I've Canceled

[tds48]

sigh ... sigh ... sign ... stick a pen in my eye !

The same points, same counterpoints - How many times have we done this now - like 7/8 times?

I'm not getting into this its as pointless as a waterproof tampon.

I would like to say I think a lot of frustration is stemming from the anticipation and "I want it now" urge. I personally was nearly labotimised I was so excited. Testostirone and Gadgets are a dangerous mix!! So I simply opted for a one nubber ... All the anxiety has left the building I am in an almost zen like state 24/7.

someguy (??) posted early on, that the pandora is much greater than the sum of the parts, I back that completely - It is unlike anything I have used before.

My advice, leave the boards, wait for the email saying "Your pandora has shipped" - Coming on to these boards each day just fuels your angst. The OPT has openly stated many times (and in many languages) that [extensive]communciation is not their top priority, delivery is (I think at one stage Chip took on a role to try and easer this). So know the beast, work with it or leave it ... having a little tantrum every so often does nothing but alienate you from the community you proclaim you want to join and thrive in.

To those that really do want to move on ... good luck! I swap gadgets monthly, but I must say the pandora is an absolute keeper!

 

[moxie]

Chairman_Now,

I think it's pretty obvious that at least one Pandora team member knows how many units they have made/given to others for shipping. They simply don't want to disclose this information to other team-members and/or the community forums as it would be viewed by others as negative thing.

The OP team, of course, knows the built/shipped figures. As I've said before, it's impossible to run a business without knowing. No need to count, your accounting software will do it all for you.

Now, you're being silly. ED has given you his account of the numbers. I'd imagine that OPTs "accounting software" is when Jaquelyn, ED and Fatih sits down together and counts ticked lines on an order list printout But you know what? Doing that sit-down-and-count thing takes time. Totalling the numbers together and posting them takes time. Answering the countless inane questions afterwards ("But these shipped units, do they include the borken ones or not?" "When I add the broken ones and the shipped ones, they add up to 784, but your built tally says 786! Where have you hidden the missing pandoras?" "I was once told I had order number 567, and since then I KNOW of 7 people that has cancelled, and you say you have shipped 563 ones - BUT I HAVENT GOT MINE YET! YOU'RE NOT FOLLOWING THE PROPER ORDER!!!") takes - guess what? - time. Doing this every day or whatever completely precludes ED or whoever is to be in charge of this to do any work on the actual pandoras. What is the priority here - Getting pandoras out the door, or feeding the never-satisfied information trolls on the forum?

You do realise the scale of the team, right? There are in toto 4 people in the actual team, helped by jaquelyn. Spread out over three continents. Building is done on a more-or-less-week to week basis so far, with whoever was available at the moment. Who are we going to remove from the building process to do the counting for you, and how is he going to get access to the numbers that are spread out to at least 2 quite distant locations?

I also think that "transparency" and "openness" seemed like good ideas when the project started, but they can hardly announce that they've given up on that. Thus the need to continue to appear "open", while not revealing anything that would cause their buyers to bolt.

The paranoid mind adjusts the reality to his own liking. You do realise that finished pandoras have sold for thousands of dollars on eBay, and queue positions for somewhere arouond 500-ish bucks, right? If anything, if OPT wanted to be sneaky, they'd gain from scaring away a few customers and then sell the open queue positions on eBay. There's a proper conspiracy for you - credit me when you use it.

/The Not ED

 

[chame]

I agree the configuration process is not being driven well. I mean, in order to manage a project, you need accurate management information about whats going on. for example during the last months, there were post from ED in the blog and the opposite info from craigx in twiter.

it is important to know the exact amount of boards (produced in texas, shipped to uk, arrived to uk, tested, put into a case), cases (the same scenarios), antennas, buttons, AC adapters, tv out cables... without this information there appear problems, like with the ac adapters uk standard sent to USA or other places.

but we should understand the resources are limited. it could be great to have an administrateve person just worried about those details (it could improve the final user quality feel). but there are not enought resources. this guys are working almost for free. they have their jobs they should attend, and also their lives (their GF need attention too

obviously there is margin for improvement. if I could say something to OP team, I recomend to let the comunity participate. there are tasks the comunity could perform, and let you focus on the hardware side. for example admin the blog, the bug reporting, the file download site (pnds, firmwares, builds...). I mean, the software side. there are at least 500 pandoras out there, let the comunity to continue the development!!

PD: till today, I couldnt find any pandora like device. I will use pandora 80% minicomputer, 20% console. I want linux to compile whatever I need. only toshiba librettos are near this, and they are quite expensive and bigger (not pocket friendly). even Vaio P is 27cm long... and N900 is a minikernel + flash player and twice expensive than pandora.

I already decided, I'll stick with pandora and try to help the comunity to evolve the system

 

[tsh]

RE: shipped units: You cannot book revenue until a unit is shipped. This is simple GAAP, which I believe, is employed in the UK and Europe, as well as the US. So if nothing else, you gain because you're running a business adequately, and adhering to local laws. You really, really should have this information if you expect to be in business for any amount of time. I doubt I'm telling you anything that you don't already know.

PMSL! GAAP applies to publicly traded companies, not some 4 men in a shed (no offense intended!) operation. Even then, the data would be collated every 90 days - and actively managed to maintain a smooth revenue flow rather than optimum throughput.

As ED says, it is irrelevant to the guys on the ground if the UPS pickup was made yesterday, or if they were finishing off fixing a bunch of RMA units rather than rushing out another new bunch of units. Given the size of the team, every issue with a returned unit probably causes a delay since they don't want to be shipping units which are likely to be returned.

Attempting to micro manage a team like this is counterproductive - get used to the idea of weekly status updates, and you might feel happier.

 

[Bosbeetle]

Hello apple, yes this is one of your customers, I was wondering how is assembly of the iPhone 4 going, did you receive all the components and are there any problems in the production?

What you wont tell us, i will never by a product of you again! :angry:

 

[hedwards]

I don't see what having a period has anything to do with this.

Actually, that probably has a lot to do with it. Obviously you haven't had much dealings with wimminz.

At this point, Chairman is clearly trolling. I don't think that any answer he's given will really appease him, he's mostly just wanting to stir up trouble and get people all angry. Anybody that didn't know what they were getting into has had countless chances to cancel. From which one can deduce that he's trolling, ignorant or stubborn. Or possibly never ordered one to begin with.

I really do kinda wish we could go back to canceling orders from troublemakers. As anti-capitalist as that is.

 

[SomeGuy99]

I don't see what having a period has anything to do with this.

Actually, that probably has a lot to do with it. Obviously you haven't had much dealings with wimminz.

Ed is a woman?! I guess the long hair gave it away.
B)

 

[tonyyeb]

Information is the point of discussion here and with small projects like this they always fall down on the information providing front. I've been a customer of many small projects like OpenPandora and every single one fails when it comes to letting customers know what the current status is. Is it a fear that an error, mistake or unforeseen problem will make them all want their money back? I don't know.

Customers of small projects are worried that their money will be lost without any product or the product doesn't meet the claimed outcome etc... Keeping them abreast of what is going on pretty much everyday appeases most.

Now OpenPandora is at the shipping stage (lots of projects don't get here so well done guys) and customers are keen to know when theirs will arrive. I do find it very hard to believe that the person doing the shipping cannot keep a nice little tally, update a forum post or web page with total number shipped just to give customers the reassurance that a) units ARE being shipped and B) make a rough guess when theirs will be shipped. I have yet to see a post from the OP team that states why, realistically this cannot be done.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

I wonder if ED can produce a graph illustrating how many Pandoras WOULD have been shipped by now if the team hadn't wasted any of their time defending themselves to petulant little armchair business pricks on the forums?

 

[Mithrildor]

WOOT, now Im one place closer to my pandora in queue

 

[pandoraproduction]

WOOT, now Im one place closer to my pandora in queue

I'm trying to take the heat out of this kind of thing.

Take a look here, and help out if you have information.

http://www.pandoraproduction.comze.com/index.php

People who receive their Pandora could help by e-mailing their serial number via the site as a guage of how many have shipped.

 

[Bosbeetle]

I dont think they are shipped by serial number. People who ordered two and received 2 got pandoras that are hundreds apart by serial number.

 

[hedwards]

WOOT, now Im one place closer to my pandora in queue

I'm trying to take the heat out of this kind of thing.

Take a look here, and help out if you have information.

http://www.pandoraproduction.comze.com/index.php

People who receive their Pandora could help by e-mailing their serial number via the site as a guage of how many have shipped.

Easier would probably be to just have a poll. Where you change your vote from not having it to havening it. But really it's not going to be completely accurate as there are people, who shockingly enough, aren't here or are to busy fondling their nubs to log in. Some of whom even have their Pandora.

 

[Pleng]

Hello apple, yes this is one of your customers, I was wondering how is assembly of the iPhone 4 going, did you receive all the components and are there any problems in the production?

What you wont tell us, i will never by a product of you again! :angry:

Hello Apple, yes this is one of your customers. I was wondering if I could pay for your newest device 18 months in advance, and get a load of abuse from fellow purchasers if I finally decide to request my money back.

What, you don't do that? I will never deal with you again!


Get real!

 

[Nailz]

I don't think the original poster demanded abuse, he just made a post about why he canceled his order and gave some reasons, I think it was a fair post... To those who said it was pointless, maybe it was, but at the moment I see 182 pages on this site with a massive amount of pointless posts, maybe this is one as well.

As for the Apple comments, pretty sure when Apple puts out a release date, they aren't going to miss by 18+ months, so there won't actually be a need to go to Apple to demand what the production counts are since they don't require payment that far in advance.

People who ordered a Pandora in this "experiment" have every right to the information that the OPT either doesn't want to or is afraid to release. Come on, it really can't be that hard to have a solid number here. I see ED has said Jaquelyn would know, why not ask her then ED and let us know? We all get that you don't care about the numbers as it doesn't affect you, but a good amount of people out here do.

As for the comments about the OPT wasting their time answering all these posts instead of being able to work.... ummm, what? Doesn't sound like they are working on anything at the moment, wasn't that the whole point of these posts, is to find out what is happening? Don't post then and get back to it, make a post at the end of the day in one place and be done with it, if there is no new info, just post it. I see posts about how exhausted the team is, yet they are in here defending their exhaustion, LOL. Guys, just take 2 minutes and make a post, then no worries about how to defend your honor, or whatever it is you're worried about out here.

It's blatantly obvious folks just want some info, even if that equals "still waiting on parts".

So fanboys, keep blindly defending, the rest of us just want some info, and we're not going to just "go away" because you say so. We all paid into this as well, just make it simple and give us all some answers.

 

[SomeGuy99]

Just accept that OP are a bit useless at the information thing. They're not entirely useless though, because I'm sitting here with a Pandora!

So despite the hilarious PR hiccups, the miscommunication and the paranoia on both sides... they actually did it, they're delivering Pandoras. They have my respect for doing that.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

Nice to hear that some apple addict will let his Pandora going to some lucky someone else ^^.
This proves you have, at least, a heart :^).

About the Chairman_Now stuff, he's probably right for most of business out there in this full-of-sharks world.
What he just missed, is that OP isn't a business like others. It's a mix of clever people, high tech, open source, old school, handmade, fun and love.
No need SAP in there :^D . No need nasdaq. OP is far higher than all this so-called serious and adult-wannabe bullshit.
"Saying anything to the contrary is just silly and indefensible." ^^

Gogo Linux, gogo Pandora !!!

 

[hobbyman II]

hooray! one step closer for me.

(faint voice in background)

hooray! an open order slot for me!

 

[Nailz]

I just don't get the "they took away my money" complaint. Free will, boys and girls

I agree with this 100%, and I have ZERO doubt I will get my Pandora, hopefully at some point soon. My only point was that I get why people are frustrated over the lack of information. You would think that at this point the OPT would see that and make an extra attempt to appease the people that are supporting this project.

I could really care less that Apple, Sony, whoever, doesn't do it. As many others have pointed out, this is a totally different project, raised by a community. And at the moment, the community would like answers, it doesn't take a degree in business, finance, engineering, etc. to see that PR is extremely important in this case, and putting out some really basic info should be really simple.

 

[EvilDragon]

As for the comments about the OPT wasting their time answering all these posts instead of being able to work.... ummm, what? Doesn't sound like they are working on anything at the moment, wasn't that the whole point of these posts, is to find out what is happening?

Not really, as it is known that craig currently is building the next units.
I wanted to work on HotFix 3, fix the mount.sh script to create mountpoints based on the name of the SD Card, answer tons of eMails (I'm about 2 weeks behind!), package more apps into PNDs, work on more visual novels, update the homepage (press news, etc.), etc.

Things I didn't even really start yet, as those threads did cost my time... so yeah, we ARE working on something.