Leap Motion has presented a very intriguing device and made a great marketing of it.

I’ve tried in the past a number of relatively unusual pointing devices (the white and blue original Logitech trackman, the trackman wheel, a Wacom Bamboo, a 3DConnexion serial 3D mouse and a serial SpaceBall 3003) and so far I settled with the trackman as the device that serves me the better way.
But Leap Motion device really looks great so I decide to preorder it.
$97.68 on January 10, 2013

Then I’ve sent it in the back of brain where things get forgotten.
On March 5th I get a remainder of the fact that I have this preorder ongoing and that it will begin shipping on May 13th: some fuel to restart the excitement.

The excitement goes down big time a month and a half later, April 25th: shipping target date is delayed by over 3 months.
From May 13th to July 22nd.
Leap Motion’s email states “We’ve manufactured over six hundred thousand devices and delivered twelve thousand to amazing developers”
“The reality is we very likely could have hit the original ship date. But it wouldn’t have left time for comprehensive testing”
“We will also invite some people who are not developers to join the beta test”

But there it is hope.
I’m told that I can write to them.
Even better: to Michael Buckwald directly.
“If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact our support team at support@leapmotion.com or my personal email (buckwald@leapmotion.com).”

So I went that route a couple of day later: after two weeks no answer, but a new generic email of update sent to all the people.
I should have read better the email and Leap Motion should have written it more carefully because the expectation generated is that someone will actually answer the email that was elicited.
This is a bad way of managing the customer relation.

At the end of the day what I read is that they are sitting on a pile of over half a million devices that supposedly work fine and that they are not giving to the people who preordered.
In the meanwhile they are getting “great apps coming to Airspace”.

Looks like sometime in the future instead of simply a great new pointing device I’ll get a software ecosystem to get me entangled.
Not what I wanted.
Maybe I’m better canceling the preorder and get a proven device like the Spacenavigator?