Official blog: What the bloody 'ell happened?
January 27, 2010It’s been an exhausting week for F5 fingers across the globe, and it’s only Wednesday. What the bloody ‘ell did happen to the cases? EvilDragon doesn’t have all the answers, but he does lift the fog for a moment to give us some insight into the whole China thang. If you’re all cased out for now, skip to the end for some nice OS news.
(Oh, for those concerned about the Pandora case received by Notaz in the previous post, don’t be. That case is the very one that Craig abused horribly for science, hence the various stress fractures. You too can have these cracks in your Pandora, but you’ll have to pay Craig in vodka and funny hats to do the damage for you. Keen?)
Nope, we’re not playing Lemmings, but I guess a lot of you wanted to know what happened to those cases.
Well, we too wanted to know – the last status update we had was that they were shipping on January 15th and therefore we assumed the cases should have arrived last week.
Unfortunately, Fatih had business to do in Dubai… and he is the only one the Chinese actually do talk to (except for if they encounter any problems, then they also send a mail to Michael. But they didn’t do that).So we didn’t know until he returned a few days ago that the cases hadn’t been shipped yet, they were still working and tweaking as they really wanted to make sure this will be the last case they need to send to us before we start the mass production.
We’re still trying to find out the complete story of what happened and why there was another delay. A friend of Fatih (who can speak chinese) will help us here, as communication with them isn’t easy, and there might even have been some misunderstandings, etc.
Whoever does think that that company is a small, cheap company that only tries to rip us off:
Nope, that’s definately not true. Fatih has been working with them since years. Also, they created some other parts for the Pandora which have been finished long ago and didn’t make any problems. It just seems the case was much more complex than they had thought.
Some of their other customers are Sanyo and Toyota and they have been established 1998, so one thing we know: They are reliable… but (as it is the case with many chinese companies): They do need some time to finish it off.
So, rest assured, the cases aren’t screwed, we just don’t know yet when exactly they will arrive. We have been promised they will ship enough mass produced cases before the chinese new year. I leave it to you whether you want to believe it or not – I just will pray it will be true.
So much for the cae situation. I hope you can now understand why we chose that company. Believe us, it’s a pretty annoying feeling having everything setup for mass assembly and then wait in anticipation for the cases.
Oh, I have one more information that will probably make second batchers happy: We already ordered the parts for the second batch to decrease the waiting time.
Finally, some small OS informations:
* We got a new WiFi driver, thanks to Palm
We’ll need to test it out more, but it should work better than the one we have.
* pmenu is finally working fine in the image, so we have an almost completely working image (for a first release) ready.
* We also did a quick try with the Ubuntu netbook-launcher-efl. It compiled and worked nicely. Only the icons were missing, but that’s because it uses the Human icons from Ubuntu which we haven’t installed yet. The nice thing about it is that it does support finger scrolling. It might not make it into the first release, but I doubt it will take long until it will be included into an update. I personally prefer XFCE4 and pmenu though
New WiFi driver Huzzah….!
I hope we get some more details on the Palm driver.
i wont bitch about the fact that they keep saying “first batch software wont be perfect allthough we had a couple of years more to make in than we thought we had”, but one thing remains unclear to me:
how will the software be updated? is there a solution to this, or is it a matter of overwriting old files with new ones?
http://www.gp32x.com/board/index.php?/topic/51557-firmware-updatesupgrades/page__view__findpost__p__801527
thanks!
Check out the Google ads:
“Pandora Official Stockist
Huge Pandora Stock. Free p+p U.K.’s Premier Helpline & Service ”
Which leads to some rather tacky looking and overpriced jewellery. Well done Google ads, that’s obviously what we Pandora pre-orderers were really looking for!
Dear Mr. (or Ms. or Mrs.) Tante,
You must not be familiar with Linux if you don’t already understand how updates will work. I might suggest you try installing some form of Linux onto a computer that you have now so you can get some hands-on time with Linux before you get your Pandora. Granted, the Pandora will be ARM architecture and whatever computer you have on hand will probably be x86… but a large portion of what the end user (you) will see is going to be identical.
If you’re not interested in installing a complete new operating system on one of your computers, you might try using some kind of virtualization… maybe using VirtualBox by Sun Microsystems. Then you could download some .iso files for Debian or Ubuntu and check out how Linux works by running it on a virtual machine. Granted, you could use any Linux distribution of your choice… but I would personally recommend you start with some Debian-based distro.
You will then see how such things as PACKAGE MANAGERS work… it’s this amazing thing that most (all?) Linux distributions use that really shames the way windows or mac os handle their updates. You will then be cured of the plague that is windows, and happy that you now know about how a superior operating system handles updating itself. You will then realize that the Pandora is ALSO gonna be running this superior system that was, strangely, named LINUX.
Also, if you’re so unfamiliar with Linux that you REALLY had to ask how updates will be handled, you might just want to avoid that link that Gruso posted above as everything contained in that thread would probably go over your head. Try going here instead: http://www.linux.org/lessons/beginner/index.html
I’m sorry if I come of condescending here, but seriously… you’re buying the world’s most powerful LINUX-based hand held gaming console and you DON’T know how it’s going to handle updates??!!?!?!! WHAAA??!?!?
Probably Tante means an automated Software update system from the Pandora developers. (Dedicated update server) Its a good idea that will make updates easy without having to follow up the development/forums, but I find it unnecessary.
First things first, lets make the O/S workable and user friendly and then everything else
Holy crap, who snuck a snuke up your snizz this morning?
-linux user
Mr Mitosis,
One day when you have more experience with both Linux and embedded systems, you’ll realize that there are a multitude of different ways that updates can be handled on Linux systems.
In fact, perhaps one day you’ll realize that it is the very *NATURE* of Linux that different variants use different, sometimes very different, techniques to solve the same problem.
It’s a little bit worrying that you’re, presumably, purchasing what could be the most powerful Linux-based palm-top computer and still seem to think that the universe of Linux is encompassed wholly by Debian/Ubuntu.
I’n not one to say this usually, but…
Pwned!
Hey there.
First mistake you made there was assuming all Linux systems work the same way – They don’t! So no, not every system will use autmoatic updates or a package management system (but most modern ones do).
Second, your Linux bias/Windows bashing is rather unflattering for you. In what way is Linux superior to any other operating system? They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and even Linux is regularly hacked and exploited (web servers).
I like Linux too but be realistic!
Hey Mitosis, you’re kind of a condescending dick. Hope this helps.
+ 1,000,000
“but (as it is the case with many chinese companies): They do need some time to finish it off.”
As opposed to all those white-people companies where things are always done On Time and right the first time?
Why it always gots ta be a race thang?
There’s another post on the official blog, very informative and hopeful that everything is now finished and that samples will ship in next few days. Production will take 4 days for all 4000 cases for the first batch apparently, should make it before the Chinese New Year if we’re lucky. *fingers crossed, again*
4000 cases a day, assuming a 12 hour workday is 1.4 cases a minute. If there is only one mold set that is a fast production rate.
1000 a day, 4000 in 4 days, it’s on the official blog.
Math pretty good, reading comprehension needs work.
Sorry for typo, I meant 1000 a day. Math still holds, 1.4 a minute.
‘Some of their other customers are Sanyo and Toyota and they have been established 1998, so one thing we know: They are reliable’. This just about says it all for me. Maybe it will stop some people bitchin’ from now on.
Maybe Toyota is still waiting some plastic part from them
I already work with coca-cola that doesn’t mean I’m reliable at all. But I hope so…
I’d love to ask what you do for Coca-Cola but I suspect you wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me.
Let’s hope they didn’t make gas pedal components for Toyota….. You’d be amazed at how much plastic there is in a gas pedal these days….
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