iRex - Misleading Advertising

[Drops]

Originally Posted by ali

So why don't we do it together?

I agree Ali. 50 requests at once sent to Irex are much better than doing it one by one.

[firekat]

Just a couple of thoughts on all of this. jaed, if I remember correctly is an accomplished hacker/coder type who has been able to access and make the iLiad do what he wants it to do. Kudos to his ability, and he has shared his efforts on the site here. Since that is the case he is going to be happier with the device than the rest of us.

There may be a small amount of people that complain on these forums about their dissatisfaction with the iLiad. The thing is that people are either satisfied with the unit or dissatisfied. Do they yak about it? Who knows. I would say that the bulk that purchase stuff do not actively engage in communicating about it. They have better things to do with their time

The truth of the matter is that the iLiad is a gadget, it is not replacing paper - yet. There are huge piles of gadgets that have either made it or failed. The point being is that there might be a lot of people that are satisfied with the unit and a fair amount that are not. For the people that are disappointed and dissatisfied MOST people do not have the time, energy or interest to keep whining about it it. They relegate the device to the closet/junkpile or give it to their kids.

I see the latest released update to be an improvement. It is getting better. Is it up to what was advertised? No. Am I still disappointed, yes I would still like full functionality for an expensive purchase. I am not going to keep whining about it as this seems to fall on deaf ears over at iRex. Do I feel that all us Mk I people are going to dumped? Yes - but I am hoping that it will not happen, I guess you can color me an optimist. I cannot say that it would have been the first time that it would have happened an initial released device being dumped for the second version.

In some way I guess you can say that we brought it upon ourselves by collectively twisting the arm of iRex to release the device before it's time and to a group that the device was not intended for (or was it?).

I find the eFlybook forum to be a bellwether for this device. There is overwhelming general discontent as the device never worked as advertised and development is closed off to the reseller to try to rectify the situation (at least this was stated in a thread). The thing is that most of these people have seen many new gee whiz devices that never performed as they should have. There all just languishing in a desk drawer somewhere.

I will never buy another beta device again.

In spite of this still like the iLiad, I just wish it would work all the way like it was supposed to. Battery life, faster start, txt & html support and bookmark supports would really suit me fine.

I have to say that the rendering seems to be getting better. I see 2.9 as being evolutionary. Who knows, maybe 3.0 is revolutionary and just around the corner (there's the optimist again).


Good luck to us all.


Sorry if I am rambling, I am pretty tired right now.

[CommanderROR]

I agree that not all is bad about the Iliad and that our complaining makes it look worse than it is perhaps...BUT (and it's a bit but) there are some things that just can't be excused and one of them is promising things that won't be possible even with ten years of solid Software development...if there is something wrong with the hardware that makes certain features impossible, then that should have been found out about 2 days after the first prototype was created. The device in this form should never have made it onto market. We were all told that the device hardware was final and that the software was to be considered beta...but apparently the Hardware was far from being "fit for final"...

I do not know what is wrong with the Iliad's hardware...the fact that Suspend is impossible could have something to do with the internal wiring up of the keys or something...however, even without suspend the device should be able to run more than 10-15 hours in standby. I have a smartphone that can run for 150 hours standby despite having a 400Mhz processor (could be the same as in the Iliad), Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, SD-Card slot and holding a network connection the whole time...with a 1500MaH battery...can someone explain that to me?

[anansi]

(I wrote this I quite a hurry so expect quite a lot of typos, will cleanup later )
to all the iRex apologists, this is a non-issue, whenever you engage on a purchase you are engaging on a binding contract, in wich the seller specifies that for a set amount of money, he will give you an item with certain properties, iRex certainly charged a rather large of money on the condition that it was offering an item which would either already have those properties already enabled or wich would in given time gain them, by now adminting that this would never be possible they have essentially comitted the crime of fraud, and in a sane society, criminals, wich is currently what iRex's current behaviour makes of them, have to face certain consequences, by not standing up to these basic tenets of organized society all you have acheived is assuring the people responsible for fraud that they can rest with impunity and continue with their criminal behaviour, therefore you can expect a lot more of this kind of thing from phillips Irex in the future if they do not face the consequences now.
However if you do choose to make them accountable for their actions you can rest assured that most likely Phillips will step in and sort out their spinoff, hopefully (and more probably) by sacking the entire marketing department wich is mortlikely responsable for all of this, thus ensuring that the compentent engineers that remain are more capable of carrying out their work and in the long term producing superior products, instead of carrying on this kind of fradulent behaviour.

also I believe the lack of a suspend mode is unfixable as long as they keep using xscale processors (I believe this is a limitation of the chipset itself), and would someone please correct me if I'm wrong but didn't phillips negociate some sort of geographical exclusiveness to their E-ink tech (if so , by removing iRex phillips would either be forced to forfeit the entire european market or reenter it in a more professional manner )

[High 5]

Originally Posted by anansi

[snip]
However if you do choose to make them accountable for their actions you can rest assured that most likely Phillips will step in and sort out their spinoff, hopefully (and more probably) by sacking the entire marketing department wich is mortlikely responsable for all of this, thus ensuring that the compentent engineers that remain are more capable of carrying out their work and in the long term producing superior products, instead of carrying on this kind of fradulent behaviour.
[another snip]

Nah, I don't think so.
Irex is a spinoff from Philips but only as an independent firm that pays a small percentage per sold unit, or something like that.
It is a bunch of techies from R & D gone solo (or "rogue" if you will), is my guess.
So don't expect any help from Philips.

As for the fraudulent behaviour, I think you would have to prove malicious intent (is that how you write it?) instead of just plain stupidity.
Then again, I am no lawyer so what do I know?

So far, my personal verdict is still on the plain stupidity side of things.
To rule out one of two mayor selling points of e-ink technology in your product -clear display and suspend but keep image- must have had a reason.
Irex so far have been reluctant to reveal that reason.
But as I have read in another post, "if even cellphones with wifi, gps and whatnots are able to suspend for a batterylife of up to one week or more with old-school lcd tecno, why in the name of Gutenburg is Irex unable to do the same or better with its e-ink technology?

[CommanderROR]

@High 5

I think that cellphone I spoke of does not even do supsned since it has to have some active process to stay connected to the network and react to incoming messages, calls, and of course take care of scheduled alarms and stuff...

The processor in the smartphone I have is an Intel PXA270 416Mhz XScale by the way...

[nekokami]

So much for the xscale theory....

[Antartica]

Mobile (smart)phones usually had two CPUs, one for the radio (it can be a DSP), and one for the PDA functions (usually an ARM compatible processor). It's now that are appearing mobile (smart)phones with only one DSP that can double-duty to PDA functions.

So, when you only need to receive calls, the ARM can be shut down (suspended), conserving power. Because of this, (smart)phones drain the battery very quickly when in "PDA mode", but have a very long battery duration in "waiting mode".

As for the suspend thing in Xscale, it works in the iPaqs (both in WinCE and in Familiar Linux)and in the Zauruses (p.ej. in the SL-6000L I have at work, and it works in Qtopia and in pdaXrom). And it should not be very different to what was possible with the StrongARM (the Apple Newton and the Zaurus SL-5500 both are StrongARM PDAs, and both suspend perfectly).

[pdam]

There is lots of talk about going legal in this thread, and lots of unproductive general venting.

RWood and Ali suggested a much more pragmatic and satisfying route (rather than either just ranting or going legal and potentially cutting off your own nose to spite face) why not create a petition, with succinct facts about misleading marketing, where this market is and was placed (boxes, websites etc). And send this formally to the CEO of iRex requesting appropriate reparation - then let the CEO figure out what should be offered.

If the CEO ignores the request - then escalate to media (bad publicity often hurts far more than a legal case!) Only use legal as a last resort if reparation isn't offered or is wholly inadequate.

(I'd suggest avoiding the items that are unclear such as "near future" items, you have enough factual information and don't need to confuse the issue by getting into interpretational issues).

Moaning isn't productive, going legal will both cost money and is a rather extreme form of action if you haven't yet tried other avenues (why spend money when you don't have too?)

If this is important to you, don't just moan about it - do something!!

[Riocaz]

I utterly agree.

Just to clarify I didn't start the thread to discuss litigation. And I don't advocate it.

And I would add to pdam's suggestions that people speak to their local advertising standards people (particularly for people in countries who are part of the EASA).

[NatCh]

I agree, I've found it's better to start gently and work up to nasty, that way you don't have to be any nastier than is actually required. Besides, if you ever do have to get really nasty, folks remember it later and are more likely to respond to gentleness the next time. Of course that last bit applies better in individual interaction than the more anonymous level currently under discussion.

[yvanleterrible]

Being nasty gets no one nowhere.

As to going public, are'nt we doing it right now? MR's input can not be discounted because we are reaching more of the concerned public than flat out woldwide cover. Joe Average who's never heard of eink couldn't care less about the Iliad. I do.
Does Philips care about it's offsping's actions? I would of my children's. This is one avenue to explore.

In the long run, punishment will come that can bring about positive changes, when R&D funds dwindle and sales income does not provide adequate changeover.
How does Irex maintain itself now? Is it a long term support? How much more bad decisions or service can it withstand?
It's a shame one has to resign to negative actions to get satisfaction, and to use other actions than curteous direct communication to get response. No client is expendable. One dissatisfied is ten less new ones. One thousand is catastrophe... unless you live in a bubble. Then again maybe Harakiri was the goal all along...?

[nekokami]

Ali had suggested a wiki page to list the specs that were published at various points, so I tried using the Internet Archive to find old versions of the iRex site. Interestingly, all links to old versions seem to direct one to the new site. I know that the IA will remove copies of archives if asked to do so. I wonder if that was the case here?

[Riocaz]

Yes, and those archives did work previously as I have used them when other "changes" have been made.

More evidence that iRex want to change history?

[b_k]

lets just hope someone has screenshots.