This week & last week

[Alec]

Crikey. I've not really been on the proper boards before as I've been holding myself back and simply checking the updates on the email send-outs but I have to admit I'm a little taken aback and surprised about learning about this queue-jumping that's now being offered.


I may have missed these in the email updates, so apologies if I have. I think I'm about 2000ish in the queue and will remain there until my Pandora arrives although the excitiment and joy is going to be a tiny bit tarnished.

This has been discussed to death. Basically, the premium Pandoras helped Craig hire more people for assembly, so you should thank whoever decided to shell out the extra money because now your Pandora will come faster.


You should definitely read through some threads on the topic. Believe it or not, there's been a lot of discussion about this.

 

[Anihil8ion2199]

Before the Premium Pandoras a crew of 3 made about 70 units per day. Since the premiums went on sale OPT was able to hire 2 extra workers and now the 5 person crew produces up to 140 units per day. In the last two weeks premiums have been fulfilled in under the 7 days that was advertised, and pre orders have been progressing (I believe about 300 went out last)... They are hoping CC can max out at 500 boards per week which would be perfect for the amount they can assemble, flash, and ship.

 

[craigix]

We are also able to deal with returns a lot faster too, plus all the other admin you don't see.


Notice I've been a lot more active on the forums too.

 

[cosurgi]

Pandora is a total hit.

 

[DavidBowman]

Notice I've been a lot more active on the forums too.

Yes, that was an unfortunate side effect...


KIDDING!

 

[TH0RN5]

A business has to honor their agreements, e.g. "We will sell you a Pandora for 330USD" (or 350USD depending on when you ordered). I wouldn't feel too bad, and neither should you, for sticking with the original deal that is now a losing proposition for OPT - but I would feel like a guy who doesn't have a Pandora. Perhaps more important to me than just getting my Pandora, I want the team to succeed in their endeavor. When the opportunity arose to get my Pandora on a more attractive timetable, at a cost that doesn't involve OPT selling them at a loss, I jumped at it. Not everyone will feel the same combination of sympathy (for business plans gone awry), impatience, and money burning a hole in his or her pocket. I feel it, though, and it was a perfect fit to upgrade from a late first batch preorder to a slightly pricier 7-day order that helps OPT and gets me my Pandora sooner.


I've had my eye on the project since summer 2008. A big thanks is due to braver, earlier, preorderers than I, who contributed important capital that kept the project from being completely stillborn. By the time I ordered, I had some idea of what an incredible clusterfuck the manufacturing process had become. The first-dayers could not have predicted what a wait they would be in for. For the sake of OPT, here's hoping there are plenty more like me out there who will upgrade from preorders. I also hope that, as claimed, our transfusion of cash will help to speed along nearly everyone else's orders too.


My message to you all is as follows:


Do what you will, and feel good doing it.

 

[ZXDunny]

Yeah, the Pandora is an important piece of hardware in regard to freedom of consumers. PCs went through an evolution of sorts, they started out running only the vendor's OS and only approved software from that vendor. Now with PCs you have the freedom to do whatever you want, apple included. Small devices, specifically ARM devices, where the market is leading to now, are like PCs of old: they only run one vendor's OS and only run that vendor's software or approved software.

I'd disagree with this - lock-in of the extreme methods currently in use (locked to one OS, and only able to develop software that is approved) is a relatively new thing. Back in my day you could pick up one of the 8-bits and develop whatever you liked for it. The OS was on ROM, so there was a sort of lock-in of sorts there. Migrating to the Amiga and PC, with their vendor-locked OS was no great hardship, as you could still develop whatever you wanted and sell it if you chose to.


Then of course came the consoles (probably starting with the Nintendo flavours) which required developer licenses in order to gain access to hardware documentation, which also went hand-in-hand with certification so that you needed approval from the console vendor to sell your wares. This naturally extended to the handhelds.


As far as I can remember, lock-in as far as software development is concerned hasn't ever been a feature of home computers.


Agree with the rest of your post though.


D.

 

[SNESFAN]

As far as I can remember, lock-in as far as software development is concerned hasn't ever been a feature of home computers.

I thought apple regulated what was installable on osx?


I could be wrong, iPhone is that way for sure but not really a home computer though.

 

[Prometheus]

As far as I can remember, lock-in as far as software development is concerned hasn't ever been a feature of home computers.

I thought apple regulated what was installable on osx?


I could be wrong, iPhone is that way for sure but not really a home computer though.

You are wrong. You can install whatever you want on Mac OS X, and they provide their development tools as a free download, and on the OS install discs at no extra charge.

 

[SNESFAN]

As far as I can remember, lock-in as far as software development is concerned hasn't ever been a feature of home computers.

I thought apple regulated what was installable on osx?


I could be wrong, iPhone is that way for sure but not really a home computer though.

You are wrong. You can install whatever you want on Mac OS X, and they provide their development tools as a free download, and on the OS install discs at no extra charge.

What's it I hear about them getting a cut of every title produced for their os? Is that just commercial titles or just inaccurate?

 

[Prometheus]

What's it I hear about them getting a cut of every title produced for their os? Is that just commercial titles or just inaccurate?

I can't say I've ever heard of that. It likely applies to the "Mac App Store", as you would expect since they're providing hosting and purchasing services with that, but to my knowledge it's never been the case for anything else.

 

[ZXDunny]

What's it I hear about them getting a cut of every title produced for their os? Is that just commercial titles or just inaccurate?

I can't say I've ever heard of that. It likely applies to the "Mac App Store", as you would expect since they're providing hosting and purchasing services with that, but to my knowledge it's never been the case for anything else.

I would say you're right there - the App store model is the way forward for all Apple products, and the lock-down just gets tighter with each new device they manufacture. It won't be long before un-approved 3rd party applications are banned even from the desktop models, and it will unfortunately be only Microsoft that explicitly allow it[1]...


Won't that be ironic?


D.


[1] I'm aware of Linux, yes, but as far as the "desktop experience" and "user friendliness" goes, it doesn't really have a chance to compete when compared to Win7 or OSX. And yes, I do have a linux install at home.