OnePlus One Android phone
Well that went well… OnePlus’ “historic” pre-order process for the coveted OnePlus One Android phone was a disaster for many would-be buyers earlier this week, with the company forced into a lengthy, revealing apology today.
Well that went well… OnePlus’ “historic” pre-order process for the coveted OnePlus One Android phone was a disaster for many would-be buyers earlier this week, with the company forced into a lengthy, revealing apology today.
OnePlus first announced the phone in April this year and promised a device that would be just as capable as other mass-produced flagship Android phones on the market but at half the price: US$299 (€233) for the 16GB version and US$349 (€272) for the 64GB version.
The attention and interest garnered by the device spec, price and the pre-order process sent a surge of customers OnePlus’ way and, given the fact that the pre-order period was just one hour long, exacerbating the issue somewhat, it caused mayhem for OnePlus and its customers.
“Friends,” the company boldly went with as an opening to its apology, “last night was certainly a long one at OnePlus HQ.” After stating that OnePlus is “thrilled” that successful customers will soon receive their phones, the statement quickly and openly explained the no-doubt infuriating issues that non-successful customers had to deal with. “This is certainly not how we wanted to kick off our first ever pre-order and we are exceptionally sorry for the inconvenience caused to so many users.”
OnePlus claimed it’s fully aware that the whole pre-order process was unacceptable. Despite more than doubling its server capacity ahead of the pre-order window, traffic was such that it just wasn’t enough. “As more people signed on, the backlog of connections piled up and created a bad experience for many visitors trying to access the site,” read the statement. “This left far too many users frustrated, disappointed and order-less. We have spent the past 24 hours identifying the weak points that led to this and mapping out a strategy to address them.”
But good news, OnePlus’ remaining “friends”, on 17 November the company will try again, opening another pre-order window to ensure that anyone who was unsuccessful can still order the OnePlus One if they wish. In the meantime the company is sorting out some issues, adding some servers, and no doubt crossing some fingers.
