Ce Testing

[conso]

Do you remember where you saw that? Last I recall, Chip said they were confident enough in the design that they weren't going to wait for testing before going mass production, but that was months ago and I can't find the original quote. I even made a point of asking "what if it fails testing?" and the response was, basically, "it won't".

actually, they said both. first they said they aren't going to wait and then they said since ED has good connections to a CE-tester, they will take the additional safety and wait the few days for the tests. That's already a while back, so pardon me I don't find the quote any more.

Now I'm really wondering what we are waiting for and what is currently happening on the production-front. The prototype was assembled a week back, they said the case-changes won't delay anything and there is still no news that the case-molds were ordered -> we must be waiting for something, what is it?

 

[Phawx]

Is it really that vital to know the exact date CE-Testing will start? It takes a couple of days, and even if it's causing a delay, it will be minimal. One week more or less doesn't really matter, or does it?

It is certainly not vital. We are just an enthusiastic bunch. It's like we were all saying to ourselves, "Man this device is cool, but it would be cooler if it had this and this this."

And then we see the Pandora and it's fits the bill perfectly. Every feature you could possibly want under the sun with the latest tech that's available and no compromises. I mean as far as I can see, every feature of the OMAP3530 is being accessed/used in some way. Audio components, battery... just everything was arranged perfectly. Well in my mind anyway. I had thought of this device a long time ago (I am sure many of us have) but I just dismissed it as a dream. The Pandora, for many of us, is a dream come true.

So is it vital? No, it is not. But I think you underestimate the Pandora's allure.

 

[Monk]

Now I'm really wondering what we are waiting for and what is currently happening on the production-front. The prototype was assembled a week back, they said the case-changes won't delay anything and there is still no news that the case-molds were ordered -> we must be waiting for something, what is it?

There is an interpretation that I have not seen mentioned thus far to the reason "xyz" will not delay the project, and yet things do not move forward. Perhaps the OpenPandora project moves forward only when the team members invovled actually have time to work on it? In that case, if they already have a job (or like Ed, two or three jobs) then any given "issue" may not delay Pandora development because there is already a built-in delay of ABC days/weeks before a given member of the team will be taking the next step ANYWAY? Such a piecemeal schedule would also help explain the extreme aversion to timetables - because there are compexities behind the scenes that have nothing to do with Pandora itself.

 

[MWeston]

There is an interpretation that I have not seen mentioned thus far to the reason "xyz" will not delay the project, and yet things do not move forward. Perhaps the OpenPandora project moves forward only when the team members invovled actually have time to work on it?

Yep, this has been the bane of the project. If everyone involved was full time Pandora instead of full time elsewhere, Pandora could have seen a Christmas release for sure (as was planned). Unfortunately Craig's optimistic release dates couldn't plan for key people disappearing for months at a time and there wasn't anything we could do about that in a project based on volunteer work. People have lives and we have to respect that.

Thankfully, many people are back on board during the final stretch so delays will be less, but they are still happening. It's as frustrating for me as for everyone who paid already, perhaps more! You are waiting for one or two Pandoras, I'm waiting on 4000.

 

[marshal]

There is an interpretation that I have not seen mentioned thus far to the reason "xyz" will not delay the project, and yet things do not move forward. Perhaps the OpenPandora project moves forward only when the team members invovled actually have time to work on it?

Yep, this has been the bane of the project. If everyone involved was full time Pandora instead of full time elsewhere, Pandora could have seen a Christmas release for sure (as was planned). Unfortunately Craig's optimistic release dates couldn't plan for key people disappearing for months at a time and there wasn't anything we could do about that in a project based on volunteer work. People have lives and we have to respect that.

Thankfully, many people are back on board during the final stretch so delays will be less, but they are still happening. It's as frustrating for me as for everyone who paid already, perhaps more! You are waiting for one or two Pandoras, I'm waiting on 4000.


Thanks for the interesting insight. I guess it's not always easy to have a small team with people in Europe and America, especially if they're working beside.

If you don't mind me asking though what part of the pandora development is "volunteer work" ?

It's not like Openpandora Ltd is a voluntary project right ? there is some real money to be made from selling this handheld. I can image a few batch selling out this year and in the long run (2-3years) if it should have the potential to sell as much as the GP2X (60'000 Units if I remember right).

 

[God Ginrai]

There is an interpretation that I have not seen mentioned thus far to the reason "xyz" will not delay the project, and yet things do not move forward. Perhaps the OpenPandora project moves forward only when the team members invovled actually have time to work on it?

Yep, this has been the bane of the project. If everyone involved was full time Pandora instead of full time elsewhere, Pandora could have seen a Christmas release for sure (as was planned). Unfortunately Craig's optimistic release dates couldn't plan for key people disappearing for months at a time and there wasn't anything we could do about that in a project based on volunteer work. People have lives and we have to respect that.

Thankfully, many people are back on board during the final stretch so delays will be less, but they are still happening. It's as frustrating for me as for everyone who paid already, perhaps more! You are waiting for one or two Pandoras, I'm waiting on 4000.


Thanks for the interesting insight. I guess it's not always easy to have a small team with people in Europe and America, especially if they're working beside.

If you don't mind me asking though what part of the pandora development is "volunteer work" ?

It's not like Openpandora Ltd is a voluntary project right ? there is some real money to be made from selling this handheld. I can image a few batch selling out this year and in the long run (2-3years) if it should have the potential to sell as much as the GP2X (60'000 Units if I remember right).


IIRC, all the software devs are volunteer. The only exception that I know of might be Squidge.

-God Ginrai

 

[MWeston]

It's all volunteer work until it starts making some money.

 

[conso]

It's all volunteer work until it starts making some money.

So, when 4000 people gave you 1.2 million dollar in total and trusted you will deliver them a product, it was still a volunteer project?

The reason I didn't back out is the phenomenal work of the software devs like the nullDC and psp-emu guys and hope. No trust anymore.

 

[Exophase]

It's all volunteer work until it starts making some money.

So, when 4000 people gave you 1.2 million dollar in total and trusted you will deliver them a product, it was still a volunteer project?

The reason I didn't back out is the phenomenal work of the software devs like the nullDC and psp-emu guys and hope. No trust anymore.


That money is being used to fund production costs, period. It doesn't represent profit, it doesn't even represent salary. The profit margin for the first batch is zero. So yes, right now Pandora is basically a volunteer project, with every order paying for nothing more than what was necessary to have that order come into existence, not counting the man hours put forth by the team.

Now, when the Pandora actually does start making additional revenue I'm sure that OP will be distributing money to the people who have contributed a large number of hours to the software (like DJWillis).

You make the core team out to look like thieves, but actually the truth is that right now they're investors who are monetarily in the hole, not reaping the money from the first batch orders.

What I think is funny is that people actually see more tangible work out of heavily hyped projects that have essentially just started than the Pandora itself, which is right on the verge of completion. I guess craigix should be thankful for such sensationalized efforts, truly hype is worth more than anything.

 

[lulzfish]

"So, when 4000 people gave you 1.2 million dollar in total and trusted you will deliver them a product, it was still a volunteer project?

The reason I didn't back out is the phenomenal work of the software devs like the nullDC and psp-emu guys and hope. No trust anymore."

Yeah, I don't understand what you're getting at. They had over a million dollars there and they have only paid themselves in profit shares from the second batch onward.

Would you feel better if they took some more of your money to pay themselves? I mean, what's the problem?

 

[conso]

I know they won't make profit from the first batch, but they wouldn't have the chance to make money of a second or third batch if we wouldn't have taken the risk and preordered. I think for that trust brought to them, they should have given us information like "a core dev doesn't have time to work on the project as much as we had thought" and not told us sad stories about evil banks. Now it was a dev that made the difference between a december release and the current "it's close, but we don't know when"? Annoying.

And yes, they should be thankfull to those hype generating projects since they spread hope and hope is everything that holds the consumers together atm.

 

[marshal]

It's all volunteer work until it starts making some money.

I don't call it volunteer then. They are investing their current time in the project and are expecting to make money in the future.
I do of course understand that the team members probably have obligations and / or job(s) so they can't just devote all their time on the Pandora project.

I was of course refering to the main people that are in charge of the Pandora hardware or the crucial software bits. Obviously there will be a lot of community development and people contributing to the project one way or another.

And really the community aspect is what I like about the product. I feels like the team behind the product are also part of it. That's what's make Openpandora different from your typical business

The topic kind of went from CE testing to something totally different... :huh:

 

[Vorporeal]

I know they won't make profit from the first batch, but they wouldn't have the chance to make money of a second or third batch if we wouldn't have taken the risk and preordered. I think for that trust brought to them, they should have given us information like "a core dev doesn't have time to work on the project as much as we had thought" and not told us sad stories about evil banks. Now it was a dev that made the difference between a december release and the current "it's close, but we don't know when"? Annoying.

And yes, they should be thankfull to those hype generating projects since they spread hope and hope is everything that holds the consumers together atm.

You're being unfair here. Remember that the bank issue was a total fiasco, and that Craig (and maybe others) spent a lot of time talking to the banks, trying to figure out what was going on and how to remedy the problem. The reason why the bank issue caused such a delay is that the dev force had been cut down, and then they had to take time away from the little time they had for development and use it to figure out what to do with the banks.

 

[EvilDragon]

Yep, the bank issue was a REAL issue.
It took a lot of time - and you need time to keep devs happy, 'cause devving can also be very frustrating

I can't really dev, I can't do the hardware development. But I threw in a lot of ideas and are talking a lot to various devs, which is also a very important job to do, as it helps them keep in the project.

And yes, we want to repay every single dev for their work once we get some money out of it

 

[conso]

I know they won't make profit from the first batch, but they wouldn't have the chance to make money of a second or third batch if we wouldn't have taken the risk and preordered. I think for that trust brought to them, they should have given us information like "a core dev doesn't have time to work on the project as much as we had thought" and not told us sad stories about evil banks. Now it was a dev that made the difference between a december release and the current "it's close, but we don't know when"? Annoying.

And yes, they should be thankfull to those hype generating projects since they spread hope and hope is everything that holds the consumers together atm.

You're being unfair here. Remember that the bank issue was a total fiasco, and that Craig (and maybe others) spent a lot of time talking to the banks, trying to figure out what was going on and how to remedy the problem. The reason why the bank issue caused such a delay is that the dev force had been cut down, and then they had to take time away from the little time they had for development and use it to figure out what to do with the banks.


? you are really trying hard to interpret the best into mwestons post, or do you have background knowledge others here don't? mwestons post didn't read like craig's time was the problem.

 

[MrBlais]

Well after selling the first batch, you must have made some kind of profeit, right? In USD you will have made over $1million, which is a lot in GBP.

EvilDragon, im still fairly new to this project; if you aren't a hardware dev, what do you do for the project? A software dev? Just curious, i'm not sure.

 

[Chip]

Now it was a dev that made the difference between a december release and the current "it's close, but we don't know when"?
That is just plain false. Some of the guys working on the low-level software have had very intermittent availability (they're volunteers with real jobs and lives, what do you expect?), and the software side of things might have been done back in Nov/Dec if they had been working full time on it, but it's really not fair to pin anything on the devs. Whether the software was ready or not, we still would have had the same problems taking money from customers, getting parts and prototypes built, waiting for the factory for revisions, and everything else that has pushed back full production.

Well after selling the first batch, you must have made some kind of profeit, right? In USD you will have made over $1million, which is a lot in GBP.
None at all. The cost to develop and manufacture the first batch was significantly more than the money made by selling it. The project as a whole won't make any money at all until (hopefully) the second batch.

 

[Vorporeal]

I know they won't make profit from the first batch, but they wouldn't have the chance to make money of a second or third batch if we wouldn't have taken the risk and preordered. I think for that trust brought to them, they should have given us information like "a core dev doesn't have time to work on the project as much as we had thought" and not told us sad stories about evil banks. Now it was a dev that made the difference between a december release and the current "it's close, but we don't know when"? Annoying.

And yes, they should be thankfull to those hype generating projects since they spread hope and hope is everything that holds the consumers together atm.

You're being unfair here. Remember that the bank issue was a total fiasco, and that Craig (and maybe others) spent a lot of time talking to the banks, trying to figure out what was going on and how to remedy the problem. The reason why the bank issue caused such a delay is that the dev force had been cut down, and then they had to take time away from the little time they had for development and use it to figure out what to do with the banks.


? you are really trying hard to interpret the best into mwestons post, or do you have background knowledge others here don't? mwestons post didn't read like craig's time was the problem.


I'm telling you not to read too far into his post. You're also forgetting that the bank issue was that they weren't going to be shipping products within 30 days - if they had more devs on the project and were able to work full-time on it, they might have been able to ship it out within that time window and would have bypassed the bank and paypal issues entirely. Also, read ED's above post. He more or less agreed with what I said. Don't assume you're being lied to because they told you information that's different than what they had said before - devs not having enough time to work on it as much as needed and the bank causing massive delays are NOT mutually exclusive.

 

[Exophase]

Well after selling the first batch, you must have made some kind of profeit, right? In USD you will have made over $1million, which is a lot in GBP.

EvilDragon, im still fairly new to this project; if you aren't a hardware dev, what do you do for the project? A software dev? Just curious, i'm not sure.

Profit is not gross, it's net. I hope you understand the difference between those two things, or did you think that the Pandoras had their parts bought and were being manufactured for free?

 

[MrBlais]

I do know the difference, i'm just not quite sure since i'm still new to this project. I know that manufacturing does cost money and parts cost money, but after selling out 4,000 Pandora's with people eager to get their hands on the second batch, I cannot imagine that they won't be on top soon after production.

How much does it cost to make a single Pandora?