iRex Digital Reader 1000 Software 1.5 Released

[Adam B.]

iRex has released software update 1.5 for the DR1000.

This software update includes many of the features that have been lacking.

• Sleep mode: This puts the device to sleep after a specified period to conserve power. A button press or stylus touch will wake it up in a matter of seconds to be ready again.
• Automatic Power Off: The system can power off after a period of unuse. This can be turned off completely, or can be specified to only happen when on battery power
• Configurable Task Bar: You can drag commonly used icons from the pop up menu to the task bar. This can provide quick access to annotation tools, zoom, rotate, etc.
• Speed improvements: Irex didn't specify, but it appears that reading PDF's is significantly faster.

These are the improvements that I've seen. There may well be others. This is definitely a major improvement for the DR1000. I highly recommend all users to upgrade asap.

People have noted that the companion software isn't automatically finding the update. If this is the case, it can be manually downloaded from here.

[Shaggy]

These are the features and bug fixes from the release notes:

What’s new in software release 1.5?
These Release Notes cover what is new in the software release 1.5 and provide the download and installation instructions.

This software release is part of an ongoing process to extend the functionalities of the iRex Digital Reader 1000 series and to enhance the overall performance to ensure an optimal digital reading experience for our customers.

• Added an Interactive Toolbar
The Toolbar will make it easy to organize and place your favourite icons within reach. You can personalize the toolbar by adding, removing and replacing icons

• Power management settings to help save battery power
Automatic Shutdown and Sleep Mode will help save battery power. You can configure the power management in the settings menu and you can choose how long the device will wait to turn off or before it goes to sleep mod

• Page rendering performance improvements
Several improvements to the PDF pre-rendering algorithm will improve page flip performance

• Added step-wise increase and decrease Zoom and Font size
Zooms the document in and out by 25% each time it is used. Increase / decrease the font size by 2pts

• Sensor Lock icon and Battery Status icon now clickable
Sensor lock icon and Battery Status icon in the status are now clickable to toggle sensor lock or to show battery status

• Larger font size selection
Larger font sizes have been added to make reading easier for people with visual impairments.

• Improved the speed of closing a document
Documents are now closed faster

• Improved display updates
Display updates have been improved to reduce the amount of screen refreshes

• Mobipocket
Show cover page when first opening a document and support image hyperlinks.



Bug fixes

• Problem solved where opening some dictionaries cause Mobipocket to crash.
• System clock now accurately keeps time
• Resolved problem of fading iRex logo while booting
• Problem solved where device sometimes doesn’t switch off completely
• Resolved problem where device could be stuck in start-up
• Zoom factors now keep current center and zoom selection can be toggled
• Problem solved where language selection would not be available after a factory reset
• Battery status is now more clear when charging
• Problem solved where Eraser could not be toggled off
• Writepad templates now have the stylus enabled by default
• Solved problem where PDF viewer reported Out of Memory while it’s not
• Automatic panning after zoom-in no longer enabled by default
• Selected word for dictionary lookup is now highlighted
• Dithering algorithm improved for images

Looks like a lot of good stuff.

[keng2000]

Yes, I am testing those features.
PressReader works faster in opening, turmong and closing
FBReader still works fine.

My Modified Locale (Thai Language) stills works also...

PDF is much better but still some lack, Need to test with several file sizes.

Battery icon clickable can give the exact capacity. (Bar tells very difference)

Very good Stacked Icon in taskbar to fast switch task

[imagitronics]

Does the sleep mode work similarly to the Sony Reader now? ie, no more waiting for the device to boot before you can read a book? That's the main reason I haven't splurged for an iRex device.

[Daithi]

That's a wicked pretty system. I wish Amazon would hurry up and release a large screen version of the Kindle.

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by imagitronics

Does the sleep mode work similarly to the Sony Reader now? ie, no more waiting for the device to boot before you can read a book?

What is now called "sleep" mode seems to be what was originally called "suspend" mode. The original estimates from iRex were that suspend mode would triple battery life (i.e. up to 24 hrs if you got 8 hrs before). Note that this may still only be a maximum of 8 hrs reading time, depending on whether suspend mode can help while reading or not. The Automatic Shutdown preserves battery life, at the expense of a full reboot next time you use it. There was originally going to be a true "sleep" mode, offering ~50 days of battery life with a ~10s wake up time. I don't know if that is still in iRex's plans. See About the battery life.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by imagitronics

Does the sleep mode work similarly to the Sony Reader now? ie, no more waiting for the device to boot before you can read a book? That's the main reason I haven't splurged for an iRex device.

There are two APM modes that will ultimately be on the device.

The first is a sleep mode that will kick off after a short period of inactivity, and has a quick recovery time. This is basically for when you let the device sit for a couple minutes and will come back to it, or in between page turns, etc. I think the max it will last in this mode is 24 hours, but that's theoretical. People are experimenting with it right now in order to find out the "real world" max time.

What you are talking about is "standby", "hibernate", etc. Where the device takes it's running state and suspends it to flash. This is basically the alternative to turning the device off. The recovery time is a little longer than sleep mode, but much faster than a full bootup. It will last for "weeks" in this mode (again, theoretically). This mode is planned for another update.

So, with the 1.5 update you still have to bootup/shutdown the device if you're not going to be using it for long periods. This update basically extends the battery life while you are using it.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

There was originally going to be a true "sleep" mode, offering ~50 days of battery life with a ~10s wake up time. I don't know if that is still in iRex's plans.

The last info from them is that it is still in their plans but they had to move it to a separate firmware update. They have not announced estimated release dates for it yet though.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

Note that this may still only be a maximum of 8 hrs reading time, depending on whether suspend mode can help while reading or not.

The first couple reports I've heard is that the wake up time is much faster than expected. Sounds like it may work pretty well as a "suspend in between page turns" kind of thing. That should help extend the reading time.

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

The first couple reports I've heard is that the wake up time is much faster than expected. Sounds like it may work pretty well as a "suspend in between page turns" kind of thing. That should help extend the reading time.

For me, waking up is a "one-thousand-one-one-thousand-two" count. Not bad at all for the improved battery life you get out of it.

[sarikan]

wake up is really fast. which means that we should have a much shorter setting for it, like 5 secs. this way it would end up with slowish page turns and a significantly longer reading time (I guess)

[Adam B.]

Originally Posted by sarikan

wake up is really fast. which means that we should have a much shorter setting for it, like 5 secs. this way it would end up with slowish page turns and a significantly longer reading time (I guess)

But wake up doesn't work well when you're using the pen. You can't start drawing on the screen and have your notes show up when it's woken up. You have to tap it to wake it up, then start drawing. This means that every time there's a pause when you're taking notes, it would go back to sleep. Definitely not useful...

[atlasshrggd]

spent a few minutes to explore the improvement on interface.

I think IREX did a good job.

Hope they will keep this effort to make it even better.

[omro]

Originally Posted by Adam B.

But wake up doesn't work well when you're using the pen. You can't start drawing on the screen and have your notes show up when it's woken up. You have to tap it to wake it up, then start drawing. This means that every time there's a pause when you're taking notes, it would go back to sleep. Definitely not useful...

There was a note about the wake up being slower with the pen than with the buttons, that said the pen functionality is kinda useless anyway with the calibration, it's just a faster way to get through the menus.

I'm hopeful that once the pen software gets more work done to it, the wake up times for the pen will be better.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by sarikan

wake up is really fast. which means that we should have a much shorter setting for it, like 5 secs. this way it would end up with slowish page turns and a significantly longer reading time (I guess)

Their developer mentioned a while ago that it would be possible to set any time you wanted in a config file, in addition to the selectable options (30, 45, 60...). So, in theory, you'd be able to configure it to 5 seconds that way if you wanted to.

Hopefully over the next couple days they'll give some details on what file and how to edit it.