In that case, tell us that. Nobody has said “Sorry, we didn’t know about this issue until today.”
Again, it’s just really ambiguous. You’re right, it is about trust, and that is running a little thin at the moment.
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The question was directly asked over one week ago, too bad ignored:
mauc
7d
Will the back cover type (color) have an impact to the delivery order?
joe:
Small update on the blog that the first (black matte) back covers are packed and ready to be shipped soon: https://www.fairphone.com/2015/12/10/fairphone-2-production-delivery-countdown/
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Good spot. Backs up my claim about too many questions being ignored.
i followed this discussion with a little uncomfortableness. Wouldnt it be very simple for Fairphone to solve the discrepancy by delivering all FP2 with black backcovers in the sequence of incoming orders, independent what colour was ordered. The originally ordered coloured backcover can be delivered upon availability. By doing so your customers of the first hour are very happy to receive there phones first. The additional costs are not excessive but will pay off in the higher satisfaction of your prime crowdfunder customers and that should be seriously important for you…
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I prefer waiting a few days longer for the phone with the chosen backcover (blue translucent in my case). No problem. And I wouldn’t want a second backcover that I do not need.
I’m still looking forward to my new phone. A few days (or weeks) sooner or later doesn’t matter.
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Remember that the forum is a place for the community and not intended for official Fairphone Team responses. You cannot expect a Fairphone Team member to read all posts in search for questions they could possibly answer. For this kind of requests we have support tickets.
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I really hope that was not the reason to buy it in the first place. You are an early adopter, i personally think hiccups like this are to be expected. It’s ok to let some steam of by complaining in the forums, and i think they got the message. But please do not forget the Fair in Fairphone is not first and foremost about you but the people involved in building the phone and mining the minerals.
You also financed the production of the product. And think that was really great of you! But you knew, when buying, that the product was not lying around in a storage center ready to be delivered, but that they are still designing, testing, figuring things out. Now they made a mistake with the backcovers – which could have communicated earlier, possibly, but still only leads to a slight delay compared to the months the phone was in the making. I think this is a bit overreacting. I can understand this, especially as your phone might be a christmas present, but keep in mind why you bought a Fairphone, that you are supporting a pretty unique project.
Very good example, things like this what happen everyday. At the restaurant, when your order is not yet ready, they do not let the other tables wait just because of that. If you are at the bakery, order a type of bread currently in the oven, they ask you to step aside and wait until it’s ready, because else, everybody else would need to wait to. Thinks like this happen.
Until they gathered real data in the running process, which can obviously only happen now, all they could share would be assumptions. I am pretty sure they have these assumptions, but i think it is easy to see why they are not sharing them. And that is a good thing! They should only share them when they gathered enough data to support their hypothesises – else we are all here again in a few days or weeks, angry and frustrated, because smartphone production is a complex thing and assumptions can easily be wrong.
In fact, Fairphone is a professional company. If they were not, they were unable to produce a single phone. Planning is planning. It’s, like somebody else said, only on paper, until you get real data. And that can only happen in the process of production, which means now. And even then, unexpected delays can happen, always and everywhere!
Why do you not notice them with Samsung or Apple? Because when they start selling a product, they already of millions of products out there in storehouses and stores around the world. Only then, they start public selling. Such delays are normally simple invisible to you.
And then you throw all these backcovers away? Hardly sustainable. And the additional shipping is not really environmental friendly. Sorry, that just does not seem as a good solution! Also: Fairphone is not Apple: How should they pay for all of this?
In fact, that is true! They are only a limited amount of people.
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Yes, I knew that. And I also know that is very common for companies to promise things they cannot keep to sell more and faster. I had hoped that this was not the case with Fairphone, but apparently I was wrong.
You seem to forget that this thread was opened by Fairphone with the promise of more information in this thread.
It is a clever strategy in any social media context to have your community defend you and it usually works extremely well - as also seen quite often in this post. What I find troublesome is that people keep appealing to the values of the product to explain any mistake they make. “It is ok for Fairphone to do this and that because it is a good cause”. It is a good cause but it only works with supporters, investors (which we are) and a community and the communication strategy and poor planning are not a good way to keep those happy.
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I strongly doubt that Fairphone deliberately promised things they knew they couldn’t keep, just to sell their product ‘faster’ or ‘more’ of it. The production of a smartphone is incredibly complex and this is the first phone they are building completely from scratch. Everything they published so far sounds like they’re doing their best to keep all the promises made regarding product specifications, product quality and especially the sourcing and production. The only problem is a slight delay of delivery. And I cannot believe that the whole thing is a scam and they just buggered off with our money. You mustn’t forget that the people at Fairphone are not veterans that have been in the smartphone business for the last decades and have a lot of experience. If you really feel that the trust is broken, just because of a late delivery, then you can always ask your money back and should maybe consider to stay away from products that are not ready to ship at the time of purchase.
I think that they are brilliant regarding communication. I have barely seen many companies that actually communicate as transparent and frequent as Fairphone. They are not a big company and strongly limited in manpower, yet they hired @Douwe and in the middle of the busiest time for the company, promised to give updates three times per week! I am certainly not defending them for every mistake they make because I just believe in the good cause this project stands for, but also because I acknowledge the complexity of the process and allow them to not have the know-how of an industry veteran such as Apple or Samsung. Their blog updates are fairly frequent and give me just enough information to know that they’re on it and that they’re not just having a good time in Amsterdam partying at the office and wasting their time. They also give an insight on their production process and thinking process and I still place a fair production before a ‘fair’ delivery. Otherwise I could’ve gotten myself a ‘better’ Samsung for the money.
And by the way, we as customers are not really investors, but supporters of the Fairphone project. Fairphone stated several times that they are crowdfunding in order to not be dependent on investors and that there is no threat that they’ll have to sacrifice any of their ideals or goals. Crowdfunding is fundamentally different from investing and I appreciate that Fairphone is concentrating on delivering a high-quality product keeping their promises regarding the production and not keeping us updated on every detail every five minutes with too many assumptions.
All in all I think that tensions are rising because everyone’s getting impatient. And yes me too. I really cannot wait to hold my new phone very soon now. However, I wouldn’t want to sacrifice the quality nor the social component of production, just to hold my phone only a few days earlier! In a couple of years, when I hopefully am still happy with my FP2, this tiny hiccup will be forgotten, but Fairphone will have learned for their FP3 and FP4! 
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It’s not Fairphone strategy that we are defending them. You are here in a community forum and if you post in a community discuss forum, you might expect responses that do not agree with your statement. This is because we are a diverse community with different views. It’s simply that I personally find your statements over the top, and that is what I said. Nothing more or less.
Frankly, we are not investors. We bought a product. Yes, to be precise, we preordered a product, but we are able to cancel our order and get our money back and even send the device back during the first 14 days and still get the money back. We might be crowd-funders, but we are not investors! @leVin42 said that already, but I had to repeat that here.
Exactly. This is what I say to people interested in FP2: You can preorder that now, but if you really need the device NOW or are not sure, wait until more reviews are in the devices are actually in stock. Then you can assume and expect a delivery without delays.
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You are right!
Still they did not promise to answer each and every question. On a more serious note: I see @Douwe liking some posts above and it seems that he indeed is reading all/most posts here. So your words are definitely not unheard, they are just not responded to immediately. Don’t worry, tomorrow there will be a new update. If not here, then in the blog.
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Hey all!
We are reading (most of) the forum, but it is indeed impossible to read all of it. And even if we see your question, it is not always easy or even possible to get an answer from someone else here in the company. But that doesn’t mean we are not trying 
Today we are going to ship the first phones (woohooo!) and I will go to the south of Holland together with @Beth_Russell to film the first shipment, live!
I was trying to find a good way to embed live video streaming into the website, but Persiscope, Meerkat and Rhinobird.tv does not seem to allow embedding.
So I made an account here: https://www.periscope.tv/fairphone
You can watch the streams after the event at: https://katch.me/Fairphone
And if you want to watch live, but do not want to install Persiscope, you can check this website and search for Fairphone: http://onperiscope.com/
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Hi !
I have ordered two FP2, but not in the same time, and not with the same back cover. Will you send me both toghter or not ?
I hope that today or at least Wednesday we have some information about how many Fairphones will be shipped before the end of the year, and in general the shipment schedule. And when my transparent back cover 6620’s Fairphone 2 will be delivered to me; I expect around mid January but I hope first.
If you need an official answer, it’s best to contact support directly (here). Personally, I would guess this from what you paid for your order - if you paid for shipping twice, then they’ll probably come separately. If you’ve paid a single shipping fee, then they’ll probably arrive together.
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This is from another thread, but I thought it was appropriate to mention here because of the discussion above.
I really appreciated this response from @anon90052001 on the blobs licence thread. No new information, but acknowledgement of the question and reassurance that someone is trying to find an answer. Thanks joe 
Fairphone tweeted an update with a live video of the packing of the first phone!
*edit: alas I get nothing but stuttering images and sounds on Windows 7 with Firefox and NoScript blocking all peripherals.
Posts can’t be empty.
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What a great counter! 
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