My CHIP still not delivered. They re-scheduled 3 times the delivery. The last was 3 Oct. Today I received the "happy" news this will be shipped at the beginning of Nov. The initial shipment was June when I ordered in March.
The rule of thumb seems to be if they did a kickstarter, don't touch the company in any way till there's proof that a significant % of the backers actually have the product in their hands.
If you're interested in activity from users, https://bbs.nextthing.co/ is the place to go.
I did a presso at a Scala conference back in February about using Scala on Chip, you can view the deck here:
I was an early order of TextBlade too, cancelled after waiting a year for a device that was supposed to be in production and ready to ship. I got tired of letting people hold my money who wouldn't tell me the truth. The TextBlade forum is now being purged of anybody who complains; having originally created a "Rants" section, ranting is no loner allowed. For uncensored information, go to the TextBlade Reddit.
The TextBade mobile app, required for firmware updates and adavanced keyboard mapping has been in the iOS app store since last December (it's needed to be a beta user). Only mock-ups (at best; the video could well be fake) of the Android app have been shown; previously WayTools said they would not begin development on Android until after they started shipping product. They basic attitude has been that they don't give a crap about Android users but like their money.
Checking your Scala on Chip deck, I'm pretty deep down the Scala rabbit hole since a couple of months ago.
That said, I have my PocketCHIP. It is a great little Linux box, the perfect thing to .. indeed .. stick a pencil in, ssh into, and use .. well, like .. any other Linux workstation .. like, omfg, could this actually BE a decent Linux desktop? Answer, immfo, is this: YES! Worth the wait!
If you can use it do to some serious work like porting stuff to it, I'd at least lend it to you. Send me an mail (in profile), I'm in Europe.