I originally guessed Pandora would take 8/12 months for the mainboard, 4 months for custom hardware (nubs,keypad etc) 4 more for the case, then 2 for the battery/stylus etc, after that I added 6 months for tweaks, debugging etc, then 3 for assembly and launch, plus the mandatory (in the trade) 4 months + afewdays(tm) "c*ckup time"
seriously, working in industrial manufacture, that was what I expected, that was BEFORE the change to OMAP, before the world economy went down the pan, before the nub manufacturer went bust, before the banks developed anal retention to the nth degree, before the issues tweaking the case design where sorted, all you critics make me laugh, get outa school and get a real job,thats when you find out that flowcharts and process scheduling count for little when the product has to work for real, made by real firms with real people, in my firm, on our last project, we had to totally redesign ordered product when a key manufacturer changed their whole range of hydraulics for "better, improved" stuff, "better" apart from it was dimensioned differently and ran to different specs etc, 8 months panic scramble to redesign and test/approve, customer got promised hardware nearly 11 months later, I doubt they will be back.
building a "from scratch" state of the art device with an informal group of "netizens" in such a short space of time is impressive, think about it, Sony have just released the cheapened "slim" PS3, right now their R&D engineers are working on PS4 prototypes, almost certainly have been playing with concepts since the PS3 came out and they finalised the design for the "slim", you won`t hear squat from Sony about PS4 until their profits start to drop, then they will leak news after the Sony board have seen the Prototype PS4 in action and approved it, say another year or so, then the hype build for a year or more, but development devices exist right now, OP have done well to get a state of the art device out in under two years.
remember I initialy assumed about 3 years(ish) for (respectfully) amateurs doing it (if they did have a clue), Sony (admittedly in a comfy position but well equiped and funded), have so far spent more man hours and money on the PS4 (R&D staff take home wages, labs need lighting, heating, insuring etc), of that you can almost be certain, whinging cos your latest techno bling is late IYO, is silly, if it aint out by the new year, then feel entitled to complain, me?, I am going to order another.......
