I think they've missed the boat. It was so frustrating having the limited functionality earlier. I purchased and gave approx half a dozen of these away as Xmas presents to some kids/family, not heard back anything since..
Friends give friends Arduino's : )
They're not perfect by a long shot either, but infinitely more usable even by kids.
I think that you will find that they are aimed at very different audiences however.
I suspect that like the micro:bit the codebug was primarily aimed at younger children as opposed to the makerspace. Hence the simplified child-friendly design and graphical programming environment.
What I think lets a lot of these things down is the lack of supporting educational material to go along with them at the time the launch, so as to grab the attention and to keep it. It needs to be both fun and educational. However usually the product launch is well behind schedule and by the time enough supporting material has appeared another device has already entered the market claiming to be better and offer more.
Hi Dave, You're right, and I honestly did reserve judgement to see what kids would make of the codebug, but I'm frustrated because it probably did no good to those kids - I might as well have got them a book voucher or movie tickets and it would have been a more useful xmas gift.
The microbit on the other hand truly has an aim to be child-friendly without foisting a sensorless, wireless-connectivity-less LED trinket on them as the codebug effectively is (was) without any sensible connectivity options and as you say, very little support material.
The microbit looks spectacular to be honest. The codebug I suspect (just a personal opinion) was just an attempt to make money once the creators realized it wasn't what was deemed useful for children by the consortium (I'm guessing!) and they realized they had a window of opportunity. If we think something is educational and could benefit kids we just share it - as they should have done. Schematic was released 6 months after the kickstarter, firmware is still not available, and any software or hardware developers like us who would have supported them for free if it was for a good cause were not provided with any information.
