iLiad SDK details revealed! "Free" and "extended" ...

[TadW]

Gameboy70 was right to differentiate between SDK and sources. iRex expressed their intention to fully comply with GPL, so I assume they will release the OS sources in a way that it can be recompiled and put back on the device.

[k2r]

@doctorow
> Free: Developers can [...]logon to a development account [...]

Hm, if that means that we will not get root privileges say goodbye to a lot of fun stuff (eg.: USB keyboards etc pp).
That would not exactly make the iLiad more attractive to a lot of people.
I don't like the idea of having to hack into a device that I OWN.
Trying to restrict my access to a device that I OWN wouldn't make the company exactly trustworthy and is one of the reasons I absolutely don't intend to buy any Sony products in the forseeable future.

But let's see...

[TadW]

Even shell access could open us new doors to gain root.

Let's hope they'll soon release the sources which might prove very useful, too.

[k2r]

Originally Posted by TadW

Even shell access could open us new doors to gain root.

The question is which privileges the account will have.
If we only got non-root access to the device we could try to find some local exploit on the particular device with the particular system configuration to get root-access.

Press the button, install security update - be locked out of your device, have to hack it again.

I'd consider this being highly annoying and I don't see why I should buy a device I don't have full access to.

Of course I see some difficulties in keeping a person who has complete root-access from getting access to the former DRM-encrypted content that has been prepared for the presentation layer.
If iLiad trys to go the sony way to ensure that there is absolutely no way to convert DRM-content, it will fail as Sony did with their mobile audio devices.

If iLiad goes the Apple/iTunes/iPod way (do some DRM encumbering but in a more sane way), which is what I hope, it might become the iPod (or at least the wrt54g) of eBooks within years.

If they lock owners into userspace, the iLiad will fail because iRex does not have the ressources to make this expensive device appealing to regular people fast enough.

[ath]

Originally Posted by k2r

If they lock owners into userspace, the iLiad will fail because iRex does not have the ressources to make this expensive device appealing to regular people fast enough.

Why do you think iRex was marketing this device to B2B customers first? That's where the expected sales will come from. I'd suspect iRex will leave the entire contents delivery part to others, if they at all can.

[TadW]

You're right ath. Good thing is that B2B customers often need more control over a device to "OEM"-brand it - hence still the need for a usable SDK.

[k2r]

Originally Posted by ath

Why do you think iRex was marketing this device to B2B customers first?

I'm aware if it but I don't think that the B2B market is big enough for iRex to sell a significant volume of iLiads yet.

Most high-volume content is not expensive enough to justify a dedicated reading device.
So it makes more sense to let the customer pay for the device.
If the customer pays €600 for the device, he might want to do more with it than reading only a single newspaper or books from a single publisher.

[ath]

Originally Posted by k2r

I'm aware if it but I don't think that the B2B market is big enough for iRex to sell a significant volume of iLiads yet.

Then, we don't know much about who the iRex B2B customers are. That air chart company ... that's probably one of them. Newspapers ... there have been several tests with e-Paper over the past year, some of which use/used the iLiad. Maps in general, perhaps ... they need high quality presentation (though they typically need colour, as well) ... and there are GPS receivers for CF: so isGarmin or Tomtom going to be first? (Or is colour so important that they'll wait until eInk launches colour ePaper?)

Books ... I'd be willing to bet that someone is doing e-Books on the iLiad. But not for general reading: books and documentation of reference. There are many cases where plain documentation is so voluminous that you need bookshelves on wheels (telecom industry, and probably aeronautics as well). Replace those with iLiads, and you have something. Or computers: would you buy an iLiad stocked with the full Windows reference documentation, and with the option of adding new volumes as they are published, for ... well, a fourth of the paper book price doesn't seem impossible? The cost of the device would be unimportant in such context. (This kind of scenario is partly where I think the current size of the screen comes from ...)

Or perhaps an alternative to those UPS thingies they want us to sign on?

If the customer pays €600 for the device, he might want to do more with it than reading only a single newspaper or books from a single publisher.

Probably. But that's what early adopters are for: they are the people who ask to buy the device for the price. Would be silly to refuse'em. They are usually also few enough to be abandoned if it doesn't work out.

The current device doesn't make full sense to me except as an evaluation platform: Ethernet and WiFi, SD and MMC, and Wacom stylus to boot? Far too expensive for end-user units. So ... my guess is that there's a new and cheaper iLiad (or perhaps two) coming in about 12 months of the right size, and that have only the devices that it/they need. Only one of them will have WiFi -- probably the one with CF (or equivalent). All current owners will be invited to buy one for 2/3 of the list price, which will be approximately 1/3 of the price we paid now :-)

I'm just guessing, of course. It will be very interesting to see what applications based on the iLiad that will turn up over the next year or so.

[k2r]

Originally Posted by ath

Then, we don't know much about who the iRex B2B customers are. That air chart company... that's probably one of them.

Yes, but how many iLiads are they going to sell? Not enough to keep iRex afloat.

Newspapers ...

Yes, but a newspaper publisher who gives away iLiads that can only access his newspapers has to make the customer subscribe for 5 years or so. The device is expensive.

Maps in general

One dedicated iLiad for the maps, one dedicated iLiad for the newspaper, one dedicated iLiad for the Windows Reference Manuals, one dedicated iLiad for books from Sams publishing and an iLiad for the o'Reilly books.
That does not make sense to me.

Or perhaps an alternative to those UPS thingies they want us to sign on?

Makes a lot of sense, this is a market I didn't think of.
But on the other hand, these UPS-scanner-thingies seem to work okay, why would they deploy ten thousands of iLiad based devices?

All current owners will be invited to buy one for 2/3 of the list price, which will be approximately 1/3 of the price we paid now :-)

"Ho! ho! miracles! I do not believe in miracles. I have seen too many."

[TadW]

I think the iLiad - and E Ink devices in general so far - are too fragile for hard-core use such being scanner devices for UPS ground personell. Think of the additional costs that would incur not only from replacing all existing scanner devices (hardware + software), but also from sending back all broken iLiads.