away from full blown conspiracy theory.
You'll note that it worked. We were then free to continue the discussion in which much was learned, and everyone prospered.
Right up until you made this post (and EDs subsequent response to it) and opened an entirely different can of space worms.
 
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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.

No one likes being lied to. This July foolishness is making me reconsider, probably a lot of other folks, too.
I actually doubt it. I think a lot of us (not all, to be true) too Craig's "July" with a pinch of salt the size of New York. I'm actually slightly surprised, in retrospect, how much credence I appear to have given it internally/emotionally, as I was far from convinced intellectually... yet I WAS upset when the July delivery issue became obviously unrealistic.

I think most people still get bouyed when he posts his, umm, optimistic evaluations but when we come down from the "high" we realise that Pandora is still about 2 months away. As usual.

In this PARTICULAR instance it would appear that, just possibly, WE the customers are sortof the cause for the delay. Something I would just like to repeat. OpenPandora looked at our forum activity and our response tot he idea of getting Pandora "now, but slightly broken" or "with a small delay but with the minor issues fixed". And they decided that we really ARE in this for a quality product and would, on the whole, rather wait a few more days. As those days turn into weeks and months we'll have more right IMHO to be outraged, but for the moment I'm "happy" with a small delay to get the case design RIGHT. Those of us in the first batch only have one shot at this - if the hinge is naff on the first batch then it will affect ALL first batchers. After all this time spent - can't OpenPandora have a LITTLE extra time to deliver what we actually want? A GREAT machine?
 
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In this PARTICULAR instance it would appear that, just possibly, WE the customers are sortof the cause for the delay. Something I would just like to repeat. OpenPandora looked at our forum activity and our response tot he idea of getting Pandora "now, but slightly broken" or "with a small delay but with the minor issues fixed". And they decided that we really ARE in this for a quality product and would, on the whole, rather wait a few more days. As those days turn into weeks and months we'll have more right IMHO to be outraged, but for the moment I'm "happy" with a small delay to get the case design RIGHT. Those of us in the first batch only have one shot at this - if the hinge is naff on the first batch then it will affect ALL first batchers. After all this time spent - can't OpenPandora have a LITTLE extra time to deliver what we actually want? A GREAT machine?
I don't think that approximately 200 active forum members here represent the opinion of all first batchers.
 
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I don't think that approximately 200 active forum members here represent the opinion of all first batchers.
The thing about people who don't voice their opinion is that you cannot take it into account. You either extrapolate from the opinions you do have, and scale the math up, or you completely ignore them (and there is not a lot of differences in those two approaches). You can't randomly decide that "but oh, if those other people were interested enough to say something then their opinion would be...". Or, at least, I don't see that you could do so and claim to be in any way accurate.

I suspect that a statistician would be happy with a sample of 200-300 to represent 3000/3500. There are whole industries (including the television industry) whose finances depend on statistics which are almost certainly based on smaller samples, as a percentage. 200-300 out of 3000-3500 sounds statistically significant to me, personally :)
 
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I suspect that a statistician would be happy with a sample of 200-300 to represent 3000/3500. There are whole industries (including the television industry) whose finances depend on statistics which are almost certainly based on smaller samples, as a percentage. 200-300 out of 3000-3500 sounds statistically significant to me, personally :)
The samples they take are usually entirely random, and can be used as a reasonable gauge. This forum is almost by necessity biased.
 
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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.
 
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That's a lot of stuff on the line. I'm sticking it out with you guys. Thank you for being very upfront ED.
 
Thanks for everything.
Thanks too for your hard work on this project.

It's a matter of trust. I trust Tinnus, Squidge because they proved themselves reliable in the past (palm community).
They trust you and craigx, tuss I trust you and Craigx.
My money for the pre-order are engage and will be.

But for those that don't have allready worked with this community, its members or bought something on gbax, then they wont fell safe. And you've to anderstand them. (from my point of view, allowing to cancel a preorder without taking money off the refund is fair enough, but reading posts these days show that I may be wrong...)

Keep up with your good work and remember this will pay off : lots of my co-workers just wait my P arrive to order from second batch. It will be like pieces of cake :)
 
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craigix posted on Aug 31 2007 at 04:43 PM said:
I'd like to just confirm we are the people funding and making this.
craigix posted on Mar 12 2008 at 09:59 AM said:
The dev costs are covered, just buy one when they are ready smile.gif
Actually, we did start the project with no money except yours.
I won't comment on that so that not to sound stupid.

But for those that don't have allready worked with this community, its members or bought something on gbax, then they wont fell safe. And you've to anderstand them.
+1
 
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honestly, i don't see the reason for this mess. what advantage do ed and the crew have for delaying it? why would they want to delay it? and for all the complainers, i'm sure ed, craig, and others are just as smart as you if not smarter. in the beginning we all knew this was a risk, but everyone who preordered decided to trust the pandora team, so i don't see why we aren't doing it now. it doesn't help to complain on the boards like three year olds while the team is working as hard as they can on the project. i suggest you take a vacation from these boards for at least a week.
 
craigix posted on Aug 31 2007 at 04:43 PM said:
I'd like to just confirm we are the people funding and making this.
craigix posted on Mar 12 2008 at 09:59 AM said:
The dev costs are covered, just buy one when they are ready smile.gif
Actually, we did start the project with no money except yours.
I won't comment on that so that not to sound stupid.
Well, that's not TOO wrong (I know it keeps getting stupid and sounds like I'm trying to escape from responsibility, but oh well).
The post from 2007 did mean the development. And this was true, we had a working case and a board and did fund it until that. The only thing that we DIDN'T fund is the actual production (buying parts for 4000 Pandoras is much more expensive than those few devboards. But up until we started preordering, development did also already cost us more than 50.000 EUR, that is what we funded).

And the second post (March 2008) is basically also true. The parts were ordered and paid already and there were some Pandoras left. So everything was already paid at that time (we didn't know back then we needed to snuck up another 30.000US$ for the nubs, but those also have been paid already).
And yes, it was paid with the money from the first preorders, but it had been paid. Craig was not lying in this case.

You could say I was lying above. I did a small mistake. Above I meant we did start the "production" with no money except yours.
There was A LOT of development money involved before - which should be clear as we could show already working stuff before preordering (there are videos of me showing a working devboard in august 2007 :))
 
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First, I am very appreciative of all the hard work that has gone into making this system, and everything the developers have put into making it happen.

Second, Craig never actually said that the Pandora would be released by July. He said he thought it would be released by July. If anyone here was unable to pick up on that, it's his or her problem, not Craig's.
 
I'd like to just confirm we are the people funding and making this.
craigix posted on Mar 12 2008 at 09:59 AM said:
The dev costs are covered, just buy one when they are ready smile.gif
Actually, we did start the project with no money except yours.
This is starting to confuse me as well. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had to have gone into development prior to preorders. You don't have a custom nub built for free (even if you do have to pay for it twice in the end). How many demo boards were made? Chips and everything needed to be ordered. There's no doubt in my mind that they needed the preorder money to fund the mass production, but I'm having trouble reconciling EDs assertion about their source of funds. There was also a mention about other investors (with TI being the reasonable conclusion though I don't recall ever being explicitly told"].
Was Craigix talking about the money used in development and ED talking about money for construction? That's the only way I can reconcile the differences.[/quote]edit: and in the time it took to write my question, ED had already answered it. See, he really is just that dang good! :D
 
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honestly, i don't see the reason for this mess. what advantage do ed and the crew have for delaying it? why would they want to delay it? and for all the complainers, i'm sure ed, craig, and others are just as smart as you if not smarter. in the beginning we all knew this was a risk, but everyone who preordered decided to trust the pandora team, so i don't see why we aren't doing it now. it doesn't help to complain on the boards like three year olds while the team is working as hard as they can on the project. i suggest you take a vacation from these boards for at least a week.
Shit I pre-ordered because:
craigix posted on Aug 31 2007 at 04:43 PM said:
I'd like to just confirm we are the people funding and making this.
craigix posted on Mar 12 2008 at 09:59 AM said:
The dev costs are covered, just buy one when they are ready smile.gif
but it turned out to be just another "Pandora has 1 Gb of RAM"tm trick. I thought that Pandora had solid financial base so that if some wish to cancel some other folks would "just buy one when they are ready"tm. Don't you think the info I had at the beginning about risks was wrong and thus my descision to take the risk was... i don't know what.. :(

EDIT: just saw ED's post...
 
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And yes, it was paid with the money from the first preorders, but it had been paid. Craig was not lying in this case.

Wait, There were pre-orders before March '08?


Probably what has people confused, (at least it surprised me) is the difference between "development" and "production". I should have known better since I knew there was no finished proto-type, but when I pre-ordered I had assumed that things like case design, board design, d-pad design, etc were finished as they were "development" and all that remained was to send the fully developed CAD files to the suppliers.
I know enough about this sort of work that if I realized that you still needed to iterate, (And I don't know why I didn't realize this. Enthusiasm, I guess) I never would have believed that you could hit a 2 month delivery schedule.

I guess a lot of my disappointment comes from not having the same mental definitions of "Development" and "production" as the OP team.
 
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