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Originally Posted by PF4Mobile
good bye Android on 10", RIP.
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No, not really, there is hope. Since Barnes & Noble started doing Android based devices from the beginning and Sony probably will stick with it too, if any of those companies will ever produce an 10" ereader, it will almost certainly be Android based.
Because they are already doing that and it would be completly pointless to make the switch.. What I am saying though it that you can be 99.9% certain access to the market will remain locked and you will have to wait till somebody roots the device. Not a problem for the few of you computer savvy power users, but for the wide audience? Anyhow, you can keep your fingers crossed for them.
Furthermore, you can also hope for a new brand to appear and deliver a 10" reader. If they start from scratch, they will have the opportunity to choose the OS, maybe they decide to go with Android, seeing how things have evolved. When Onyx did start designing their first reader, the newest Android available was version 1.5 at best. If they had a crystal ball back then to see the future, maybe they would go with it........
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Since you seem to have knowledge about hardware here is one last question: what would be the main challenge when implementing an eInk monitor?
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"seem" is the keyword here.
But since I've been wondering too, I think it's the cost and marketing. THe 10" Pearl screen costs around 200$ to replace if you brake it. It's really expensive. What would a decent monitor be, 20"? How much would that cost? Once you factor all the materials in, research and development, wages for your engeneers, finally some margins to keep the business running, I am afraid you would end up with a price around 1000$ or higher. How do you sell a black and white sluggish small screen for over 1000$?? Till the technology becomes really cheap and widespread, so economies of scale can do their job, I don't see a chance for an e-ink monitor. And I am not seeing this technology becoming really cheap and widespread any time soon.
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Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder
Android on E-ink maybe a pipedream, but so are the crippled Linuxes as well with their dismal performance.
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I am not sure if you realise, but Android is also a cripplied Linux, based on the same 2.6 Kernel the Onyx firmware is based, and all other Linux based readers too. Do you have any bechmarks suggesting Android would not provide "dismal performance" or some arguments why it would work faster on the same hardware, running the same but modified kernel at it's core, to support your claims? That's what I thought.
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And for the hundreth time: who wants to run ALL apps on a e-ink device?
We need only SOME apps - actualy between 5 and 10 ...
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And who is going to decide which 10 of thousands of apps to choose to be available? One person likes XYZreader, the other ABCreader, how do you prevent yourself from getting flooded with emails asking why didn't you choose this app over that app, or "your device suxorz cuz Angry Birds doesn't run" and other similar nonsense? By making sure you can run ALL of them. Can you guarantee that? No, then you disable the market app. Or why did B&N and Sony do that?
And when you disable the market app, then what exactly is the appeal of Android, over pure Linux. Are any of the great apps open source, so you can "borrow" them into your firmware? You still have to make sure you provide the basic functionality. How is this different to doing it on custom firmware?
Or maybe just deliver a naked device, hoping the users will root them, loose support and be happy with them? Sure, you will sell a few to some geeks, but will it keep your company afloat?
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Originally Posted by tuxor
Again: If you want to convince anybody in this whole world with programming abilities to port Android to the Boox series of devices you need to name real _reasons_. Not only stuff like "would be cool to have android", "there is this certain app I'd like to have".
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Exactly.
It would have to be really good reasons too, so a company can either spend the money on making their programmers switch to an unknown system and spend the time to learn it, or to fire them all and hire new ones. For the sake of achieving what?
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Originally Posted by Beryll Snyder
Some people post like crazy in the first two weeks they use their reader, only to be never heard of again.
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Has it ever crossed your mind, that people might be busy reading books on their devices, rather than participate on forum ramblings? That they rather just happily continue reading, rather than try to find holes to complain about?
If not then let me inform you in advance, that when I get my own 10" reader (don't know when yet), I will be definitely disappearing for longer from here,
because I will be busy reading. Not necessarly because I will be unhappy with the device. Btw: Unhappy people would rather come back to look for fixes to their problems/alternative readers. But apparently that didn't cross your mind either....