Given Karel's latest statements in the iRex forum.

I want to point out to everyone here that under European law there is a good chance that iRex has acted illegally if they are unable to matchthe promises laid out in their technical specifications.

Specifically:

The technical specifications of the iLiad at the time I purchased my iLiad were >21 hours batterylife. (To use their words: The operating time of the rechargable battery is more than a week without recharging) Which is currently nowhere near correct. And according to Karel the new 2007 model will require a larger battery to even get 15 hours.

European law dictates that is is against the law to give misleading advertisements for goods or services.

For people in the UK you will want to discuss this matter with the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) who deal with UK breaches of this law and are part of the European Advertising Standards Alliance and can refer cases to them where a dispute crosses national boundaries.

For those outside the UK but within Europe (or Canada, Australia, Newzealand or Brazil who are also members of the EASA) you should contact you body who deals with your country first:

Links:

EASA:
http://www.easa-alliance.org/

EASA members:
http://www.easa-alliance.org/about_easa/en/easa_members.html

UK ASA:
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/

The Dutch Advertising Code:
http://www.reclamecode.nl/bijlagen/dutch_advertising_code.pdf

The iLiad Product Specs & eFlyBook factsheet:

I think I have some small inkling of the frustration you're looking at, certainly I've seen enough of the discussion that I ought to have at least an idea, but before anyone actually starts down this path, perhaps a moment to consider where it might end up is in order.

Best case scenario, it'd take up a lot of time, effort, and other resources that wouldn't get put toward further work on the iLiad, delaying its future development.

However, I suspect that the most likely place it would end up (considering the start-up/spin-off that iRex presently is) would be with iRex shutting down due to legal deadweight and/or judgments against them. Which would leave the iLiad still no closer to where it was supposed to be in the first place, and absolutely no prospect of it getting any further at all, let alone all the way there.

I'm not necessarily trying to dissuade you, nor to downplay what I agree is a genuine grievance. And I know it's easy for me to sit here with my Sony Reader next to me and be all detached and clinical about the matter, but that's genuinely not what I'm meaning to do. I just think that the point ought to be considered before this gets too far along. :shrug:

Your best case scenario:

Karel has already stated that there is a new version of the iLiad due for release in q2 (That's any time now). The ER0100 is essentially dead.

How many companies continue development for a redundant product?

Frankly while I see your point. I have this irrational objection to being lied to. Which as far as I can see from Karel's statement is exactly what iRex have done.

Would I rather see iRex fold than continue development? Of course not. But they should take responsibility for their actions. They still havn't had the decency to tell us this via official channels, it's been a throwaway comment in a discussion about their website.

Oh and btw, lets not forget that the specs for the eflybook also have the same more than 3 hours a day statement. Have iRex told their only B2B customer that they can't actually match the specs they have been selling their product on?

Your best case scenario:

Karel has already stated that there is a new version of the iLiad due for release. The ER0100 is essentially dead.

How many companies continue development for a redundant product?

Frankly while I see your point. I have this irrational objection to being lied to. Which as far as I can see from Karel's statement is exactly what iRex have done.

Would I rather see iRex fold than continue development? Of course not. But they should take responsibility for their actions. They still havn't had the decency to tell us this via official channels, it's been a throwaway comment in a discussion about their website.

Oh and btw, lets not forget that the specs for the eflybook also have the same more than 3 hours a day statement.

I would just call for a refund stating exactly your reason, being lied to is one of the most grevious errors a company can make. Especially in this age of the internet soapbox. A company's PR value can go down in flames from the cry of "I got screwed and so did you!"

Vash

I find that being able to quote the relevant laws/standards helps when arguing for a refund. I fully intend to speak to iRex tomorrow morning. But I feel it only fair to share the fruit of my investigations now so others will have it at their fingertips when doing the same.

You're right, I s'pose I was subconsciously lumping the dev on the '07 model' in with the '06' one. :sad:

I don't disagree with your estimation of what's happened, Riocaz, I just thought it ought to be pointed out that this could be a very effective way to destroy iRex's viability as a company sometime before it got to that point, that's all. :shrug:

I would care more if they held their hands up and said "we were wrong" but they haven't.

Who cares about the battery life ... do you really read over 10 hours without any power connection?

Fair enough, Riocaz. I think I've accomplished what I meant to. :nice:

Frankly, if they don't ... adjust their attitude (shall we say?) on this sort of thing, the company's days are probably numbered regardless. :shrug:

They may have been thinking of a "work week," i.e. 5 days x3 hours per day, rather than a 7 day week. In that case if they can get the unit to work for 15 hours, they may have a defense. Possibly they could offer a settlement of the rumored higher capacity battery free of charge for all current owners, if that actually reaches their goal.

It's really a shame they didn't figure out they would need a suspend/resume mode before releasing the first model. I still can't figure out how they missed that. If that feature is one of the things in the "2007 model," they should probably offer a low-cost or no-cost swap for old units. It would generate a lot of good will.

I find that being able to quote the relevant laws/standards helps when arguing for a refund. I fully intend to speak to iRex tomorrow morning. But I feel it only fair to share the fruit of my investigations now so others will have it at their fingertips when doing the same.
Cool, please do that and keep us informed!

Btw, how is it that nobody here is a lawyer, or a lawyer's {brother|sister|mother|friend|landlord|babysitter} ? All I have is two relatives studying law, and neither was sure which law applies here.

Before we start screaming laws at iRex, I think us disappointed customers should agree on what we want. I don't want a refund -- I still want to keep my iLiad.

If we can reach an agreement with iRex that gives us a really substantial rebate on the next model, I would be happy with that. Swapping the old one for the new one would be my best case.

In fact my major fear is that support for the old product is discontinued.

Cool, please do that and keep us informed!

Btw, how is it that nobody here is a lawyer, or a lawyer's {brother|sister|mother|friend|landlord|babysitter} ? All I have is two relatives studying law, and neither was sure which law applies here.
I have lawyer friends, but this is highly specialized and probably not something they know. In fact I find that asking lawyer friends non-generic questions usually leads me nowhere -- they always have to check up on the laws, and that is usually too much of a hassle unless it is important.

Who cares about the battery life ... do you really read over 10 hours without any power connection?

No I admit that I don't because I know the iLiad currently has this limitation. But the point is that one of the reasons I brought the iLiad was that it was reported to have enough battery life to go an entire work week, and a weekend without me needing to recharge it.

As I am forgetful this is a very good thing.

Others wanted the iLiad for work and need it to last their work-day (+ travel) which can easily be more than 10 hours (Hell it is for me now, and I don't use the iLiad for work yet. But wish to do so in the future for reference works).

in my opinion there are only two options for irex (in case they release a new hardware before the 'old' device works as advertised):

a) a full refund for iliad 1.0 user on return of the device
or
b) a free exchange of the 'old' iliad for the new model

this case will be a field day for any lawyer (my brother is a lawyer and he looked into this).

what do we have:

a) a device that should have been a fully functional 'consumer device' by september 2006 - they didn't keep that promise
b) a device that doesn't have one single spec that works as advertised in early 2006

i know that some guys over at engadget.com are following the development of the iliad very closely. if there really will be a 'v1.1' or 'v2.0' of the iliad with revised hardware (i'm almost certain that besides the new battery, they will include a 'suspend to whatever' with the new hardware for increased startup times and maybe a faster processor), they won't be very happy, since they have one or two iliads in the office and really like it. that will be bad publicity that irex doesn't need at this point.

but due to their complete lack of communication skills, i doubt that we will here from irex about the future of our 'old' iliads. i mean they promised to post some kind of roadmap for the software like 5 weeks ago. has anybody seen that?

i'm pissed, i'm unforgiving and i have a lawyer for a brother :veryangry
i will wait for an official announcement from irex reg. new hardware and then i will demand one of the options from the top of my post or i will go after them.

now i will have a tea and try not to go on a killing spree :huh:

this case will be a field day for any lawyer (my brother is a lawyer and he looked into this).

Yeah... Lets all litigate and waste more of Irex's time...

TBH I've basically given up. Not on the Iliad or on Irex but on mobileread.com. When I first posted on this forum everyone wanted e-books to succeed and its was a brave new world. Now it just seems to be few nasty characters who just want to see them fail... I've been trying to keep positive, but its got to the point were every topic on the Iliad seems to be harp endlessly on a few problems of the device.

Lets forget that Irex were the first to market a device to consumers (even if they didn't originally want to...). Lets just whine at some minor issues repeatedly...!

Personally I think the Iliad is a ground-breaking device and I'm 100% satisfied with it as it is... I also think the 2007 device sounds a good replacement...

But... No more posts for me on this forum...! I've got better things to do than hang around doom + gloom merchants...! :D

Just been over at the iRex website, and my post there agrees with a lot of comments here.
I don't want to see iRex going under as a company, or disappearing under a pile of steaming bad publicity. They do have a legal case to answer though, and the best thing for them to do to head that off would be to give existing owners a *very* good upgrade deal.

BTW, I really really hope they have taken on board everyone's wish for suspend mode in designing the new hardware...
How about charging via USB too? They missed an open goal on that one.

Jaed, I appreciate your positive comments around here, it gives a bit of much-needed balance. So don't go!

But really, if you look at things fairly from both sides, there are reasons for complaint. The iLiad is a very expensive device, and people have invested a lot of money buying it on the basis of specifications given by iRex.

It's not fair that iRex should promise XY and Z then only deliver X. The device specifications just aren't correct, and that is not fair. It's not really relevant if you are 100% happy with it as it is. That isn't the issue.

Anyway let's keep this discussion reasonable... I get tired of all the iRex bashing that goes on around here too.

jæd:

I never advocated litigating. I suggested contacting your local member of the EASA. iRex don't seem to understand that they are operating illegally. Contacting advertising standards is the correct procedure in this matter as it indicates (without litigation) to iRex that they have a number of customer who are aware of proper process and are unhappy at being treated in this manner.

I will also point out that the new website states specifically reading and writing, whereas the old techspecs were purely reading. Writing on the iLiad uses power. So this may be the difference.

To comment on your other statements:

I've been trying to keep positive, but its got to the point were every topic on the Iliad seems to be harp endlessly on a few problems of the device.

Few problems?

We have 1 working format (PDF).

We have several formats which simply don't work in a usable manner. We have other things which simply don't exist.

We have just over 50% of the stated batterylife.

You might call these a few problems I feel differently.


Personally I think the Iliad is a ground-breaking device and I'm 100% satisfied with it as it is... I also think the 2007 device sounds a good replacement...


No arguement that the iLiad is groundbreaking. It's very good at what it does. And I have no issue with that. I have an issue with the fact that wahat is does is less than a half (IMO) of what it should do according to the specifications given when they started selling it. However had the specifications stated it would do what it does now,and nothing more. I probably would still have bought it.

I'm very glad you feel you have enough money to spare replace your iLiad within a year of the original. You obviously have more disposable income for me good on you.

Onto other people's comments:

As for the people that said they may have meant a work week.

A week is 7 days. If they diddn't mean 7 days then that is their fault for not being clear. They have had since September to correct this mis-understanding and despite posting on here and their forum they havn't done so.

Even so, the new iLiad needs a larger battery to get to 15 hours. How does this bode for the existing ones? Yes we apparently will have the option of a battery upgrade. But from the way it's been worded implies this will not give us what we were told it would.

Lastly can an admin type please change the name of this thread?

I originally wrote it when rather annoyed (and my original message was completely different). As we are unable to remove our own postings I tried to change the thread title to "iRex - Misleading advertising" but it didn't change the thread itself just the first message.

Yeah... Lets all litigate and waste more of Irex's time...
Boy, let's settle this. You are repeating the argument how happy you are with your Iliad, and how sufficient it is for you, as if Irex was your little sister that you have to defend and protect under all circumstances.

Are you able to take an abstract point of view? Say, something is advertised to have features X and Y, but in reality only has X. Now XFæn (who just loves everything X) and YBoy (more on the Y side he is) each buy one, and YBoy finds the device is unusable. Manufacturer claims it will add Y some time, but never does, and YBoy gets angry. Now XFæn comes along "Hey, it does X, everything I want, wow, wow, stop whining!" You think that's useful? Could it be XFæn thinks his own needs must be enough for everyone else?

No abstract point of view? More concrete? NP:

What if product is a car, and the specs say "over 210 horsepowers", but it has less than 150. Now YBoy might be driving in races and needs that power, but XFæn comes along "Hey, the trunk is large enough so I can go shopping with it!"

What if product is an embedded device, and the specs say "MP3 player", but there is none? YBoy might have been looking for an MP3 player, and bought an Iliad over an iPod, because the Iliad has the bonus feature "e-Reader". What should XFæn say?

What if product is an eBook, and the specs say "e-Ink", but there's just a black-and-white-LCD with backlight? YBoy might have bought it because eInk is better for the eyes and gets angry. But XFæn comes along "Hey, LCD is sufficient for me, I don't read in sunlight anyways, stop your complaints."


Can you really say that your point is more than "What's sufficient for me must also be sufficient for everybody else"?

OK everybody...this is it then. Things have finally come to a breaking point.

The next move iRex makes will make the difference between life and death I guess...but perhaps this point in time is already over...who knows.

I can sit here, pretty relaxed, and read these postings. It still hurts to see that I really have wasted a lot of money for a device that is barely adequate as a backup reading solution (my girlfriend uses it from time to time to read a bit, but even with that gentle useage the battery drains much too quickly).
I can sit here pretty relaxes since I have the STAReBOOK. The device is far from perfect, especially when it comes to formatting text, but amazingly I can live with that AND there is a realistic chance of improvement in the forseeable future.

I'm going to be following this development pretty closely anyway, since I still feel pretty bad about the whole iRex affair, 680€ is a lot of money for a student...

Let's keep things civil but let's also state quite clearly that this is the finaly line that never should have been crossed!

Oh, and I changed the titel...I hope it's okay that way.

Oh, and I changed the titel...I hope it's okay that way.

Perfect CommanderROR. I appreciate it as it was a remnant of a post I wrote in anger and should never have posted.

Boy, let's settle this. You are repeating the argument how happy you are with your Iliad, and how sufficient it is for you, as if Irex was your little sister that you have to defend and protect under all circumstances.

I wasn't going to post but...

My main point is the the battery life of the Iliad has been known since the first units got shipped to consumers. Since then Irex have stated that they will attempt to improve the battery life through the firmware updates. And, although I haven't quantified it, I have seen this happen... As far as I can tell Irex have said they will continue to improve it. I see no reason to doubt this...

There are some problems with the device, but it appears that every thread on the Iliad touches on the battery problem at some point, even though this was known a long-time ago. It makes reading MobileRead.com very dull as each thread descends into complaining about battery life...

I used to read mobileread because I am interested in new expereinces, in new information. But lately the Iliad section carries nothing new. Just a constant rehash of the battery (and other) issues. I'm currently looking forward to 2.9, based on Irex's plans. But I know already what the mobileread crowd reaction will be...

Would I defend Irex like my "litte sister"...? Nope. Irex is just one company making e-ink products... At the moment I'm assuming that there will more e-readers in the future from them and others. And when I come to replace my (then) aging Iliad I will be doing it objectivly based of features/user experience...

And yep, I am happy with my Iliad. I find it very useful. And I realise that there is a vocal minority who aren't. Its just I'm not prepared to spend my time reading though all their posts...

And anyway, I think everyone (myself incl.) is taking this way more seriously then it is...

hmm... looks like I bought myself a very expensive pdf reader.

I wanted rtf and html ... as promised by iRex.

Err did they ever say rtf? I though it was just plain txt?

jæd: You may feel that being mislead is a minor issue. I and Ali feel otherwise. Are we vocal? Yes! Are we a minority? Do you know that for sure?

Are the 1.3 million people who signed an official online petition again road tolls in the UK a vocal minority? Or are they a statistical anomaly as my government seems to think? The opposing petition had less than 4000 signed up to it the alst time I looked. Out of 53 million people both sides are a minority. But without asking everyone you can never guarantee that you know exactly?

Unless someone (You/Me/iRex) poll _all_ their customers and release the responses publically neither you or I know exactly how many people are upset by their actions.

And I find your implication that because we are a vocal we must be the minority and that our views are not important because they don't match yours frankly rather insulting.

And I find your implication that because we are a vocal we must be the minority and that our views are not important because they don't match yours frankly rather insulting.

Look at the number of Iliads currently out there, and look at the number of people posting...

It still hurts to see that I really have wasted a lot of money for a device that is barely adequate as a backup reading solution (my girlfriend uses it from time to time to read a bit, but even with that gentle useage the battery drains much too quickly).



Hmm, a device with 10 - 11 hours of battery life, barely adequate? OK, I can see you are pissed off with iRex, but I can't take this too seriously...

My main point is the the battery life of the Iliad has been known since the first units got shipped to consumers.[...]
I'm order #383, among the first batch. Riocaz is #388. We are these first users through which it is known.

As far as I can tell Irex have said they will continue to improve it. I see no reason to doubt this...
Max. another 10%, then it's over. Quoting karel.

And anyway, I think everyone (myself incl.) is taking this way more seriously then it is...
Wow. You are unbelievable. Is it possible for you to understand that for some people, 650 Euros is really a lot of money? "A lot" as in "the biggest expense in the year"? And wasting all your money on something that doesn't do it's job (the one the buyer wanted it for, not the one you have for your Iliad?)

Two proposals:
(1) Buy my Iliad for 650 Euros, and you'll be double-happy.
(2) Borrow me 2826 Euros at 10% interest. I'll give you 70% of what I owe you, and we'll both make a profit: You can be happy for being such a clever businessman, and I win enough money to make up for the Iliad.

[edit:typo]

Look at the number of Iliads currently out there, and look at the number of people posting...

Do you know how many are out there?

Do you know what they all think? Have you asked them?

Are they aware that iRex is intending to renege on their stated specifications?

Hell do we know the answer to the last one? At the moment all we have is speculation on a throwaway comment made by Karel. We could be mis-understanding the situation entirely (which I mentioned earlier)

No you only have your opinion to go on.

Your opinion is perfectly valid, but you don't appear to believe other people's are if they don't agree with you.

Wow. You are unbelievable. Is it possible for you to understand that for some people, 650 Euros is really a lot of money? "A lot" as in "the biggest expense in the year"? And wasting all your money on something that doesn't do it's job (the one the buyer wanted it for, not the one you have for your Iliad?)

Why not put it on Ebay...?

Because we wouldn't recover a fraction of the money spent, and why the heck should we. We have a legal right to get what we paid for.

Do you know how many are out there?

I'm guessing there are more than 15 - 20 Iliads out there...

Hell do we know the answer to the last one? At the moment all we have is speculation on a throwaway comment made by Karel. We could be mis-understanding the situation entirely (which I mentioned earlier)

Yep... All these annoyed and up-tight posts over speculation. Which is why I said I think everyone's taking it a bit too seriously...

I'm guessing there are more than 15 - 20 Iliads out there...
But you don't know that. It's an assumption (it's 99.9% certainly right, but it's still an assumption). And I'm sure you know the trueism about the word assume.

Yep... All these annoyed and up-tight posts over speculation. Which is why I said I think everyone's taking it a bit too seriously...
Possibly because iRex must know that people have picked up on the comment and have (yet again) failed to clarify their statement.

If the interpretation is not correct then it would have taken less than 10 seconds to clear it up.

Why not put it on Ebay...?
Um. Because I wouldn't get 650 Euros? And because then *I* would have the obligation to provide 21h battery time to the buyer?

I notice that you are highly selective to what you answer, and what not. Looks like you ignore everything where you can't make a cheap point. Interesting. Feel like being in the defense? Out of arguments? Knowing you lost but can't admit it? Is your "I cannot read everything" not just really a "I ignore everything I don't like"? Hmmmm.... Interesting.

Your line of argument looks awfully like the stuff the Mac users responded to the Month of the Apple Bugs (http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/), which gave the rest of the world a super laugh. (For those who don't know it: The Mac community flamed the project like whatnot, essentially they claimed that the bugs where not the fault of Apple / the software vendors, but it was rather an "offense" or "Continuous Foolishness (http://www.macobserver.com/editorial/2006/12/20.1.shtml)" to write about it.) You don't happen to be a Mac fan, jæd, do you?

Um. Because I wouldn't get 650 Euros? And because then *I* would have the obligation to provide 21h battery time to the buyer?

Aren't items on Ebay sold as is...? And I thought you said you needed the cash...

I notice that you are highly selective to what you answer, and what not.

Because I'm at work ;) and I'm not paid to post... I think I mentioned I've got a Powerbook... But I don't recall the "rest of the world" having a super laugh.

Yeah... Lets all litigate and waste more of Irex's time...

you're right ... let's all shut up and let them get away with it.

i want what i was promised and what i've paid for. nothing more, nothing less.

no more excuses for irex ... they've had more than one chance to clarify things and failed.

why do you think they're going to offer a larger battery for the 'old' iliads (speculation based on the irex post)? well, i think it's because they're coming nowhere near the promised running time for the iliad in the current configuration (future software updates or not).

Aren't items on Ebay sold as is...? And I thought you said you needed the cash...

No he said that 650 euros was a lot of money to some people. Not the same thing at all.

Guys, I'm going to go all moderator on you all right now if you don't calm down.

Stop attacking each other, stay on topic and keep discussing the real problems. The fact that jæd will hold to his position no matter what happens should be pretty clear to everybody. Just stop yelling at each other.
Thanks.

How about sending some PM and email messages to Karel and co. to get some more answers? That might help clear up the situation and put the pressure on those people who really deserve some. I have some information from Angel from a while back as to the origins of some of these Iliad problems and why iRex has so much trouble fixing them, but I'm not supposed to talk about it (and I don't want to get Angel into trouble by doing so) so i can't tell you that and I also have no way of knowing who really caused the mess...

The fact is, that we stand at a point right now where a company is admitting (more or les) that it miscalculated badly and has no way of fixing the problems in software (they are reducing the specs...) so they are planing on releasing new hardware which looks like something they should have done right when the problem appeared, thus preventing loads of people from buying devices that were doomed to be "crippled".
Maybe the Iliad Rev. 2 will have a chance on the wider market...but it depends on what they are going to change. A larger battery alone would be foolish, no more and no less. What use is eink if you fail to use one of it's two main advantages?

Thank you, CommanderROR, that was just in time ... saved me from posting a whiny rant about how this forum is going to hell (just like any other forum/newsgroup/mailing list I've ever seen) because posts are suddenly about personal sensibilities rather than the actual issues at hand... and people's inability to agree to disagree drives me nuts...

Also, there was a nasty tone creeping into some of the previous posts that I
didn't much care for. Let's remain civilized, shall we?

The Iliad had two main features for wich I bought it.
A superbly long battery life of 21 hours.
E-ink technology, so I wouldn't have to use that on/off switch all the time.

On both counts, the device has failed to deliver what it promised.
(granted, that on/off switch thing was something I deduced from the text, it was never a promise)

Still...
I would rather chop off an arm -preferably someone else's- than sell or lose my Iliad.
As reading devices go the Iliad is an absolute beaut!
Even the lack of a thousand and one different txt-formats doesn't bother me at all as I find it very easy to convert everything I steal (well, yes, I do that sort of thing) from the e-book newsgroups on usenet.
It is light on the eyes and the arm and a stunning conversation piece everywhere I go.

Has Irex bent the truth with its initial advertising?
Frankly, yes, I think it has.
But somehow... I can't feel mad about that.
Mind you, I can imagine people being mightily pissed off.
Before I start shooting at Irex employees and employers I would first like to wait what Irex plans are for the 'model one' buyers.

Time to roll out the meditation thread again.

Guys, I'm going to go all moderator on you all right now if you don't calm down.
Awww man, just as I was revving up the sarcasm cannon.

I'll behave.


*sulk*

Err did they ever say rtf? I though it was just plain txt?

Mea culpa -- I just checked -- they didn't specify RTF.

What they did specify was the following:

PDF
XHTML
TXT
MP3
Other formats will be supported in the near future.

This was in July 2006.

I assumed that RTF would be included in the "other formats"

Silly me!

Just because we like a company or want them to succeed is no reason to give them a free pass or allow them to skate on false advertising claims. iRex is a spin off from Phillips – one of the largest electronics companies in the world with operations reaching every part of the globe. They achieved that position by offering the customers what they wanted at a fair price and delivering what they said they would deliver.

Now I don’t own iLiad (I do own a Sony Reader) so I have no direct stake in the proceedings. However, all of us have an indirect stake because Phillips/iRex have and can in the future invest millions in development of more and better products and mount advertising campaigns to advance the awareness and market penetration of ebook readers. This can only help all of us.

“Bait and switch” is a marketing technique as for as long as humans have sold goods and services. I am sure that the original advertising materials for “fire” made it seem like a modern microwave oven. iRex needs to held accountable for their misdeeds – the battery life that was not there, the formats that were not readable. If you do not mount the suit against them now what is to stop them from doing it to you again?

Perhaps the best situation is to offer each current user the choice of
- returning the unit for a full refund,
- exchanging the current unit for one of the new version, or
- offering a rebate if you choose to retain the current unit.

RWood and Moonraker are absolutly right. Of course it all depends on the definition of "near future", as we know Irex that may be a pretty long time :)

I am not satisfied with Irex at all (see my other posts in the 'damaged screen' section).

As I've written in one of my first postings: I had to write an internal report about Illiad and Irex. I can't disclose the whole report but in a nutshell: The device got 6 out of 10 possible points, Irex as a company got 2 - the worst score ever achieved by a company (The 2 was awarded due to problems with their support, not fulfilling promises from their advertisment, wrong paperwork and a very long email exchange and several phone calls with their support line, a lot of wrong answers and the failure to comply with national laws in time).

That was the reason that no more devices were bought by us or our customers, besides the first test unit of course.

Ok, less talking, more business:

Why don't we spawn a page in the wiki were we collect the story so far? Just the facts (As in: In May 06, the specs said "blabla week" (link to specs), on June 15 some irex guy said "dude, its delayed till august", in december somebody, ...)
Also, of course the current state (In the specification/advertisements from beginning of sales till 2007-03-01: MP3 player. Current state: Nonexisting)

It's just this process of collecting all the facts and writing them down that hinders me from sending some letters to people who might help (Friends that are lawyers. Also in germany: Verbraucherschutzorganisationen, c't "Vorsicht Kunde", ...)

So why don't we do it together?

So why don't we do it together?

I agree Ali. 50 requests at once sent to Irex are much better than doing it one by one.

Just a couple of thoughts on all of this. jaed, if I remember correctly is an accomplished hacker/coder type who has been able to access and make the iLiad do what he wants it to do. Kudos to his ability, and he has shared his efforts on the site here. Since that is the case he is going to be happier with the device than the rest of us.

There may be a small amount of people that complain on these forums about their dissatisfaction with the iLiad. The thing is that people are either satisfied with the unit or dissatisfied. Do they yak about it? Who knows. I would say that the bulk that purchase stuff do not actively engage in communicating about it. They have better things to do with their time

The truth of the matter is that the iLiad is a gadget, it is not replacing paper - yet. There are huge piles of gadgets that have either made it or failed. The point being is that there might be a lot of people that are satisfied with the unit and a fair amount that are not. For the people that are disappointed and dissatisfied MOST people do not have the time, energy or interest to keep whining about it it. They relegate the device to the closet/junkpile or give it to their kids.

I see the latest released update to be an improvement. It is getting better. Is it up to what was advertised? No. Am I still disappointed, yes I would still like full functionality for an expensive purchase. I am not going to keep whining about it as this seems to fall on deaf ears over at iRex. Do I feel that all us Mk I people are going to dumped? Yes - but I am hoping that it will not happen, I guess you can color me an optimist. I cannot say that it would have been the first time that it would have happened an initial released device being dumped for the second version.

In some way I guess you can say that we brought it upon ourselves by collectively twisting the arm of iRex to release the device before it's time and to a group that the device was not intended for (or was it?).

I find the eFlybook forum to be a bellwether for this device. There is overwhelming general discontent as the device never worked as advertised and development is closed off to the reseller to try to rectify the situation (at least this was stated in a thread). The thing is that most of these people have seen many new gee whiz devices that never performed as they should have. There all just languishing in a desk drawer somewhere.

I will never buy another beta device again.

In spite of this still like the iLiad, I just wish it would work all the way like it was supposed to. Battery life, faster start, txt & html support and bookmark supports would really suit me fine.

I have to say that the rendering seems to be getting better. I see 2.9 as being evolutionary. Who knows, maybe 3.0 is revolutionary and just around the corner (there's the optimist again).


Good luck to us all.


Sorry if I am rambling, I am pretty tired right now.

I agree that not all is bad about the Iliad and that our complaining makes it look worse than it is perhaps...BUT (and it's a bit but) there are some things that just can't be excused and one of them is promising things that won't be possible even with ten years of solid Software development...if there is something wrong with the hardware that makes certain features impossible, then that should have been found out about 2 days after the first prototype was created. The device in this form should never have made it onto market. We were all told that the device hardware was final and that the software was to be considered beta...but apparently the Hardware was far from being "fit for final"...

I do not know what is wrong with the Iliad's hardware...the fact that Suspend is impossible could have something to do with the internal wiring up of the keys or something...however, even without suspend the device should be able to run more than 10-15 hours in standby. I have a smartphone that can run for 150 hours standby despite having a 400Mhz processor (could be the same as in the Iliad), Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, SD-Card slot and holding a network connection the whole time...with a 1500MaH battery...can someone explain that to me?

(I wrote this I quite a hurry so expect quite a lot of typos, will cleanup later )
to all the iRex apologists, this is a non-issue, whenever you engage on a purchase you are engaging on a binding contract, in wich the seller specifies that for a set amount of money, he will give you an item with certain properties, iRex certainly charged a rather large of money on the condition that it was offering an item which would either already have those properties already enabled or wich would in given time gain them, by now adminting that this would never be possible they have essentially comitted the crime of fraud, and in a sane society, criminals, wich is currently what iRex's current behaviour makes of them, have to face certain consequences, by not standing up to these basic tenets of organized society all you have acheived is assuring the people responsible for fraud that they can rest with impunity and continue with their criminal behaviour, therefore you can expect a lot more of this kind of thing from phillips Irex in the future if they do not face the consequences now.
However if you do choose to make them accountable for their actions you can rest assured that most likely Phillips will step in and sort out their spinoff, hopefully (and more probably) by sacking the entire marketing department wich is mortlikely responsable for all of this, thus ensuring that the compentent engineers that remain are more capable of carrying out their work and in the long term producing superior products, instead of carrying on this kind of fradulent behaviour.

also I believe the lack of a suspend mode is unfixable as long as they keep using xscale processors (I believe this is a limitation of the chipset itself), and would someone please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't phillips negociate some sort of geographical exclusiveness to their E-ink tech (if so , by removing iRex phillips would either be forced to forfeit the entire european market or reenter it in a more professional manner )

[snip]
However if you do choose to make them accountable for their actions you can rest assured that most likely Phillips will step in and sort out their spinoff, hopefully (and more probably) by sacking the entire marketing department wich is mortlikely responsable for all of this, thus ensuring that the compentent engineers that remain are more capable of carrying out their work and in the long term producing superior products, instead of carrying on this kind of fradulent behaviour.
[another snip]

Nah, I don't think so.
Irex is a spinoff from Philips but only as an independent firm that pays a small percentage per sold unit, or something like that.
It is a bunch of techies from R & D gone solo (or "rogue" if you will), is my guess.
So don't expect any help from Philips.

As for the fraudulent behaviour, I think you would have to prove malicious intent (is that how you write it?) instead of just plain stupidity.
Then again, I am no lawyer so what do I know? :scholar:

So far, my personal verdict is still on the plain stupidity side of things.
To rule out one of two mayor selling points of e-ink technology in your product -clear display and suspend but keep image- must have had a reason.
Irex so far have been reluctant to reveal that reason.
But as I have read in another post, "if even cellphones with wifi, gps and whatnots are able to suspend for a batterylife of up to one week or more with old-school lcd tecno, why in the name of Gutenburg is Irex unable to do the same or better with its e-ink technology?

@High 5

I think that cellphone I spoke of does not even do supsned since it has to have some active process to stay connected to the network and react to incoming messages, calls, and of course take care of scheduled alarms and stuff...

The processor in the smartphone I have is an Intel PXA270 416Mhz XScale by the way...

So much for the xscale theory....

Mobile (smart)phones usually had two CPUs, one for the radio (it can be a DSP), and one for the PDA functions (usually an ARM compatible processor). It's now that are appearing mobile (smart)phones with only one DSP that can double-duty to PDA functions.

So, when you only need to receive calls, the ARM can be shut down (suspended), conserving power. Because of this, (smart)phones drain the battery very quickly when in "PDA mode", but have a very long battery duration in "waiting mode".

As for the suspend thing in Xscale, it works in the iPaqs (both in WinCE and in Familiar Linux)and in the Zauruses (p.ej. in the SL-6000L I have at work, and it works in Qtopia and in pdaXrom). And it should not be very different to what was possible with the StrongARM (the Apple Newton and the Zaurus SL-5500 both are StrongARM PDAs, and both suspend perfectly).

There is lots of talk about going legal in this thread, and lots of unproductive general venting.

RWood and Ali suggested a much more pragmatic and satisfying route (rather than either just ranting or going legal and potentially cutting off your own nose to spite face) why not create a petition, with succinct facts about misleading marketing, where this market is and was placed (boxes, websites etc). And send this formally to the CEO of iRex requesting appropriate reparation - then let the CEO figure out what should be offered.

If the CEO ignores the request - then escalate to media (bad publicity often hurts far more than a legal case!) Only use legal as a last resort if reparation isn't offered or is wholly inadequate.

(I'd suggest avoiding the items that are unclear such as "near future" items, you have enough factual information and don't need to confuse the issue by getting into interpretational issues).

Moaning isn't productive, going legal will both cost money and is a rather extreme form of action if you haven't yet tried other avenues (why spend money when you don't have too?)

If this is important to you, don't just moan about it - do something!!

I utterly agree.

Just to clarify I didn't start the thread to discuss litigation. And I don't advocate it.

And I would add to pdam's suggestions that people speak to their local advertising standards people (particularly for people in countries who are part of the EASA).

I agree, I've found it's better to start gently and work up to nasty, that way you don't have to be any nastier than is actually required. Besides, if you ever do have to get really nasty, folks remember it later and are more likely to respond to gentleness the next time. Of course that last bit applies better in individual interaction than the more anonymous level currently under discussion. :shrug:

Being nasty gets no one nowhere.

As to going public, are'nt we doing it right now? MR's input can not be discounted because we are reaching more of the concerned public than flat out woldwide cover. Joe Average who's never heard of eink couldn't care less about the Iliad. I do.
Does Philips care about it's offsping's actions? I would of my children's. This is one avenue to explore.

In the long run, punishment will come that can bring about positive changes, when R&D funds dwindle and sales income does not provide adequate changeover.
How does Irex maintain itself now? Is it a long term support? How much more bad decisions or service can it withstand?
It's a shame one has to resign to negative actions to get satisfaction, and to use other actions than curteous direct communication to get response. No client is expendable. One dissatisfied is ten less new ones. One thousand is catastrophe... unless you live in a bubble. Then again maybe Harakiri was the goal all along...?

Ali had suggested a wiki page to list the specs that were published at various points, so I tried using the Internet Archive to find old versions of the iRex site. Interestingly, all links to old versions seem to direct one to the new site. I know that the IA will remove copies of archives if asked to do so. I wonder if that was the case here?

Yes, and those archives did work previously as I have used them when other "changes" have been made.

More evidence that iRex want to change history?

lets just hope someone has screenshots.

I have local copies of some iRex websites from Sep 28, 2006:

Here is a zip containing the shop's Iliad description and the "product specification" PDF from back then: assorted.zip (http://www.math.tu-bs.de/~ali/assorted.zip) (1.2 MB).

At that time, iRex' .nl website was apparently forgotten in updates, so it equals the .com site from some time earlier: www.irextechnologies.nl.zip (http://www.math.tu-bs.de/~ali/www.irextechnologies.nl.zip) (50 MB).

Plus there are the other sites:
developer.irexnet.com.zip (http://www.math.tu-bs.de/~ali/developer.irexnet.com.zip) (0.03 MB),
www.irexshop.com.zip (http://www.math.tu-bs.de/~ali/www.irexshop.com.zip) (1.0 MB),
www.irextechnologies.com.zip (http://www.math.tu-bs.de/~ali/www.irextechnologies.com.zip) (186 MB).

Disclaimer: The linked files may contain copyrighted material by iRex, who made it available to the general public at and around september 28, 2006. I will remove the files when they fulfilled their purpose of collecting evidence. Please make a local copy of them now, and use them solely for this purpose. Thank you.

I have two product leaflets that I downloaded from the iRex site.

One is dated September 2005 ( and is also confusingly dated IRex Technologies BV 2006) stating:

PDF
XHTML
TXT
MP3
Other formats will be supported in the near future.


And the other product leaflet dated March 2006 (downloaded in June 2006):

Content Formats Supported:
PDF
XHTML
TXT
APABI
OEB
MP3
Optional Customization to support customer specific format.

INTERFACES

• USB type A connector for USB memory stick.
• CF type II slot for memory extension or other
applications.
• MMC slot for MMC memory cards.
• 3.5mm stereo audio jack for headset.
• WIFI 802.11g wireless LAN.
• 10/100MB wired LAN.

The ER 0100 is a very low power mobile device, specifically
designed for reading applications. The operating time of the
rechargeable battery is more than a week without
recharging, based on an average use of three hours reading a day.

I started to write a documentation of this stuff (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Iliad_Nonfeature_List) in the wiki (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/). Corrections, updates, more details are highly appreciated.

Also somebody ("somebody" as in "S.E.P. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem_field)") should dig through the May to July '06 mobileread posts, I'm sure that's full of further information. Especially on what implications this "please let me buy an Iliad" episode has, and who signed it.

edit:typo

At some point I remember someone at iRex also stated that the 21 hours included some wifi time per day for content grabbing.

Finding the specific reference will be err, fun though.

I have local copies of some iRex websites from Sep 28, 2006:
There is an archive of ALL versions of iRex site.
Have a look at the "wayback machine"
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.irextechnologies.com
Grab them before someone requests pulling them down ;-)

;-)

kacir, you are a bit late.
look where most of the links lead to in the end.

Updated the iki entry with the text off my original box. (http://wiki.mobileread.com/wiki/Iliad_Nonfeature_List).

... the text off my original box.Ouch. That's gotta sting. :laugh4:

The text on the back of my box says:

"You can change the font size of your text to suit your own reading comfort (format and DRM dependent)"

Which implies that DRM is supported.

mobipocket will be onboard soon so thats covered.
can't wait will be much easier for me than having to convert to pdf all the time.

mobipocket will be onboard soon so thats covered.
can't wait will be much easier for me than having to convert to pdf all the time.

Let's wait and see, Irex has it's own definition of "soon" :)

Is there actually something official on Mobipocket support? So far I have sen no indication...but I have not been watching the Iliad progress so closely anymore...

think this is the closest
http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18286#18286

OK, but let me remind you that the mobipocket Reader for Iliad has been "coming soon" and "being worked on" since long before any of us had the Iliad. Search for the original thread on thier forum about it...

Karel, made a comment along the lines of: "A DRM solution is coming and we havn't denied which one is coming" the other day.

And apparently the Mobipocket software recognizes the iLiad as a device now. I'd say this indicates progress, but still no idea of what "soon" might mean. There was a claim on the irex forum that it would be out by March 19, but that was rather third hand information.

Actually more of the iLiad's claimed capability can be substantiated with a number of reviews on the device that came out prior to the device being released and in the early release time period. These reviews were validated by iRex as they directly loaned out the device for that specific purpose. So you can say that if they stated their intent to the reviewer it is as good as anything else that would be offically released.

There have been some very in depth and comprehensive writeups in a number of different places on the web.

I think I was emailed a review that I had to register for at a specific site. I will check my archives.

Promises of functionality was also made to these reviewers as well.

The sharks seem to be in the water.

I think that we all just want some satisfaction, a bit more timely than the iRex "soon".

I wonder what will be in the 3.0 firmware? Will there even be a 3.0 release for the ER100 or will we be discarded to the dustbin in deference to the pending release of the new model?

iRex has claimed that the changes for the "new model" are limited to a larger battery (which will allegedly also be available for the current model) and some essentially cosmetic changes. They assert that the software will be no different. We'll see.

I'd settle for a free battery upgrade (including shipping and labor) at this point, but only if they fix their website so they aren't still making bogus claims about the current hardware. But if I were advising them, I'd strongly recommend that they actually do a hardware re-design specifically to address the power management issues, and offer a buy-back or discount program (customer's choice) to allow those customers who want to upgrade to do so. I'd also advise them to substantially discount the current model. I think they'd be very competitive if they charged the same as the Sony unit. They have lower battery life, but a lot more functionality, and a more open-source model. It's quite possible they'd lose money at this, but I think they are facing an even bigger loss of revenue if they can't sell out their current inventory because no one wants the existing model at the current price.

I'm thinking the same. Still wondering why they don't change the hardware. Even if the hardware design must have eaten some dollars, they should spent the money on making suspend possible. But then there could come other problems, like that the firmware image for the 2 hardware generations would no longer be 100% compatible and such.

And one recent article about the LinuxBIOS project made me think. Basically one developer managed to pack a 2.6 kernel and K-Drive into a 2 MB chip, giving you a linux system with GUI in 8 seconds! However, iRex still has probably a lot of additions in the iLiad to load ...
But we wouldn't have the boot-up problem in the first place, if the hardware could do suspend. You would only have to occassionally do a reboot if you managed to get everything out the battery (and this could be limited by software, so the iLiad would have enough power to support the RAM for a given time, so the need to reboot it would occur even less often.)

The upshot is, if anyone comes along with an open OS e ink device plus wacom (or even touch-sensitive) tablet and maybe wifi that does offer suspend, they're going to eat iRex's lunch. Makes me wish I were in the hardware business. Maybe Bookeen or ETI will notice this.

As we just found out in the developer section, CPU scaling alone (without other power saving and without voltage-scaling the CPU) let's the current Iliad beat the 15 hours mark. This was done with a very simple script done by k2r.

Why has iRex not managed to implement even this "minimal" soultion after more than a year of Software development for the Iliad? Scaling is even a feature that is built into the PXA255 XScale processors, so it should be a pretty obvious thing to implement and it does give a very nice boost in battery-life (as we can now see...). Voltage scaling should help things along even more.
If you can't do suspend (and it has been obvious that the Iliad can't for a while now) then you should be grasping for straws like that like a drowning man...I just don't get the development philosophy at iRex...it should not take more than a few hours of programming to get voltage and frequency scaling up and running...at least as far as a non-programmer like me can judge...

I posted earlier today a patch for the 2.9 firmware ipdf viewer that throttles CPU between 400 (when active), 200 (scribbles) and 100 mhz (idle). Still haven't gotten any good numbers as to how much battery time I get, but after 3 hours of combined reading and just being on, I've just lost one tiny line on the battery.

The post over at irex forums is at here (http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=1093&sid=c0bfb1aac254a8db724cb01b66fc7acf)
Both a patch and a pre-compiled ipdf binary is available.

/R

Kudos to Ali for putting together the wiki in a positive vein. If we want to take this fwd to iRex ... the next question would be .... what is the rhetoric that we would either frame as a petition (e.g. we the undersigned ....) or frame as an open letter?

My 0.02c - if people have the stomach and drive to take this forward - would be for a petition that people could agree to sign (or not). We could use the facilities of this site to run a single answer survey to sign up to a petitiom that we could then send to the CEO. We could, with permission, look at the number of people with a Mobileread profiles that indicate they own an Iliad versus the % number of signaturies.

What could the wording be? Something simple, referencing Ali's wiki, like (it'll need wordsmithing as I am both slightly dyslexic and lazy):

"We the undersigned believe that iRex's marketing of the Iliad er100 has been misleading and that customers purchasing the er100 have done so under false pretences (reference wiki here). We believe that customers who have been missled should be offered some recompense and would like to know what iRex intend to do to rectify this situation".

As stated - someone will have to look at the language .... then ... what would be a good next step? My guess would be a response, followed by either an offer or a request for customer consultation (which is probably reasonable at this stage)...

I should clarify that I'm not keen to lead this initiative, but I do understand the relevance. I think that iRex have been missleading - but ultimately I am a user of the device and and I would really like to see the company succeed. Start-ups are often not great initially ... but we shouldn't loose site of the fact that the effort from iRex was both innovative and in good faith ... I'd like to see breathing room to allow them to prove that they can couple innovation with customer focus and make a success of their business ....

Thoughts? Does anyone want to drive this forward?

Some constructive suggestions for possible remedies might help, e.g. free battery upgrade. I don't know what everyone else wants. I'm buying mine second hand for half price, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I'm getting for that price. Maybe there should be a poll to see what the unsatisfied owners of iLiads would like: the battery upgrade, a refund, a commitment to address certain known software problems (like stylus calibration or the unbricking utility) within a specific period, a partial rebate (owner keeps iLiad but gets a discount), free books from Mobipocket, etc. (iRex doesn't own Mobipocket, but might be able to work out a deal that would deliver some pretty good value to iLiad customers without costing iRex full price -- Amazon/Mobipocket might go along with it for the added visibility and potential business.)

iRex can't go back in time and change their claims, and they apparently can't make good on all their past claims now. So ask for something they can do, that would make you happy, and maybe it could happen.

Good words Nekokami - I fully agree that the solution may be a range of things, possibly even just listening to users and re-evaluating their development s
priorities for some. Shouldnt we actively offer the chance for iRex to engage in this discussion rather than just deliver a list of possible wants?

iRex has announced (in the iRex forums somewhere) that they will provide a battery replacement programme for owners of the er100. No details yet, but if they provide the larger battery, combined with basic CPU throttling in the viewers, I believe we'll actually get close to 21 hours.

Now, with CPU throttling, the "2007" iLiad (with new battery) will actually over-perform according to their specs. How iRex could have "exausted powersaving options" when the CPU was running flat at 400Mhz at all times is beyond me. I mean, they even give a tip and option to turn off audio to save battery!

Makes me wonder what other improvements can be done (CPU voltage adjustment, extension cards etc)...

/R

Some constructive suggestions for possible remedies might help, e.g. free battery upgrade. I don't know what everyone else wants.
Free battery upgrade -or- partial refund
Plus free unbrick service (reflash, that is) -or- boot from CF card
Plus a few free Iliads for the most active developers

Then I'm happy :)

i like ali want:

for me free batery/upgrade
and possibility of reflash i like to redboot or lilo....(please,please)

i will like to talk about a possible iliad with auto/resume, This will be the major upgrade not another batery.(for asking...)



my two cents.

pd:sorry for my english

Free battery upgrade -or- partial refund
Plus free unbrick service (reflash, that is) -or- boot from CF card
Plus a few free Iliads for the most active developers

Then I'm happy :)
If they have to provide free reflash until their reflash utility is available for developers to do it themselves, that should motivate them to get moving on the utility.

The option of a free battery upgrade or partial refund seems reasonable to me.

I like the idea of some incentive for the most active developers, but I'm not sure how they would decide how active is active enough to qualify. Plus, anyone who is developing for the iLiad presumably already has one....

iRex has decided to offer a free battery upgrade to early adopters: http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?p=5153#5153

No word yet on who will pay for shipping costs, but I think it's a good show of their desire to resolve this issue.

No answer about full refunds for UK users though.

Sorry just re-read that and realised it sounds really self centered. But if the UK people are entitled to a refund then it will make it harder for iRex to refuse one for anyone else.

And now they are trying to weasel out of it:

So to protect against it being removed and me having to look this up again.

And Karel: Any word on the specific question of refunds for UK buyers.
also how does registering for the battery upgrade effect this. I am still undecided as to what I would go for. And don't want to sign up now only to come to the decision that in fact I should have had the refund.

For refund I suggest to check our return policy for the conditions to return your products for a refund here: https://www.irexshop.com/return_policy.php

It doesn't, if you signup you are eligible for a free battery replacement when they become available and you will receive a follow up email with instructions on how to proceed.

Erm, no. You are mis-understanding my question.

Your returns policy is part and parcel of the overall contract with the end customer. As you have broken the contract by supplying a product which does not and never can match your companies technical specs the purchaser is entitled to a full refund outside of your standard returns policy under UK and EU law.

We are not required to accept exchange or repair. And anyway the battery replacement still will not provide the "operating time of therechargeable battery is more than a week without recharging, based on an average use of three hours reading a day" stated.

Allow me to refer you too:

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consumers/fact-sheets/page24700.html

Specifically:



Wherever goods are bought they must "conform to contract". This means they must be as described, fit for purpose and of satisfactory quality (i.e. not inherently faulty at the time of sale).

And:

Q1. What is an inherent fault?
A fault present at the time of purchase. Examples are:
• an error in design so that a product is manufactured incorrectly
• an error in manufacturing where a faulty component was inserted.
The "fault" may not become apparent immediately but it was there at the time of sale and so the product was not of satisfactory standard.


You have admitted that this is an error of design and that the product will never "conform to contract".

And before you claim "thats a UK law it doesn't apply to us". It transposes an EU directive (1999/44/EC specifically) and as I understand it your laws should either say the same thing or something very similar.

Also:

http://www.euroconsumer.org.uk/index/your_rights/internet_shopping_index/mail_order_and_internet.htm

Specifically:


Criminal offences

It is a criminal offence for a trader to sell you goods which are unsafe, which do not match their description, or which have been advertised at a misleading price. This is not the case, however, if you bought the goods from a private individual.


As I have said, I am still undecided (though what appears to be iRex blatantly trying to wriggle out of their legal obligations is fast making my mind up for me.

And now they are trying to weasel out of it:

So to protect against it being removed and me having to look this up again.
Hm. It looked to me like they are not trying to weasel out of it. I read this as you could get a full refund, minus shipping, upon returning your device. This is essentially undoing the contract, which is AFAIK the correct way to deal with such a situation.

However, I might be misreading it. I think iRex needs to be much clearer about what they offer. (Does it mean I return my device, get a full refund, then use that money to buy the 2007 model and get a renewed 2 year warranty with new (i.e., not dimmed out) display?)

The way I read Karel's comment is that you were only entitled to a refund if you met the terms of their returns policy (e.g. only within 7 days of receipt of the iLiad).

As you and I got ours 6 months ago. We can't meet this and thus are not entitled to a refund.

Not to mention that it still wouldn't be a full refund as they will take a 5% fee off the refund price. And I would have to pay for the shipping back to them.

I do note that I did misread Karel's 2nd paragraph though. He's not stating that my iLiad doesn't match their returns policy. He's saying that accepting the battery upgrade now doesn't effect requesting a refund under the returns policy.

But that doesn't actually answer the question that was asked.

It looked to me like the 5% was if you were returning the item unopened (a restocking fee), rather than returning for cause.

The existing refund policy does say 7 days, which I have always thought was absurdly short. Even in the US, most vendors give you 30 days. In this case, however, the vendor has been making undelivered/undeliverable promises since before shipment, which I think ought to extend the refund period automatically. Someone more familiar with UK/EU law would need to look at this, though.

Does UK/EU law provide for the vendor paying your shipping? This seems like a gray area to me. Maybe a compromise would be to provide the full refund (less wear and tear, if necessary), ask the customer to pay shipping, but offer a credit for shipping costs toward any future purchase at iRex, e.g. a new model that meets specs. I know this may not seem completely fair to the customers, but I don't think iRex intended to ship a model that would make customers unhappy, either. They might go for this sort of solution to try to encourage some of their first generation buyers to give them another chance later.

It looked to me like the 5% was if you were returning the item unopened (a restocking fee), rather than returning for cause.

But they havn't said it would be waived. So unless they do you have to assume it will be charged.


The existing refund policy does say 7 days, which I have always thought was absurdly short. Even in the US, most vendors give you 30 days. In this case, however, the vendor has been making undelivered/undeliverable promises since before shipment, which I think ought to extend the refund period automatically. Someone more familiar with UK/EU law would need to look at this, though.

Thats EU law on distance selling. You get 7 days. It's actually part and parcel of the sale of goods act which is the crux of my argument.


Does UK/EU law provide for the vendor paying your shipping? This seems like a gray area to me. Maybe a compromise would be to provide the full refund (less wear and tear, if necessary), ask the customer to pay shipping, but offer a credit for shipping costs toward any future purchase at iRex, e.g. a new model that meets specs. I know this may not seem completely fair to the customers, but I don't think iRex intended to ship a model that would make customers unhappy, either. They might go for this sort of solution to try to encourage some of their first generation buyers to give them another chance later.

As far as I am aware "The full purchase price" includes shipping. But I could be wrong on that point. which is why I havn't said anything about it.

It could be argued that they owe compensation for the inconvienience (which is covered in the euroconsumer pages) but I don't want to start talking about that. I don't want this to go as far as having to pursue legal avenues. Which requesting compensation. I would just like iRex to accept their obligations.

Have you written to them formally or is this all through the iRex forums? If you have written formally it'd be interesting to know the response ...

In terms of starting a president for a full refund - this would likely put them out of business if taken up by a majority. You may be legally correct - but have you really had so little value out of your device that you would jeopardize other users' (whom are more happy with their devices) ongoing viability for their devices???

Personally - I think the battery upgrade (and possibly throw in a cover) would be good for me. I do want the unbrick capability - especially now code is available ... but I'm sure this will come.

There isn't another open source (OK there have been problems in this area) device out there with the features - for those that want to experiment with a device - if the company are out of business, there isn't an alternative ...

Would it be worth meditating a little more and thinking about a more selfless route to gain appeasement?

@pdam

I am not going to take legal action myself, but I can understand those who will very well.
I would like iRex to succeed, but I can't see it on the horizon anymore.

The only hope I still had was that the new model would be better than the old one and that we would all get a chance for an upgrade and/or replacement.
The battery-upgrade is a farce in my opinon. No self-respecting customer should be happy with this, especially since the advertised gain with this battery is minimal. The little powersaving script k2r provided offers a better solution...
iRex should either withdraw completely from the consumer market and go play ball with their b2b customers...whoever that might be...or offer a proper solution to the current problems.

Honestly...which century are we living in? A device that is advertised as "low-power" has the processor and RAM running full speed all the time, a year after it is first launched. The neccessary software is there, the hardware to support it is there, but somehow it never gets implemented. Even with this "standard" powersaving option it should be possible to reach the advertised battery life. Suspend is not possible, I am very unhappy about this, but I know part of the reason (can't disclose, sorry) for this hardware error so I had a bit of sympathy. However, now we have the Iliad Model 2007, new battery and a few changes to the casing. If you are doing a redesign anyway, why not fix the most blatant mistake of all? Why not make use of one of the two main benefits of eink?

I must admit that I have finally given up on the Iliad and the company behind it. I had hoped that something could be done, some workaround, but it appears all is indeed lost, at least from my perspective. Mistakes can happen, but to consistently not fix them is just plain stupidity. No more, no less!
I sent a "goodbye" message to Angel Ancin yesterday and in the course of that also officially said "no thank you" to the still standing offer of "some form of compensation" for my efforts in "organizing" the first "beta-testers" for iRex. They had offered content or accessories (once either became available), but I don't really see the point anymore. They'll need every cent they can get for the troubles ahead.
I wish them the best of course, but I'm not sure they'll be going much further than this without a change in management...

@pdam

It's Jaed all over again. Just because you are happy the others should suffer? Your arguement works as well the other way.

Personally I want iRex to acknoledge their legal obligations rather than the half<censored>ed approach they are currently taking and trying to avoid doing so.

I havn't decided if I would take the refund. I like my iLiad. But as it stands it won't ever do what I brought it for. The point is they are not making it clear to their customers that they are entitled to one.

Oh and to add to CommanderRor comments:

They have 1 b2b customer atm. The eflybook...

Given this is a _very_ expensive product and is aimed at people with a very lucrative job or very expensive hobby in one of if not the most litagous country on the planet. Do you see them standing for this?

And what will happen if those customers do sue their Arinc? Will they have any option other than to take action against their errant supplier?

Do you see where I am going with this?

Does that scare me? Hell yes.

But the iLiad does have a significant number of plus sides too...

The User Community for one: Adam B's FBReader port is certainly going to make it very difficult to leave the platform.

But we are still missing that user reflash option which would decide it.

Ok.

So, let's do the summary.

1) IRex's product literature had numbers / features that are not actually possible with the device they advertised.

2) IRex mentioned in their literature that not all features would be available immediately.

3) Some people have had their ILiads for many months and are upset that it still doesn't support those features / numbers.

4) For those who feel wronged, the law is on the customer's side and legally IRex must address this. You can take this up with them by emailing their info@irextechnologies.com address.


No need to really discuss those points further, I think. We've all got the point.

I want some of the features that were advertised as well and I am not happy that they are not available (decent HTML reading is one). I'd also like some improvements - faster startup time for example. But that said, I am pretty tired of hearing people whine about how awful the device is and how crappy IRex has been.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the features DO work and most of them work well. In the areas where they don't IRex has been pretty forthcoming about. The information about the ILiad's battery life and it's future capabilities was not 'discovered', IRex told us, and told us why. They have told us what things they think will work to rectify / improve the situation and which ones they are working on internally, and they are the ones who said 'Yep, looks like we won't hit that 21 hour mark' At all the points where there was information to share, it seems to me that IRex has done so, including giving estimates of when SDK and other things would be released, and being pretty forthcoming about what has been going on internally with regard to features.

This is a good thing, and we have a lot of information and details from the people who build this device. It seems to me the real issue that folks are really pissed off about is that IRex isn't moving fast enough to make things nicer than they are. I can understand that completely, I really want faster boot time and the ability to unbrick the device myself if I decide to hack on it and screw up (Hint Hint)

But let's face it, folks. They don't have to do any of it. There are numerous other companies out there using Linux as their core and giving no support whatsoever. Most companies taking advantage of linux do the bare minimum by releasing the relevant public code changes in some hidden corner of their website. Many don't even do that until they are 'caught' and called out. (Linksys is a good example of both of these.)

So, some additional facts:

5) IRex does not have to provide any developer tools whatsoever.

6) IRex does not have to accept your device back to reflash it if you mess it up.

7) They don't have to tell you anything about how to write software effectively for your ILiad, or how to improve it's performance in any way.

8) They don't have to have a public forum for the users of their product, nor do they have to participate in any forum.

9) They don't have to accept / incorporate any community developer ideas into their software.

10) They do all of these things. (5-9)

So what we have actually is a company who is being very positive and compliant with the spirit of open source by being involved and helpful where they can, rather than just complying with the letter of law by using linux and releasing only their required changes.

And what we have is a user community whose most vocal posts are about how, on the whole, the company stinks, lies to their customers, and fails to live up to their legal obligations. These claims don't match up with the reality, which is that we have a great device, and a company who is actually putting some paid-for resources into working with the community.

Yes, I know the battery life is not what they said. But you know what, in engineering, especially in battery usage, folks make mistakes and sometimes fall short of the mark. It happens... It also happens that marketing folks claim as much as they think they can get away with regardless of what engineering says. IRex has come forward and offered a battery replacement for those who want it. Once again, showing their good faith. And for those for whom that is not good enough, have provided the address to direct further discussion to.

So I think we need to take a moment before we lambaste them, yet again, and realize what we do have. I also think we need to remember that the community effort they are putting in is not required in any way and that if they decide that it is not worth it, they can withdraw it at any time.

We have a great device. It gets better monthly. We get information, we get feedback on our ideas and our tinkering. We get info on what's coming and what isn't, and where our time would overlap what they are doing internally. We get a lot.

IRex is a business, this means they do work for money, and hopefully bring in more money than they spend producing things. Building a community and harnessing the interest and tinker-lust of interested individuals can be beneficial to the company and the community, but it costs money and time and it's a tricky thing to manage. So much so that most companies don't even try. I think IRex deserves kudos for doing so, and for being as helpful and forthcoming as they have been.

I, for one, hope IRex does continue to do so in spite of the negativity that seems to continually be thrown their way. I think it's a great device now and will continue to improve, and I think the pace of those improvements will increase dramatically once people can tinker without fear of bricking their Iliad and being unable to use it for weeks while it gets fixed. (Hint, User unbricking, Hint)

JayK

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the features DO work and most of them work well. In the areas where they don't IRex has been pretty forthcoming about.

Do they?

HTML is still pretty much unusable.
MP3 is non-existant
The wacom touchpad is still uncalibrated and doesn't provide the pressure sensitive functions.

The information about the ILiad's battery life and it's future capabilities was not 'discovered', IRex told us, and told us why. They have told us what things they think will work to rectify / improve the situation and which ones they are working on internally, and they are the ones who said 'Yep, looks like we won't hit that 21 hour mark'

After they accidentally put up a webpage stating the specs of the V2 which stated 15. Then when questioned stated that this was only possible with a larger battery.

At all the points where there was information to share, it seems to me that IRex has done so, including giving estimates of when SDK and other things would be released, and being pretty forthcoming about what has been going on internally with regard to features.

Err when? Sorry but thats just not the case iRex have still not mentioned when they will provide the promised mp3 support, wacom calibration, etc etc.

Yes the iLiad is a great device. And has huge potential. But iRex's performance as a company has been pretty cruddy.

What has bugged many of the early user's off most is the "This will be done soon" statements which we have been hearing for 6 months or more.


5) IRex does not have to provide any developer tools whatsoever.

Err they announced this prior to the sales of the iLiad. So yes they do.


6) IRex does not have to accept your device back to reflash it if you mess it up.

They don't they make it a chargable service.

7) They don't have to tell you anything about how to write software effectively for your ILiad, or how to improve it's performance in any way.

This is true. And their help to the developers is always appreciated.


8) They don't have to have a public forum for the users of their product, nor do they have to participate in any forum.

They only did this after the community complained repeatedly about their previous official policy (which came from the very top we were told) which meant that there was no interaction from iRex other than their announcements.

9) They don't have to accept / incorporate any community developer ideas into their software.

Again they promised early on that community projects would be wither be added into their official releases or made so that individual users should choose them for automatic dowload.

Also they would be bloody stupid not to accept free help in developing their device. Thats like someone refusing a handful of free money.

The wacom touchpad is still uncalibrated and doesn't provide the pressure sensitive functions.

You are so right! It's a pain to write like this, my pen is off so much that it is unusable.

So - Riocaz - I only have one question for you. Have you actually volunteered to send your device back and asked for a refund?

I'm not going to fight you point by point. When I buy a product, I make sure it does what I want before I purchase it. I don't spend my money until it actually does what I am looking for. Maybe it's a question of when you purchased, and what you read prior. Personally, I knew exactly what I was getting when I placed my order. I was not disappointed.

There are things I wish worked better, but I have faith that they will in time. If they don't, I may be annoyed, but I realize that's part of that whole 'being a grown up' thing. You know, understanding that maybe I have some responsibility in the situation by jumping before I knew everything. This is why I read as much as I possibly can before I part with a large amount of money for a device and why I almost never buy a product before I've read the comments of those who actually had their hands on the device.

In any case, I have a different view, and that is that we have a device that is one of the best ebook readers out there right now, as is and one of the few that is not actively crippled by insisting on proprietary and DRM ridden formats that mean I can't read whatever I want on it.

That is what I bought, a good, easy to read, DRM-free, standard format capable E-book reader. Not an mp3 player, and not a sketchpad - I find the input works well enough for making notes on the pages, which is what I expected.

AND it's still being actively developed, with a fair amount of information as to what is coming provided by the company.

We also have a company who is active with the community and willing to help and share much more information than most companies do. Just look at how many products have Linux inside but have no information at all about that fact on their website... and will only grudgingly give a link to the GPL code if somebody figures it out and calls them on it.

The ILiad doesn't suck... and IRex isn't a bad company. I'm sorry you feel cheated. I suggest that you contact them and let them know you want to return your ILiad and get your money back - it was already established that legally you can do so.

For the other folks who are looking at / considering an ILiad, I suggest you do what was recommended to me, and what I did. Read up on what it can do, what it can't do, and then decide if it's worth it to you to get the features it has right now, because there is never any guarantee that any product will advance any further once you have it. Personally, I think if you are looking for a good ebook reader, it is worth it, but do the research yourself and then decide.

JayK

First off, I don't have a dog in this hunt. I'm a Sony Reader owner, and I'm quite happy with my acquisition. :nice: Frankly, I'd probably be fairly happy with the iLiad for my own purposes, too (except the battery life), but that doesn't make it all right to deliver less than is advertised, and still charge full price. :no:

You see, the problem, JayK, is that a lot of folks purchased an iLiad expecting it to do more than it actually does, not because they didn't research it beforehand, but because they took iRex's word on what the device would do eventually, which iRex has since admitted isn't physically possible, given the hardware choices they made. It's not that iRex said it might do such and such, it's that iRex said it would do particular things and it doesn't. Further, iRex repeatedly insisted that it would do those things, in, as you say, time, and it has not come to pass. :sad:

In fact, the things you point to as laudable that they've done, have been largely a result of pressure from the MobileRead community. :shrug:

It's entirely possible that iRex honestly believed they would be able to achieve what they were advertising (I for one, believe that they did so believe), but they simply haven't. Given that circumstance, I don't think that it's just a matter of a buyer denying his responsibility in an immature fashion, there's plenty of responsibility on the part of the seller. The default doesn't have to be deliberate to be a default, it just has to be a default.

Riocaz has been active here since May of last year, at the time, MobileRead was the best (almost only) source of information on these devices (still is, arguably), and we counted among our number someone who had his hands on an evaluation unit. It is very wise to wait for the comments of those who've had their hands on a unit, and to get all the information available before buying, however, generally speaking, somebody has to buy the device without any such comments, or there never are any such comments.

I'm glad that you have a device that does what you want, that's a big goal of MobileRead, to get folks information so that they can get what they'll be happy with. But it's not always an option to know everything (or even most everything) before making a decision, and that's part of MobileRead too: to pass on the experiences of the brave souls who jump in first, so that others can know what the water is like.

If this were a situation of a device that did what it said it would but just not in the way the buyer expected it to, or not in a way that he liked or wanted it done, that would be one thing, and the "grown up" thing would be to just accept that he should have looked more before leaping. But this is, instead, a situation where a device was specifically advertised to do functions A through L and it only does B, D, and G through H, and some of those only sort of. :sad2:

That's not a matter of not researching enough to know what to reasonably expect, it's a situation of a device being significantly different than what it was represented to be, and that's just not right, even if it wasn't deliberate, and even though some folks are happy with getting only a fraction of the features they paid for. :shrug:


You know, the ironic thing is, the last time I saw Riocaz get upset (and a good deal more upset that time) it was in defense of iRex and the iLiad. :stars:

I do have an iLiad. I'm happy with it, but I bought it used, at a discount, because I could see from the experiences of others that it wasn't worth the full price iRex was charging, at least not to me. (And this means that another customer absorbed that cost differential.)

Taking responsibility for one's own actions is mature, yes. But it applies to the management of iRex as well as to the buyers. Commitments were made, in writing. We now have notice, again in writing, that some of these commitments will not be kept. I personally feel that the battery replacement program is an excellent step in the right direction. If this remedy does not go far enough for some users, they may be entitled to a full refund in exchange for their units.

I don't want to see a witch-hunt take iRex down. I think the company still has a lot of potential, based on recent changes in attitude that they've shown. But they have only shown those changes in response to community pressure. This is how companies usually behave. Their job is to make money. Our job, as the user community, is to keep that pressure as steady as possible, without temper flare-ups and name-calling. We need to thank and support the folks at iRex when they do well, and let them know, openly and honestly, when they fall short of their commitments. White-washing iRex won't help any more than vilifying them.

There are different categories of users, each of whom ask different things of the iLiad. Some folks are very happy with their units, which I think is great. Others are not getting what they need. Rather than criticizing the needs or wants of others, let's focus on making that list of unmet needs as concrete as possible, so we can work constructively with iRex on either meeting those needs, or acknowledging the limits of the device so folks can move on to other solutions that will meet their needs.

And as we do this, we'll need to continue to encourage iRex to be more clear about the capabilities of the device in their marketing materials, which still cite capabilities the device doesn't yet support. :(

Well, I'm afraid a full list of features we user want would go on for ever, but I think most of us would like to see one big thing:

BATTERY LIFE!!!

and that is something we won't get, not if the only change iRex is willing to make is a larger battery...

Things like more viewers, speed improvements for booting and UI, Wacom calibration, presure sensitivity, webbrowsing are minor things that can be fixed by communtiy developers if neccessary (unbricking utility would help though).

DRM support is another one of the biggies, but I guess until the Iliad version X offers some kind of powersaving that can make it comfortable to use (or has a booting time <5 seconds) most other improvements seem like an excersize in futility to me.

I remember quite clearly that I incredulously inquired about the strange "low battery life of 21 hours" for the Iliad which was clearly inferior to the 7000-8000 pageturns other eink devices announced at that time promised. The reply I got was that the Iliad would manage 10000 pageturns and that the 21 hours included some WiFi useage for getting content every day. Unfortunately I don't have the mails with the original text anymore...

As it stands right now, I would live going back to the Iliad, now with dicitonary support and FBReader, but as soon as I remember the hassle of having to boot and shutodwn the device for every reading session I decide to stay with my STAReBOOk that has ugly fonts and crappy formatting but at least let's me use it in a paperlike way.

I am really tired of the negativity on this forum... first I wasn't gonna reply on this post but I guess one can only ignore something for so long.

I believe a forum should be a place where people can discuss and exchange idea's and opinions in a positive, constructive way and respect other people's opinion.

Each time somebody posts something positive or in defense of the iLiad in response to all the negativity (in this case JayK), they get hammered by many posts that keep repeating the same thing over and over again. I am tired of reading them.

As Jaed I think this will be my last post here...

Cya on the flipside

@mill0r

I think you might be right. There has been a lot of negative posting about the Iliad and iRex here and the arguments are basically always the same, both on the positive and the negative side. You must see however, that there is a lot of positive and constructive work going on here as well, just check out the developers section.

The reason why many here (including me) are so mad and negative is because the Iliad has one very serious shortcoming and that is not being fixed (it's not even on the horizon) because it's a hardware design error. However, maybe we should take that fact as granted for now and try to look onwards.

In my opinion, the three things to focus on are:

1 - Holding iRex to their commitment to the battery replacement program

2 - Getting iRex to finish developing and release the unbricking utility

3 - The Mobipocket deal. That doesn't matter to me personally, but it matters to many people, and is something that's unlikely to happen without iRex involvement.

Everything else, the OSS community can provide, including power management improvement. I bet we could even cobble together our own software distribution using apt-get or similar.

Anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with that scenario should probably ask for a refund and buy one of the other models, perhaps the upcoming NAEB reader. I'm generally an optimist by nature, but I think at this point what we see is what we're going to get. It's time to decide if you can live with it, or you want your money back.

Just my humble opinion, of course.

We need to thank and support the folks at iRex when they do well, and let them know, openly and honestly, when they fall short of their commitments. White-washing iRex won't help any more than vilifying them.

Personally, I don't think saying 'The ILiad doesn't suck, nor does IRex' quite qualifies as white-washing. There are people who have a beef with IRex - and rightly so. But IRex has offered to exchange the battery, and we know you can get your money back. So why are we still shouting about it?

I mean... Come on, this conversation amounts to: "This sucks, the battery life is too short" "That's fair, we'll give you a bigger battery, and keep trying to improve things for you." 'Yeah? Well you still suck."

I've been reading about the ILiad on this very forum since before it was released. I was actually originally after the Jinke V2. But after reading about what the ILiad could do, I decided to go ahead. I posted because I think that IRex and the ILiad get a bad rap here, and I wanted to lend some positive comments to it, because on the whole I believe the device is excellent, in spite of the shortcomings it does have.

If it had 4 hours runtime, I'd probably be bothered, but 10 hours solid is what I get when I leave it running... That's more than a full day's work for me - and if I turn it off when I know I'm putting it down for 20+ minutes, it lasts well over a week on a single charge... I've only had it discharge completely once, and I don't even keep the charger plugged in and available, it's in a drawer until I need it.

In my opinion, the three things to focus on are:

1 - Holding iRex to their commitment to the battery replacement program

2 - Getting iRex to finish developing and release the unbricking utility



I agree 100%. I'm glad that they are replacing the batteries, I think it's an important step towards proving they care about their customers and their word. But Quite frankly - #2 the more important one I think - here's why - I've done embedded programming before, I know that there is a lot more that is possible than you usually realize. With an unbricking ability, we can go to town with the kernel and really start tweaking things. Other folks have already proven just by tweaking things in user-mode you can extend the usage to 12-15 hours on the current battery. That means with the additional 30% battery life the updated battery is supposed to get, we are getting closer to 16-20 hours. If we can get into the kernel and do dynamic cpu scaling based on load, which is possible on desktop linux installs, we can make the CPU throttle down whenever it's idle, and throttle up as it needs to do things.

This means instant improvement across the board. We can also look into boosting boot time. I have had Linux desktop machines that boot in 16 seconds (including that 8 second or so bios screen / hard drive probing time) all the way into X. I can think of a ton of ways to speed up the boot time, and with a boot time of 15 seconds or so, people will not be so reticent to turn the thing off, which will improve the length of time you can use the device.

The point is - the device is solid. There are issues, and some folks are really pissed about them. That's understandable, and they have every right to be.

What I have an issue with is that they feel the best thing to do is complain about it repeatedly, and bash anyone who says they are happy with the device. I'm not being sarcastic when I say I'm sorry it is not meeting your expectations. I hate it when that happens to me.

Let's have some perspective here, though. If it really bothers you, return it and buy something else, or wait for the next model that suits you better. If you aren't willing to do part with your ILiad, then obviously the device has value to you, and you are doing everyone who owns an ILiad a disservice by constantly attacking the people who are here to help us and support us.

We all bought a device that we knew was a rev-A product and was not 'final'... We knew it would be improved upon as time went on. The most important 'Feature' of the ILiad for me, apart from my being able to 'print' things to read on it, is the fact that it is being improved and actively developed by both the company and third party developers.

I have issue with anyone who is threatening that. If someone continually attacks IRex, and anyone who is happy with the ILiad, they are threatening the future open development of the device and it's software. When people are attacked, it chips away at their desire to keep doing what they are doing. I don't want that to happen.

Again - I have no issue with legitimate complaints, and there are some, as I stated in my original post. However, we've covered it and then some. IRex has acknowledged the big issue, they have given straight information and initiated an upgrade program... They are continuing to work on improving battery life. They are working on the problem. If that's not good enough for you, then I suggest you take the option of getting your refund.

In any case, please, stop attacking the people who are here to assist. You are doing everyone a disservice and hurting the whole community.

JayK

In any case, please, stop attacking the people who are here to assist. You are doing everyone a disservice and hurting the whole community.Excellent advice which applies equally in the other direction: personal attacks on someone with a different view aren't useful, whichever side of the debate either person happens to be on.

Excellent advice which applies equally in the other direction: personal attacks on someone with a different view aren't useful, whichever side of the debate either person happens to be on.

You are absolutely right. I apologize for implying immaturity in my second post.

I am very glad to see CommanderRoR's post at the top of the forum, and I hope we can get back to talking about how to get the most out of our device.

And I should take my own advise. Given the commander's posting earlier I have removed this and try to look onwards.

Well said, both of you, good show. :nice: