I’ve always kept watch on a variety of Kickstarter projects.  I tend to watch and see what, if any, projects are interesting.  If I find something interesting then its time to do some research and see just how feasible the end result of the project might be.  Doing the research I what has caused me to hesitate when it comes to funding most hardware and software projects.  There’s a lot of variables that can go wrong.  In fact, the only Kickstarter projects I have personally backed have been comic related.  But that’s a subject for another time.

One project that has garnered a lot of attention was the POP portable charger by a company called Edison Jr.  This project was designed to provide portable charging for a variety of iOS products.  When the Kickstarter project closed out it had raised close to $140,000 dollars.  That’s pretty impressive and goes to show that a lot of people found the project promising and were hoping to pick up a POP of their own.

Here’s the catch though, this project was funded and closed out just about the same time the Lightning connector was announced for the iPhone 5.  The POP was originally designed for use with the older 30-pin connector.  The company planned to move forward with an adapter that would function with the new iPhone/iPad that had the Lightning connector.  The problem is that the company’s adapter did not meet Apple’s new requirements for using the Lightning connector.

It was announced that the successfully funded project would have to be closed down and Edison Jr was left in the position of trying to figure out how to refund money back to the investors.  That sounds easy at first until you realize that Kickstarter takes about 5% of the money raised and there is a 3% credit card fee associated with each transaction.  Edison Jr. reached out to Kickstarter to see if they would be willing to refund their 5% cut, but the company was going to have to pay the 3% credit card fees out of pocket.  The refund process was going to be problematic to say the least, as Kickstarter is not equipped to handle refunding since their business model is setup around only collecting funds if a Kickstarter project meets its funding requirements.

But, here is where things take a turn for the better.  James Siminoff of Edison Jr posted an update regarding the project on its Kickstarter page yesterday:

As you know on Thursday we sent you an update that because of Apple’s rules around Lightning we would be canceling POP. The story got A LOT of news and reactions, way more than we could have ever imagined. In fact it became such big news that 24 hours after we posted Apple changed their guidelines for Lightning.

It was an incredible turn of events for us. We never could have imagined that we would be able to change Apple’s rules.

Based on Apple’s change we can make POP the way we had promised and the project is back on. We will not be processing refunds and are going full speed ahead to produce and deliver the product to you ASAP.

We hope to do another update in the next 7-10 days to give you a new estimated delivery date.

Happy Holidays and thank you to everyone that has stood by us and helped us through this process. We are thrilled to finally be able to bring this great product to you.

Jamie

How cool is that, Apple backed down from their usual closed off stance when it comes to 3rd party hardware. I really doubt we will ever see this with a software project but its good to see Apple change their mind.

However, there is a lesson to be learned here.  Regardless of how sound a Kickstarter project looks and no matter how well your research turns out there is still a chance the project will not happen or fail.  When that happens you will not receive a refund nor should you expect to.  When you fund a Kickstarter project you are acting as an angel investor and there is not guarantee of success.  Just keep that in mind when you are deciding whether to support a Kickstarter project.