Quote:
Originally Posted by Robertb
Dear Maggie:
Here is the problem. Right now, because of the competition, Astak makes nothing, to speak of, on selling devices.
Yes, in the real world (and eBook Readers are not real world) a company would make 20% at least on each sale. If putting covers and eye candy on there would double sales they would say: "Let's get this done". But double nothing is still nothing.
We ARE hiring our own engineers over in Taiwan. I do not know; but once that is done and they are trained we can ask them. Otherwise we have to beg and plead with the factory who IS making money.
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Point them towards the Buggins firmware as "proof" that it can be done without a major resource investment, but point out to them that a third party shouldn't be doing all this, since its a core of customers who DON'T go looking for hacked firmware (that's MOST customers) who needs to be satisfied here.
Of all the potential "firmware" features, I'd rate "pretty book covers instead of just file names" as a nice possible upgrade, but perhaps a hair less important than stuff like the ability to delete files (like the Buggins version has) or the simple ability to cut and paste book files between directories without the need for a computer (something Buggins version doesn't really do, since all he's really conquered is being able to copy and paste between the SD card and the internal memory). And maybe pie in the sky, an on-device hyperlinked sortable "catalog" (that's where thumbnailed "covers" might come in handy) and/or a search engine (there's no keyboard on the unit, but the number keys can be used for something like the T9 texting system people are used to on cell phones).
Certainly you can't promise us any of this, but if they need a direction overall point out that the competition (Kobo, Pocketbook, etc.) are doing some of this.