[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Sonist

I absolutely agree, that it's really lame for iRex to drop development for the iLiad.

As a fellow iLiad user I agree that it sucks, but it does make some sense from iRex's point of view. They only have a very small development team, and it makes sense that they want to focus their resources on working on software updates for the new device. It was a nice move on their part to release the source code for the iLiad to the public, so that hopefully others can do some of the development that iRex itself doesn't have the resources to work on.

Since every other device on the market, most of them far cheaper, has good Power Management and can last forever (like my Sonys), iRex should do their best to make it available for the iLiad, if it is to compete.

They originally wanted to do power management for the iLiad, but found out after looking into it more that it's basically impossible. There are some legitimate reasons for this that have been discussed elsewhere. At best, it would be extremely difficult. The open source community may come up with a solution for this, but I think it's fairly unlikely. There are some serious hurdles they'll need to overcome to get it working.

I don't really understand their marketing strategy. They are dropping their 8" device, which to many is the perfect size for book-reading, and is the ONLY ONE available on the market, to focus on a 10" device, which in a few months will have several cheaper competitors, with likely better and more stable software. Go figure.

Technically, they're not dropping the iLiad. They are still selling and supporting it, they're just not actively developing new features for it. If the iLiad does everything you need "as is", then you can still purchase one and get the full warranty on it.

As far as competitors being better and more stable, we'll have to wait and see since their products don't exist yet. If they do turn out to be better, hopefully that'll push iRex to improve their DR1000 even more, which is a good thing.