I too feel that the bad communication regarding the SDK was very poor form. They could've just said, "Hey, sorry for the delay, but we're working hard on bringing the SDK to you. Here's what's going on with it.". Instead, they went totally radio silent, leading to speculations that they're in talks with Apple to be acquired.
When you're a small company, and have springboarded from a platform like Kickstarter, I would've thought that your best advocates are the early adopters who backed you and helped you bring this wonderful product to life. They will live though the rough edges and evangelize to no end if they feel that the company has their interests as customers/developers at heart. Instead if you go to the forums, you feel like the majority feel like they were betrayed. I guess if they were trying to emulate Apple in their communication approach, it backfired on them completely.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper...