Checking out the OnePlus One

well, I can see why Google would not want to have a large backlog of orders and people waiting on a backorder a long time, only to be charged months later.

As for not meeting the demand.

First it's hard to predict the demand ahead of time. Secondly, some parts have long lead time, so when the demand ramps up it may take 4-6 months before they can actually make a significant change to the production rate.

We saw the same thing with the Raspberry Pi, the Beagle Bone Black, and commonly see it with other devices that end up being very popular.

What some manufacturers do is to run the production line for a while before they announce and ship the product so that they have a larger stock on hand to handle the initial demand. This may make people feel better, but it actually delays getting the product into the hands of people (think, 30K devices in Jan or 10K devices each Nov, Dec, Jan)