OnePlus sought to drastically disrupt the smartphone market with their OnePlus One, a super high end smart phone at half the price of its competitors. While the device has won over many users, the company has had some minor (and sometimes major) setbacks. The most notable critique that the up and coming company has faced is their less than ideal invite purchase system. While this system did help build some hype initially, the fact that it was the ONLY option for so long left many hopeful customers with feelings of frustration and in some cases, rage. Well the terrible invite system may soon be coming to an end if a recent OnePlus AMA is to be believed.
David and Carl from OnePlus recently took to Reddit to host the AMA and as you may have guessed, there were a good handful of questions about purchasing. Here’s the response as to when they may be doing away with the invite system:
“We are working on a pre-orders system, we were initially aiming for September but it’s been slightly delayed, hopefully we’ll be ready to launch it in October.”
While it’s definitely encouraging to hear that the invite system may be coming to an end, there are a couple of problems that I can see. For one, they’re only “hopeful” that they’ll be ready to go in October, not certain. Secondly, by the time the purchase system is up and running like a well oiled machine, this phone will have a lot of new competition from the big guns (and maybe some small guys too!) as IFA will undoubtedly bring us a slew of new stuff.
OnePlus sought to disrupt the market but so far they’ve only changed things for a lucky few. I’ve personally been quite impressed with their phone and really hope that OnePlus will continue to push forward, learning from some of these missteps.
[Reddit]