Quote:
|
Originally Posted by nekokami
Interesting. I don't think it's going to compete very well against the FLEPia, once that hits the market, but we'll see whether iRex can get it together in the mean time...
Are Japanese users as prone to wanting to modify their devices as we seem to be?
|
I totally agree as well. The Iliad stands a snowball's chance in hell
of surviving once the FLEPia is released, mainly due to the price factor. Of course the Japanese aren't hesitant to drop a lot of Yen for portable electronic devices; case in point, a small Casio translator/dictionary/portable encyclopedia goes for $200-300, and everyone has one. On the other hand, people here don't seem to carry around and PDA's other than their phones; that goes for Windows Mobile, Palm, and *nix OS's. One thing that might help though is portability, if the FLEPia is too big (is there such a thing), it might not catch on as well as a smaller more portable, subway friendly model.
As mentioned earlier, I think the Librie flopped due to its stupid DRM/expiration scheme
. That device crashed so hard it ended up as a vague obscurity nobody remembers except for the tinkerers. The Japanese are anything but flippant about their hard-earned cash, so they aren't about to waste it on something that will expire (unless it's Starbucks!
) in a few days; i.e., books that expire in a month.
Time will tell, but I'll be watching