From my experience, controlled pre-orders or flash sales are far better than unknown or vague/long time frames.:
1. Pre-orders are usually fine but my 5s experience was terrible. This was in the UK when vague order dates were given and continuously slipped.
I also queued outside my local Appke store for a week following launch (from around 5am) only to always be disappointed. When I was at the front of the queue no stock arrived; when they had stock the scalpers bought them all and sold them on in Dubai.
Other resellers had stock but refused to sell off-contract. In the end, I got 'lucky' by buying a SIM locked 5s for a tad more than Apple's price before jumping through hoops to get it unlocked. It took a week and 15GBP. Never again will I sell my phone in advance!
Combined it was the worst product launch I can recall for a while.
2. Buying a sought after device in China. Yes, believe it or not, my Huawei Mediapad X1 was difficult to acquire. But fair. Basically Huawei announced it then produced limited batches to launch. Each time there was a flash sale (usually promoted on their and other websites).
Procedure was: register account, wait for advertised time and date, place an order (max one per customer account), wait 30 minutes to get confirmation, then pay, then receive phone 3 days later. Advantage with this way was that it was open to everyone and once the order limit had reached, the buy button on the website was removed. If I hadn't been successful at least I would have known within half an hour. It's still open to scalpers but is straight-forward and clear.
As for OPO and the smash your phone deception. I'm with others who think this is a change of plan after the backlash from their original idea. Imagine if they'd gone with the donate idea from the start - it would have generated much positive publicity instead of the firestorm their marketing people concocted.
1. Pre-orders are usually fine but my 5s experience was terrible. This was in the UK when vague order dates were given and continuously slipped.
I also queued outside my local Appke store for a week following launch (from around 5am) only to always be disappointed. When I was at the front of the queue no stock arrived; when they had stock the scalpers bought them all and sold them on in Dubai.
Other resellers had stock but refused to sell off-contract. In the end, I got 'lucky' by buying a SIM locked 5s for a tad more than Apple's price before jumping through hoops to get it unlocked. It took a week and 15GBP. Never again will I sell my phone in advance!
Combined it was the worst product launch I can recall for a while.
2. Buying a sought after device in China. Yes, believe it or not, my Huawei Mediapad X1 was difficult to acquire. But fair. Basically Huawei announced it then produced limited batches to launch. Each time there was a flash sale (usually promoted on their and other websites).
Procedure was: register account, wait for advertised time and date, place an order (max one per customer account), wait 30 minutes to get confirmation, then pay, then receive phone 3 days later. Advantage with this way was that it was open to everyone and once the order limit had reached, the buy button on the website was removed. If I hadn't been successful at least I would have known within half an hour. It's still open to scalpers but is straight-forward and clear.
As for OPO and the smash your phone deception. I'm with others who think this is a change of plan after the backlash from their original idea. Imagine if they'd gone with the donate idea from the start - it would have generated much positive publicity instead of the firestorm their marketing people concocted.
should have read are usually never accurate 
