negative_zero

To play devils advocate: It might just not have been possible. The only way to "repair" many devices today is put a whole new PCB in Perhaps ypur A50 was no longer stocked or made. Does your "pay any price" include 100k%USD to spin up a whe production line and its supply chain to make 1 replacement PCB for you?

Sadly, I think you are absolutely correct.

I agree this is a delayed approach. We squandered our greatest resource to fight this: our border.

We could not have rolled better starting stats to have:

1) A giant moat around us.

2) Only really four international airports (Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Queenstown).

3) All these are destination airports (as opposed to transit hubs where Singapore or Heathrow are classic examples).

I flew through Asia when SARS was in full swing and just now in February-March (just my luck) and have gone through borders where this was taken seriously earlier. NZs earlier "additional border controls" were pathetic. When I returned in mid March there was:

1) No thermal screening of passengers.

2) No health form to fill in.

3) Australian, Singapore and US!? passports were allowed to use the e-gates.

4) No additional cleaning of high risk surfaces.

5) No protective measures for the customs and border staff.

6) The only extra measure was a tiny pamphlet being handed out which essentially said: "If you feel sick, please ring healthline or a GP and tell them you have travelled."

Instead when I landed on 13th March:

1) I got a pamphlet handed to me which most passengers ignored and threw away

2) Had to touch the e-gates (which had no evidence of cleaning) that were touched by hundreds of other travellers

3) Could not wash my hands properly because soap ran out in a couple of the bathrooms

4) For extra points I could have jumped on a airport to city centre bus full of tourists from Europe (I got picked up instead).

and then they announced with a 48 hour warning that the border was shutting and then planes were packed coming in as people tried to "beat the compulsary quarantine".

The border should have been shut before the first case was detected here.

edit - additional new lines and a sentence

Oh I understand that. I was just trying to communicate that: their latest promise was to start shipping final hardware to people Q3 2019 and Bach Aspen is exactly that.

I actually give them kudos for allowing people to choose what batch they receive. I specifically did not pre-order because I don't want an early batch of hardware of any product. Had I know I would get a choice I would have pre-ordered.

I think there is an unfair amount of negativity in here and would like to offer an insiders perspective:

I have worked 11 years in product development in various roles (Hardware, Test, Production, Firmware and Mechanical often simultaneously). I can confidently tell you that this is how product development is in the real world (even amongst the big players). This schedule puri.sm publised is something you would never normally see, but I guarantee you exists for every product.

This is why, even though I am a lover of technology, I am not an early adopter. I normally buy a product when it has been on the market for 6-12 months as, in my expirience at least, you are on about revision 3-5 by then. The last minute changes for compliance are no longer done by hand, the first major issues from the field are fixed, mechanical tools are stable etc.

I know this place is majority software engineers so here's an analogy I'm sure many can relate to: How often have you shipped software to a customer that is beta? Or even alpha? Product development is no different :)