Jolla does have enough time to communicate to us the broad shipping status. Their decision to not tell anything specific is not restrained by time, that much is clear - because then they wouldn't have time for any of the PR messages they send out.

In reality, better communications is a decision from them. Nothing more. It would take mere minutes once every or every other day by one Jolla employee. One. Jolla has decided not to report specifics. It is a choice, not time restraint.

I repeat my suggestion to Jolla's Twitter, how would the response been if these kinds of single daily tweets would have come - already from the moment they were starting to face issues:

Monday: 55% of all pre-orders are now out!
Tuesday: Hit 70% today, making up for lost time! Yay!
Wednesday: 90%, the homerun is opening!
Thursday: All Jolla pre-orders have been mailed! Happy Holidays to all the sailors!

In reality, time needed mere minutes for a quick check with the shipping people and formulating a upbeat but informative tweet each day, or every other day if better.

Or some other communications solution similar to this. This is definitely not the only realistic idea that would have kept the community in the loop and helped goodwill/understanding and overall the wait.