Quote:
Originally Posted by nekokami
Three factors make the iLiad stand out from the competition, in my mind: the larger screen, pen input, and the (relatively) open development environment. No other e ink device has any of these so far. I think the price is still a bit high for the market, though. A lot of that is the cost of the actual hardware (the e ink screen, the Wacom tablet, the wireless interface, and the multiple types of external memory). Hopefully the price of the e ink screen will drop. Only a hardware redesign is likely to help the other issues (if they can find a design that's more economical to build, for example). It doesn't look to me like the B2B model is working out very well, and now they're in a much more competitive market.
They need another big market differentiator to increase the value at the current cost. Full on-board handwriting recognition might do it, and wouldn't require a hardware redesign. The UI also needs an upgrade. And if they do a hardware redesign, they absolutely have to address the "sleep" mode (whatever you want to call it).
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I think increasing the value at the current cost is likely the wrong direction. I have been researching a bit of eBook history and have found that the larger devices have always failed in the marketplace. Check my wiki article called eBooks. It is not done but the history is what I have been concentrating on with some articles about the various devices.
eBooks
The telling tails seem to be everyone likes the idea of a bigger screen but they don't buy it. Cost and battery life seem to be the big issues IMHO not wanting more features.
The iLiad is a dream machine for me and it is open but too technical. The openess needs to be integrated into an easy user interface to mainstream the product and the battery life needs more help (likely automatic turn off of battery hogging features and better shutdown will help).
Dale