On the pre-production status

[_DW_ 628]

gtmaster303 wrote:

Why even dangle the possibility of the phone shipping out before 10/29?

This attitude is beginning to be quite annoying. If you do not want to wait, don’t do pre-orders, but just go to a store and by some fruit-crap or similar….

 

Yeah have to agree I've been waiting on some pre-orders for years not months!!

[Erik 1,487]

What is actually annoying? doesnt it the keep delaying and each time giving dishonest timeline?

 

Yes we wouldnt place the order if we knew its gonna keep delaying.

 

At the time of payment FX clearly specified the timeline of shipment. Its not a crawdfunded project and i wouldve never signed up for crowdfunded.

 

yes it was pre order but FX gave the timeline.

 

And the last email they sent me mid october they cleary said they assure that it will be shipped before or at most by 29th october.

 

I can see a clear pattern here repeating again and again, which is FX announce a shipping date and then goes absolutly quite until that date. when its getting close to that date some will start posting here that its not a big deal to delay and nothing wrong with another delay (are these people FX paid?).

 

this is what is happening again. now some are suggesting its ok for another delay.

 

so i am nearly sure after 29th october another delay will be announced with another new reason.

 

Its not just about money, its also about wasting time and keep getting dishonest updates.

 

I am definately canceling my order if it doesnt start shipping by 29th october. im not saying my order must be shipped by 29th october but it the process of shippment to any orders does not start by 29th then its clearly not happening.

 

And i would suggest all the ones who can see my point should cancel their orders after 29th october if shipping process doesnt start. because we should not encourage such disappointing way of doing business.

 

Stock from the first batch is leaving the factory on it's way to the fulfilment warehouses next week, so we'll most definitely be ready for shipping on the 29th (or before but I don't want to overpromise). We're quiet because we don't have anything new to say - everything is currently going as expected and there isn't any change in plans that would potentially need announcing. I will see if we can post an email update, although I don't know how different it would be as it's all going according to plan.

[Erik 1,487]

So I suppose regular orders will be available around late November / December?

 

Thanks! And I hope this comment goes through. I just don’t want to buy crap with onscreen keyboard…

 

Late-November is a fair estimate for general availability. We'd be at that stage once as all existing (pre-)orders are fulfilled.

[Wheeljack 212]

In the last production update video where Adrian announced the shipping date, he also mentioned some software being send in for licensing and approval.

From my view this is the only remaining forseeable thing that could go wrong and delay the product launch.

Please for my sanity, keep us informed about the approval status.

[FlyingAntero 871]

EskeRahn wrote:

What gave you the idea that it should be a wordpress number???

 

But of course not all pre-orders can be expected to have been paid, so being number #22001 does not mean that there are 22000 paid orders that needs to be handled first.

The orders site is a WordPress site using the Woocommerce plugin. Woocommerce has an API which allows you to look at the order numbers, and I’ve looked. I have the exact list of submitted order numbers (as of about 20 minutes ago, ending with 39215) and they are not even close to sequential. There is a Woocommerce plugin plugin that allows sequential order numbers but it’s not being used. I’ve also asked someone who didn’t pay for their order number and confirmed that the unpaid order number is in my list, so I don’t have the list of paid orders, only placed orders. I also checked the financials on the factory (self reported, so maybe not 100% accurate) and even if every one of these pre-orders suddenly got paid, the factory has enough capacity to make all the pre-ordered phones in well under a month.

 

Chen did a good job of choosing a factory that was big enough to handle us and not so big that we don’t matter to them.

 

If you paid, or pay soon then you won’t have that long to wait after the first regular production phone ships.

 

No information other than the order number is leaked, the person’s name and other information remains confidential and secure.

 

Could you share your list for my own use? Can't wait to get the Pro1 on my hands. Send mail to flyingantero@gmail.com if possible.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

...you should delete post #39116 too(your post) because it creates unnecessary confusion.

Typo corrected, thanks.

 

[michael.bosscha 142]

Could you share your list for my own use? Can’t wait to get the Pro1 on my hands. Send mail to *some emailadres* if possible.

You might want to remove that email address before some bot scraps it and you'll be overloaded with spam.

 

Thanx @BX for the in-depth investigation, it was already said by FX themselves that the ordernumbers weren't sequential but I think people were just trying to stir a ruckus by continuing to imply they were.

 

Just about 3 weeks to go...

 

 

[Hook 3,021]

What is actually annoying? doesnt it the keep delaying and each time giving dishonest timeline?

 

Yes we wouldnt place the order if we knew its gonna keep delaying.

 

At the time of payment FX clearly specified the timeline of shipment. Its not a crawdfunded project and i wouldve never signed up for crowdfunded.

 

yes it was pre order but FX gave the timeline.

 

And the last email they sent me mid october they cleary said they assure that it will be shipped before or at most by 29th october.

 

I can see a clear pattern here repeating again and again, which is FX announce a shipping date and then goes absolutly quite until that date. when its getting close to that date some will start posting here that its not a big deal to delay and nothing wrong with another delay (are these people FX paid?).

 

this is what is happening again. now some are suggesting its ok for another delay.

 

so i am nearly sure after 29th october another delay will be announced with another new reason.

 

Its not just about money, its also about wasting time and keep getting dishonest updates.

 

I am definately canceling my order if it doesnt start shipping by 29th october. im not saying my order must be shipped by 29th october but it the process of shippment to any orders does not start by 29th then its clearly not happening.

 

And i would suggest all the ones who can see my point should cancel their orders after 29th october if shipping process doesnt start. because we should not encourage such disappointing way of doing business.

 

Hey, how do we know you aren't paid by TCL? :-D

[B.X 19]

Could you share your list for my own use? Can’t wait to get the Pro1 on my hands. Send mail to {removed}@gmail.com if possible.

 

FlyingAntero, It's only numbers. I don't know of a legitimate use for it beyond what I've released already but if you have one, I'll listen here.

 

Michael Bosscha, I agree that people were just trying to stir a ruckus. Giving the facts and the basis behind them hopefully will end that effort.

 

I'm as unhappy as the next buyer that I was used to provide some free financing without being informed, but knowing the orders are limited means that we didn't actually do as much financing as people seem to think. The large majority of finance had to have been from elsewhere and our payments probably had minimal impact.

 

I'm also unhappy about the statement made that orders were shipping soon when these very smart people knew that hadn't even submitted the FCC approval and that even if they were successful at passing on the first round (they were) they would not be shipping when they said. I don't know as much about some of the other areas so can't say if there were other cases where they made promises that they knew were not possible.

 

All that said, I'm happy that we will be getting our phones soon!!

 

[Jhonny B 5]

Jhonny B wrote:

 

Stock from the first batch is leaving the factory on it’s way to the fulfilment warehouses next week, so we’ll most definitely be ready for shipping on the 29th (or before but I don’t want to overpromise). We’re quiet because we don’t have anything new to say – everything is currently going as expected and there isn’t any change in plans that would potentially need announcing. I will see if we can post an email update, although I don’t know how different it would be as it’s all going according to plan.

 

Thanks Erik for your post and i hope it will be all good by the end of this month.

And i will post my big apologies here if it start shipping by 29th October.

 

I would like to shed some light on why am i so bent and twisted.

We need this device to use for our business. i am waiting for the first one to arrive and if its all good as expected then we would order 25-30 of these pro1 devices.

 

We have been using Nokia E7 for last many years, its form factor is what is suitable for our business process. so we have 30 of these Nokia E7 devices that we were regularly maintaining the hardware and we also had few developers that we pay to develop apps on regular basis. but the main issue we were having lately was that its hardware and software was becoming very out dated and most of the online stuff wont work, even the browser was not able to access most of the sites by now.

 

so we were looking for some new device with the similar form factor (sliding keyboard). the blackberry is not suitable for us as its not a full laptop style sliding keyboard.

and then this pro1 came to our attention back in February. its was just same form factor like E7 but with new hardware and latest android os. so this was the new device we were looking for.

we didnt counted on pro1 very seriously until August when Fx announced a release date.

So when we paid for our pre order in the start of August and FX gave a date of release (mid september) that when we thought that its definitely coming. and that's when we started retiring our Nokia E7 devices. we stopped spending money on E7 hardware maintenance and also stopped spending money on software development knowing that we will need new software development in andriod.

since then we were keep waiting. for us its not just a phone gadget to play with.

and since then its been keep delaying to the point where we start becoming uncertain when pro1 will be really released.

and we are stuck in the middle. we dont know if we go back to Nokia E7 which is bit hard to set these devices all again. we were also looking at any other option similar but not much is available except some keyboard cases for galaxy note. so we are unable to decide which way to go and its a loss to our business.

 

this is why i have been not very happy. but i would say that if pro1 starts shipping by the end of this month that it will be great and i will owe FX team an apologies.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

I would like to shed some light on why am i so bent and twisted.

We need this device to use for our business. i am waiting for the first one to arrive and if its all good as expected then we would order 25-30 of these pro1 devices.

 

Did you try contacting them directly and see if you could have a chance to try out an early unit, to see how it worked for your business case, rather than just criticise them in this user-to-user forum?

 

I mean if I was in their place and someone had contacted me back in August with the offer of ordering and paying say 20 units, if he could lease/borrow an early unit for a week or two for tests, I'm quite sure I would have been accommodating. So I would expect they would have been too. Of course a little late now, but just saying....

[Jhonny B 5]

Jhonny B wrote:

I would like to shed some light on why am i so bent and twisted.

 

We need this device to use for our business. i am waiting for the first one to arrive and if its all good as expected then we would order 25-30 of these pro1 devices.

Did you try contacting them directly and see if you could have a chance to try out an early unit, to see how it worked for your business case, rather than just criticise them in this user-to-user forum?

 

I mean if I was in their place and someone had contacted me back in august with the offer of ordering and paying say 20 units, if he could borrow an early unit for a week or two for tests, I’m quite sure I would have been accommodating. So I would expect they would have been too. Of course a little late now, but just saying….

 

Yes i did. I actually contacted them several times. and i also offered to pay them in full for the testing device.

i also applied for the testing application back then.

but Fx never offered me any testing device.

[Erik 1,487]

EskeRahn wrote:

Jhonny B wrote:

I would like to shed some light on why am i so bent and twisted.

 

We need this device to use for our business. i am waiting for the first one to arrive and if its all good as expected then we would order 25-30 of these pro1 devices.

 

Did you try contacting them directly and see if you could have a chance to try out an early unit, to see how it worked for your business case, rather than just criticise them in this user-to-user forum?

 

I mean if I was in their place and someone had contacted me back in august with the offer of ordering and paying say 20 units, if he could borrow an early unit for a week or two for tests, I’m quite sure I would have been accommodating. So I would expect they would have been too. Of course a little late now, but just saying….

Yes i did. I actually contacted them several times. and i also offered to pay them in full for the testing device.

 

i also applied for the testing application back then.

 

but Fx never offered me any testing device.

 

Jhonny, could you please reply to the email from customer care? We've tried to contact you several times. This is regarding the business use case you've mentioned, and how we can assist with it.

[SteffenWi 139]

We need this device to use for our business. [...]

 

We have been using Nokia E7 for last many years, its form factor is what is suitable for our business process. so we have 30 of these Nokia E7 devices that we were regularly maintaining the hardware and we also had few developers that we pay to develop apps on regular basis.

 

[...]

 

So when we paid for our pre order in the start of August and FX gave a date of release (mid september) that when we thought that its definitely coming. and that’s when we started retiring our Nokia E7 devices. we stopped spending money on E7 hardware maintenance and also stopped spending money on software development knowing that we will need new software development in andriod.

 

 

From a software developer: I really hope that you learn from this. The way you go over replacing stuff is not by throwing out the old stuff the moment the new stuff arrives or the new stuff has been announced.

 

Even if FxTec would have delivered on schedule, you would have had issues with the way you are trying to do it.

 

The correct way - and believe me it is, at least in the general steps, the only correct way - is to

 

1. Order a test device

2. See if this test device has the neccessary capabilities

3. Give test device to one or two workers and get their input regarding if this will work (it may be more slippery than the previous one, or they might see another problem with it that most people wouldn't)

4. If it is still a go, ask one of your software devs if they can get the current software to run on it or how long it would take them to rewrite

5. If the old software runs on it, let the workers use the new device for a few days and get feedback

5. b) in case it doesn't run and needs to be rewritten, get your devs to create a 'fake app' that resembles the old app as far as UI functionality goes but without letting it 'do' anything (some people call this a mockup, I call it a 'dummy app').

6. Give phone with software to one or two workers and let them toy around with it for a day to see if they can find any 'kinks' with the device. Maybe the screen isn't sensitive enough or maybe one of them comes back and says 'hey this is all great but if you are already rewriting this, could you guys change this?'

7. Start with the rewrite/adjustments that might be neccessary. Source additional stuff (bumpers?) if neccessary.

8. Once 7 is dealt with and stuff has been found, order the neccessary amount of devices

9. Wait for them to arrive, start training sessions with your workers as you see fit (hint: Usually neccessary)

10. Give a few workers the new devices and let them run around with those for a few days and let them work closely with the software devs for bugfixing/feedback. Make sure they have a lighter workload than usual to make sure this is done properly.

11. Implement changes as neccessary

12. Replace old devices with new devices

13. Put at least 20% of the old devices in storage

14. Create a backup of the code of the old software

15. Done.

 

You might want to know why 13: Reason is that there is usually one functionality in the old device/software that has been implemented 8 years ago, was never documented because it was just 'a quick fix' and is only used once every 14 1/2 months. If you got rid of all devices your devs will have a very hard time figuring out how that 'quick fix' worked and why it did what it did, cause all the info they will get from the worker is 'Hey, the old thing used to do show a number here if I pushed here while also reciting Lord of the Rings backwards and putting a 'Kick me' sticker on the back of my colleague. I need this now.'

[michael.bosscha 142]

Lots of usefull stuff

 

I can't empathise enough. If you're using this device as a replacement, you're bound to find weird issues you never thought were even a problem. And yes: I'm quite sure that if all went well, FXtec would've replied for a batch order. Erik already pushed again for it, but perhaps you should send an email again, @JohnnyB...

[FlyingAntero 871]

FlyingAntero, It’s only numbers. I don’t know of a legitimate use for it beyond what I’ve released already but if you have one, I’ll listen here.

I just would like to know how many orders there are in total so that I could estimate the user base for a software project. Also, I am curious to know how many orders there are before me. I placed my pre order in early April right after I got my voucher from the Moto Mod Keyboard campaign and paid in August but still got 5 digits number.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

I can’t empathise enough. If you’re using this device as a replacement, you’re bound to find weird issues you never thought were even a problem. And yes: I’m quite sure that if all went well, FXtec would’ve replied for a batch order. Erik already pushed again for it, but perhaps you should send an email again, @JohnnyB…

 

As I read the reply from Erik it sounds like yet another case of things getting lost as spam. Wouldn't it be wonderfull If all people were decent so spam-filters (and moderation) did not exist...

[Gon009 70]

Message from the 1st October, 3 days before announcing October 29th as shipping date:

(...) we only have an expected window within which we will have our devices in the fulfilment warehouses (US, EU). As my colleague mentioned, this is expected to happen between (not after) 1-2 weeks from today.(...)

[/quote[

 

Message from the 15th October:

Stock from the first batch is leaving the factory on it’s way to the fulfilment warehouses next week, so we’ll most definitely be ready for shipping on the 29th (or before but I don’t want to overpromise). (...)

 

Also from the same post:

(...) We’re quiet because we don’t have anything new to say – everything is currently going as expected and there isn’t any change in plans that would potentially need announcing. I will see if we can post an email update, although I don’t know how different it would be as it’s all going according to plan.

 

Noice, so delays in leaving the factory are according to plan. I know what's going to happen: fxtec will do everything to ship the first batch(which is very limited in quantity, probably will be exclusive to igg backers) and any delays after that(which will happen) will be swept under the rug "because we already started shipping".

[VaZso 1,998]

Anyway, it would like to know at least some of the following information:

- What part of the Indiegogo preorders may receive their units from the first batch?

- Do all the Indiegogo preorders may receive their units from the first batch?

- About what part of the preorders taken at fxtec.com are expected to receive their units from the first batch?

 

So, please share some information. If you don't want to share exact information (as it looks to be), then you may share some relative information like the above.

[EskeRahn 5,460]

Anyway, it would like to know at least some of the following information:

 

– What part of the Indiegogo preorders may receive their units from the first batch?

 

– Do all the Indiegogo preorders may receive their units from the first batch?

 

– About what part of the preorders taken at fxtec.com are expected to receive their units from the first batch?

 

So, please share some information. If you don’t want to share exact information (as it looks to be), then you may share some relative information like the above.

 

The second question looks like a special case of the first, or?

Anyway, this might not be that helpful information in itself, as they seem to plan to have stuff delivered in relatively small quanta in quick succession, so could be more interesting to ask the same questions in a slight variation, e.g.:

– What fraction of the (paid) Indiegogo preorders is expected to be shipped within the first fortnight?

– About what fraction of the (paid) preorders taken at fxtec.com are expected to to be shipped within the first fortnight?

[VaZso 1,998]

– What fraction of the (paid) Indiegogo preorders is expected to be shipped within the first fortnight?

– About what fraction of the (paid) preorders taken at fxtec.com are expected to to be shipped within the first fortnight?

 

Yes, they are another questions which would be good to be answered...

 

If we may have some of the questions answered, that would be a bit better than nothing.

That is why also my second question is redundant - the first one asks for a number and the second one only a yes/or statement.

[Hook 3,021]

Nice, so delays in leaving the factory are according to plan.

 

You're being disingenuous. You know Erik is referring to the current shipping of consecutive batches to the shipping hubs in time to start shipping by 29 October.

 

I know what’s going to happen

 

No. No you don't. ;-)

 

 

[SchattengestaIt 559]

We are again moving towards a discussion of when exactly we receive the devices.

I was told by the support (and it is written in this thread as well) that the next batches will come with only a few days difference and I would receive my device in mid-November (I ordered just a few weeks ago).

 

If that is to be believed, I think that we shouldn't worry too much about order numbers. I just hope that their factory is able to produce at the speed they are expecting.

[glumreaper 144]

Man, I hope I get my Pro1 soon. My current phone needs charging at least three times a day now!

[B.X 19]

BX wrote:

FlyingAntero, It’s only numbers. I don’t know of a legitimate use for it beyond what I’ve released already but if you have one, I’ll listen here.

I just would like to know how many orders there are in total so that I could estimate the user base for a software project. Also, I am curious to know how many orders there are before me. I placed my pre order in early April right after I got my voucher from the Moto Mod Keyboard campaign and paid in August but still got 5 digits number.

 

FlyingAntero, for the first question the only thing I can reasonably say is that the numbers are small, unless your project is really low effort and something pretty much everyone with the device just has to have, there would be no way to justify development at the kinds of prices apps sell for. The kinds of apps that are "free" for the cost of privacy won't fly with this group and are even less justifiable. I've heard that the actual number is not something F(x)tec wants released, unless Erik or someone official-ish tells me otherwise, I'm going to respect that.

 

For the second question, the numbers I have are useless. Your order is automatically at the front of the queue because you used the MotoMod voucher. The numbers are small enough that every single MotoMod voucher should be fulfilled in the first batch but I can't differentiate between paid and unpaid orders nor differentiate MotoMod voucher orders, the API just isn't that specific.