I woke up at 3AM AEST, when preorders were supposed to go live.

Hit a 502 bad gateway page, which disappeared after refreshing 3 or 5 times.

Put a playdate & cover into my cart, joined the queue -- which let me in to pay a bit under two minutes in.

Tried to check out, was told they didn't ship to Australia: Already knew that was wrong, because their FAQ said they did.

Refreshed, couldn't check out. Refreshed, couldn't check out. Tried the Apple Pay option that appeared for the first time on my third attempt, got "Try Again!"

Eventually, after removing the cover and frantically smashing refresh a few more times, I got my order through for the "late 2021 batch".

Not exactly a lovely experience, but it feels like Panic did what they could.

i preordered 2x of them but don't really need the 2nd. figured someone i know would want the other

ping me at [email protected] and we can figure out logistics

seems like a really long lead time to get 20K devices manufactured, but I'm not in the hardware world. Is this normal?

Covid and chip shortages prob

They talk about this in their podcast. Malaysia has its own pandemic, and has had to slow the manufacturing down at times.

The Malaysian relationship is thanks to TE though, but that relationship can't make Magic happen

https://podcast.panic.com/#episode006

Yeah, and I bet it’s even harder if you’re a new player to the space without established relationships.

Playdate's a collab with Teenage Engineering, who should at least be able to grease a few wheels for Panic.

Their stuff is so cute. Love that there's such a forward thinking engineering shop still out there, even if most of their stuff isn't for me.

It's long to get 20k devices manufactured, but it's definitely normal for getting the first 20k devices manufactured.