iRex - Misleading Advertising - Page 6

nekokami · 03-10-2007, 08:51 PM

And apparently the Mobipocket software recognizes the iLiad as a device now. I'd say this indicates progress, but still no idea of what "soon" might mean. There was a claim on the irex forum that it would be out by March 19, but that was rather third hand information.

firekat · 03-11-2007, 03:46 AM

Actually more of the iLiad's claimed capability can be substantiated with a number of reviews on the device that came out prior to the device being released and in the early release time period. These reviews were validated by iRex as they directly loaned out the device for that specific purpose. So you can say that if they stated their intent to the reviewer it is as good as anything else that would be offically released.

There have been some very in depth and comprehensive writeups in a number of different places on the web.

I think I was emailed a review that I had to register for at a specific site. I will check my archives.

Promises of functionality was also made to these reviewers as well.

The sharks seem to be in the water.

I think that we all just want some satisfaction, a bit more timely than the iRex "soon".

I wonder what will be in the 3.0 firmware? Will there even be a 3.0 release for the ER100 or will we be discarded to the dustbin in deference to the pending release of the new model?

nekokami · 03-11-2007, 09:50 AM

iRex has claimed that the changes for the "new model" are limited to a larger battery (which will allegedly also be available for the current model) and some essentially cosmetic changes. They assert that the software will be no different. We'll see.

I'd settle for a free battery upgrade (including shipping and labor) at this point, but only if they fix their website so they aren't still making bogus claims about the current hardware. But if I were advising them, I'd strongly recommend that they actually do a hardware re-design specifically to address the power management issues, and offer a buy-back or discount program (customer's choice) to allow those customers who want to upgrade to do so. I'd also advise them to substantially discount the current model. I think they'd be very competitive if they charged the same as the Sony unit. They have lower battery life, but a lot more functionality, and a more open-source model. It's quite possible they'd lose money at this, but I think they are facing an even bigger loss of revenue if they can't sell out their current inventory because no one wants the existing model at the current price.

b_k · 03-11-2007, 01:12 PM

I'm thinking the same. Still wondering why they don't change the hardware. Even if the hardware design must have eaten some dollars, they should spent the money on making suspend possible. But then there could come other problems, like that the firmware image for the 2 hardware generations would no longer be 100% compatible and such.

And one recent article about the LinuxBIOS project made me think. Basically one developer managed to pack a 2.6 kernel and K-Drive into a 2 MB chip, giving you a linux system with GUI in 8 seconds! However, iRex still has probably a lot of additions in the iLiad to load ...
But we wouldn't have the boot-up problem in the first place, if the hardware could do suspend. You would only have to occassionally do a reboot if you managed to get everything out the battery (and this could be limited by software, so the iLiad would have enough power to support the RAM for a given time, so the need to reboot it would occur even less often.)

nekokami · 03-11-2007, 01:21 PM

The upshot is, if anyone comes along with an open OS e ink device plus wacom (or even touch-sensitive) tablet and maybe wifi that does offer suspend, they're going to eat iRex's lunch. Makes me wish I were in the hardware business. Maybe Bookeen or ETI will notice this.

CommanderROR · 03-11-2007, 02:38 PM

As we just found out in the developer section, CPU scaling alone (without other power saving and without voltage-scaling the CPU) let's the current Iliad beat the 15 hours mark. This was done with a very simple script done by k2r.

Why has iRex not managed to implement even this "minimal" soultion after more than a year of Software development for the Iliad? Scaling is even a feature that is built into the PXA255 XScale processors, so it should be a pretty obvious thing to implement and it does give a very nice boost in battery-life (as we can now see...). Voltage scaling should help things along even more.
If you can't do suspend (and it has been obvious that the Iliad can't for a while now) then you should be grasping for straws like that like a drowning man...I just don't get the development philosophy at iRex...it should not take more than a few hours of programming to get voltage and frequency scaling up and running...at least as far as a non-programmer like me can judge...

rincewind · 03-12-2007, 04:06 PM

I posted earlier today a patch for the 2.9 firmware ipdf viewer that throttles CPU between 400 (when active), 200 (scribbles) and 100 mhz (idle). Still haven't gotten any good numbers as to how much battery time I get, but after 3 hours of combined reading and just being on, I've just lost one tiny line on the battery.

The post over at irex forums is at here
Both a patch and a pre-compiled ipdf binary is available.

/R

pdam · 03-12-2007, 05:02 PM

Kudos to Ali for putting together the wiki in a positive vein. If we want to take this fwd to iRex ... the next question would be .... what is the rhetoric that we would either frame as a petition (e.g. we the undersigned ....) or frame as an open letter?

My 0.02c - if people have the stomach and drive to take this forward - would be for a petition that people could agree to sign (or not). We could use the facilities of this site to run a single answer survey to sign up to a petitiom that we could then send to the CEO. We could, with permission, look at the number of people with a Mobileread profiles that indicate they own an Iliad versus the % number of signaturies.

What could the wording be? Something simple, referencing Ali's wiki, like (it'll need wordsmithing as I am both slightly dyslexic and lazy):

"We the undersigned believe that iRex's marketing of the Iliad er100 has been misleading and that customers purchasing the er100 have done so under false pretences (reference wiki here). We believe that customers who have been missled should be offered some recompense and would like to know what iRex intend to do to rectify this situation".

As stated - someone will have to look at the language .... then ... what would be a good next step? My guess would be a response, followed by either an offer or a request for customer consultation (which is probably reasonable at this stage)...

I should clarify that I'm not keen to lead this initiative, but I do understand the relevance. I think that iRex have been missleading - but ultimately I am a user of the device and and I would really like to see the company succeed. Start-ups are often not great initially ... but we shouldn't loose site of the fact that the effort from iRex was both innovative and in good faith ... I'd like to see breathing room to allow them to prove that they can couple innovation with customer focus and make a success of their business ....

Thoughts? Does anyone want to drive this forward?

nekokami · 03-12-2007, 05:25 PM

Some constructive suggestions for possible remedies might help, e.g. free battery upgrade. I don't know what everyone else wants. I'm buying mine second hand for half price, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I'm getting for that price. Maybe there should be a poll to see what the unsatisfied owners of iLiads would like: the battery upgrade, a refund, a commitment to address certain known software problems (like stylus calibration or the unbricking utility) within a specific period, a partial rebate (owner keeps iLiad but gets a discount), free books from Mobipocket, etc. (iRex doesn't own Mobipocket, but might be able to work out a deal that would deliver some pretty good value to iLiad customers without costing iRex full price -- Amazon/Mobipocket might go along with it for the added visibility and potential business.)

iRex can't go back in time and change their claims, and they apparently can't make good on all their past claims now. So ask for something they can do, that would make you happy, and maybe it could happen.

pdam · 03-12-2007, 06:22 PM

Good words Nekokami - I fully agree that the solution may be a range of things, possibly even just listening to users and re-evaluating their development s
priorities for some. Shouldnt we actively offer the chance for iRex to engage in this discussion rather than just deliver a list of possible wants?

rincewind · 03-13-2007, 03:05 AM

iRex has announced (in the iRex forums somewhere) that they will provide a battery replacement programme for owners of the er100. No details yet, but if they provide the larger battery, combined with basic CPU throttling in the viewers, I believe we'll actually get close to 21 hours.

Now, with CPU throttling, the "2007" iLiad (with new battery) will actually over-perform according to their specs. How iRex could have "exausted powersaving options" when the CPU was running flat at 400Mhz at all times is beyond me. I mean, they even give a tip and option to turn off audio to save battery!

Makes me wonder what other improvements can be done (CPU voltage adjustment, extension cards etc)...

/R

ali · 03-13-2007, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nekokami

Some constructive suggestions for possible remedies might help, e.g. free battery upgrade. I don't know what everyone else wants.

Free battery upgrade -or- partial refund
Plus free unbrick service (reflash, that is) -or- boot from CF card
Plus a few free Iliads for the most active developers

Then I'm happy

kapoira · 03-13-2007, 05:36 AM

i like ali want:

for me free batery/upgrade
and possibility of reflash i like to redboot or lilo....(please,please)

i will like to talk about a possible iliad with auto/resume, This will be the major upgrade not another batery.(for asking...)

my two cents.

pd:sorry for my english

nekokami · 03-13-2007, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ali

Free battery upgrade -or- partial refund
Plus free unbrick service (reflash, that is) -or- boot from CF card
Plus a few free Iliads for the most active developers

Then I'm happy

If they have to provide free reflash until their reflash utility is available for developers to do it themselves, that should motivate them to get moving on the utility.

The option of a free battery upgrade or partial refund seems reasonable to me.

I like the idea of some incentive for the most active developers, but I'm not sure how they would decide how active is active enough to qualify. Plus, anyone who is developing for the iLiad presumably already has one....

nekokami · 03-14-2007, 02:44 PM

iRex has decided to offer a free battery upgrade to early adopters: http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?p=5153#5153

No word yet on who will pay for shipping costs, but I think it's a good show of their desire to resolve this issue.

03-13-2007, 05:36 AM	#88
kapoira Connoisseur Posts: 81 Karma: 292 Join Date: Nov 2006 Device: i62HD + T68	i like ali want: for me free batery/upgrade and possibility of reflash i like to redboot or lilo....(please,please) i will like to talk about a possible iliad with auto/resume, This will be the major upgrade not another batery.(for asking...) my two cents. pd:sorry for my english Last edited by kapoira; 03-13-2007 at 05:42 AM. Reason: mistake

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Advertising in eBooks	jhempel24	General Discussions	52	08-30-2010 05:27 AM
Advertising in Books	Robin O'Neill	Writers' Corner	15	08-22-2010 02:15 PM
Chicago Public Library Figured Out How to Prevent Hacking! (Misleading)	Sydney's Mom	Amazon Kindle	8	06-13-2010 03:54 PM
eBook Advertising	paulckennedy	News	114	02-22-2010 03:37 PM
Misleading Battery Indicator Fix	Fitzwaryn	Sony Reader	2	04-12-2007 08:03 AM

03-10-2007, 08:51 PM	#76
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	And apparently the Mobipocket software recognizes the iLiad as a device now. I'd say this indicates progress, but still no idea of what "soon" might mean. There was a claim on the irex forum that it would be out by March 19, but that was rather third hand information.

03-11-2007, 03:46 AM	#77
firekat Groupie Posts: 157 Karma: 314 Join Date: May 2006	Actually more of the iLiad's claimed capability can be substantiated with a number of reviews on the device that came out prior to the device being released and in the early release time period. These reviews were validated by iRex as they directly loaned out the device for that specific purpose. So you can say that if they stated their intent to the reviewer it is as good as anything else that would be offically released. There have been some very in depth and comprehensive writeups in a number of different places on the web. I think I was emailed a review that I had to register for at a specific site. I will check my archives. Promises of functionality was also made to these reviewers as well. The sharks seem to be in the water. I think that we all just want some satisfaction, a bit more timely than the iRex "soon". I wonder what will be in the 3.0 firmware? Will there even be a 3.0 release for the ER100 or will we be discarded to the dustbin in deference to the pending release of the new model?

03-11-2007, 09:50 AM	#78
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	iRex has claimed that the changes for the "new model" are limited to a larger battery (which will allegedly also be available for the current model) and some essentially cosmetic changes. They assert that the software will be no different. We'll see. I'd settle for a free battery upgrade (including shipping and labor) at this point, but only if they fix their website so they aren't still making bogus claims about the current hardware. But if I were advising them, I'd strongly recommend that they actually do a hardware re-design specifically to address the power management issues, and offer a buy-back or discount program (customer's choice) to allow those customers who want to upgrade to do so. I'd also advise them to substantially discount the current model. I think they'd be very competitive if they charged the same as the Sony unit. They have lower battery life, but a lot more functionality, and a more open-source model. It's quite possible they'd lose money at this, but I think they are facing an even bigger loss of revenue if they can't sell out their current inventory because no one wants the existing model at the current price.

03-11-2007, 01:12 PM	#79
b_k Übernerd Posts: 238 Karma: 74 Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Germany Device: iRex iLiad	I'm thinking the same. Still wondering why they don't change the hardware. Even if the hardware design must have eaten some dollars, they should spent the money on making suspend possible. But then there could come other problems, like that the firmware image for the 2 hardware generations would no longer be 100% compatible and such. And one recent article about the LinuxBIOS project made me think. Basically one developer managed to pack a 2.6 kernel and K-Drive into a 2 MB chip, giving you a linux system with GUI in 8 seconds! However, iRex still has probably a lot of additions in the iLiad to load ... But we wouldn't have the boot-up problem in the first place, if the hardware could do suspend. You would only have to occassionally do a reboot if you managed to get everything out the battery (and this could be limited by software, so the iLiad would have enough power to support the RAM for a given time, so the need to reboot it would occur even less often.)

03-11-2007, 01:21 PM	#80
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	The upshot is, if anyone comes along with an open OS e ink device plus wacom (or even touch-sensitive) tablet and maybe wifi that does offer suspend, they're going to eat iRex's lunch. Makes me wish I were in the hardware business. Maybe Bookeen or ETI will notice this.

03-11-2007, 02:38 PM	#81
CommanderROR eink fanatic Posts: 2,022 Karma: 4924 Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Germany Device: STAReBOOK, iRex Iliad, Sony 505, Kindle 2	As we just found out in the developer section, CPU scaling alone (without other power saving and without voltage-scaling the CPU) let's the current Iliad beat the 15 hours mark. This was done with a very simple script done by k2r. Why has iRex not managed to implement even this "minimal" soultion after more than a year of Software development for the Iliad? Scaling is even a feature that is built into the PXA255 XScale processors, so it should be a pretty obvious thing to implement and it does give a very nice boost in battery-life (as we can now see...). Voltage scaling should help things along even more. If you can't do suspend (and it has been obvious that the Iliad can't for a while now) then you should be grasping for straws like that like a drowning man...I just don't get the development philosophy at iRex...it should not take more than a few hours of programming to get voltage and frequency scaling up and running...at least as far as a non-programmer like me can judge...

03-12-2007, 04:06 PM	#82
rincewind Connoisseur Posts: 58 Karma: 479 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: iLiad	I posted earlier today a patch for the 2.9 firmware ipdf viewer that throttles CPU between 400 (when active), 200 (scribbles) and 100 mhz (idle). Still haven't gotten any good numbers as to how much battery time I get, but after 3 hours of combined reading and just being on, I've just lost one tiny line on the battery. The post over at irex forums is at here Both a patch and a pre-compiled ipdf binary is available. /R

03-12-2007, 05:02 PM	#83
pdam Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 100 Join Date: Aug 2006 Device: iLiad, iPaq, Psion5&7, Blackberry	Kudos to Ali for putting together the wiki in a positive vein. If we want to take this fwd to iRex ... the next question would be .... what is the rhetoric that we would either frame as a petition (e.g. we the undersigned ....) or frame as an open letter? My 0.02c - if people have the stomach and drive to take this forward - would be for a petition that people could agree to sign (or not). We could use the facilities of this site to run a single answer survey to sign up to a petitiom that we could then send to the CEO. We could, with permission, look at the number of people with a Mobileread profiles that indicate they own an Iliad versus the % number of signaturies. What could the wording be? Something simple, referencing Ali's wiki, like (it'll need wordsmithing as I am both slightly dyslexic and lazy): "We the undersigned believe that iRex's marketing of the Iliad er100 has been misleading and that customers purchasing the er100 have done so under false pretences (reference wiki here). We believe that customers who have been missled should be offered some recompense and would like to know what iRex intend to do to rectify this situation". As stated - someone will have to look at the language .... then ... what would be a good next step? My guess would be a response, followed by either an offer or a request for customer consultation (which is probably reasonable at this stage)... I should clarify that I'm not keen to lead this initiative, but I do understand the relevance. I think that iRex have been missleading - but ultimately I am a user of the device and and I would really like to see the company succeed. Start-ups are often not great initially ... but we shouldn't loose site of the fact that the effort from iRex was both innovative and in good faith ... I'd like to see breathing room to allow them to prove that they can couple innovation with customer focus and make a success of their business .... Thoughts? Does anyone want to drive this forward?

03-12-2007, 05:25 PM	#84
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	Some constructive suggestions for possible remedies might help, e.g. free battery upgrade. I don't know what everyone else wants. I'm buying mine second hand for half price, and I'm pretty satisfied with what I'm getting for that price. Maybe there should be a poll to see what the unsatisfied owners of iLiads would like: the battery upgrade, a refund, a commitment to address certain known software problems (like stylus calibration or the unbricking utility) within a specific period, a partial rebate (owner keeps iLiad but gets a discount), free books from Mobipocket, etc. (iRex doesn't own Mobipocket, but might be able to work out a deal that would deliver some pretty good value to iLiad customers without costing iRex full price -- Amazon/Mobipocket might go along with it for the added visibility and potential business.) iRex can't go back in time and change their claims, and they apparently can't make good on all their past claims now. So ask for something they can do, that would make you happy, and maybe it could happen.

03-12-2007, 06:22 PM	#85
pdam Groupie Posts: 199 Karma: 100 Join Date: Aug 2006 Device: iLiad, iPaq, Psion5&7, Blackberry	Good words Nekokami - I fully agree that the solution may be a range of things, possibly even just listening to users and re-evaluating their development s priorities for some. Shouldnt we actively offer the chance for iRex to engage in this discussion rather than just deliver a list of possible wants?

Advert

Advert

03-13-2007, 03:05 AM	#86
rincewind Connoisseur Posts: 58 Karma: 479 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: iLiad	iRex has announced (in the iRex forums somewhere) that they will provide a battery replacement programme for owners of the er100. No details yet, but if they provide the larger battery, combined with basic CPU throttling in the viewers, I believe we'll actually get close to 21 hours. Now, with CPU throttling, the "2007" iLiad (with new battery) will actually over-perform according to their specs. How iRex could have "exausted powersaving options" when the CPU was running flat at 400Mhz at all times is beyond me. I mean, they even give a tip and option to turn off audio to save battery! Makes me wonder what other improvements can be done (CPU voltage adjustment, extension cards etc)... /R

03-14-2007, 02:44 PM	#90
nekokami fruminous edugeek Posts: 6,745 Karma: 551260 Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Northeast US Device: iPad, eBw 1150	iRex has decided to offer a free battery upgrade to early adopters: http://forum.irexnet.com/viewtopic.php?p=5153#5153 No word yet on who will pay for shipping costs, but I think it's a good show of their desire to resolve this issue.