Firmware 1.86

[MacEachaidh]

G'day James,
The wi-fi enabled Story hasn't made it into the shops here in Australia yet. The tech guy at the local distributor said it was coming out in September - well, time's almost up! - and that the updated firmware would probably be distributed at the same time. There's no sign of it yet on the www.iriver.com.au, though.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

G'day James,

G'day, Bran. Are you up early or late?

[MacEachaidh]

No, late. My clock's pretty screwed up these days. I tend to work or prowl till about 5 am, and then sleep till lunchtime.

(I'm very lucky I work from home - never in my life have I found it easy to keep a "real-world" routine, even when I was working IT and doing 15-hour days.)

So it's ... what? Early evening for you? About dinner time on Friday?

[James_Wilde]

Yep, Friday evening. I was just waiting for dinner to be nuked, and decided to check Mobileread.

[MacEachaidh]

Well, an update on firmware updates for the English-language Story. And the update is ...

... bugger-all.

It's been more than a month since I posted a question on the iRiver blog asking for news on when the Story's firmware would be updated. There was a previous post on the blog promising that there was "more to come" in features on the Story, to be delivered in future versions of the firmware, so I felt it was reasonable to ask for a timeframe. But there's been no further news, no further updates, and no reply to my question.

It's been more than a month since I logged a similar enquiry with the support team of the iRiver distributor in my country. They promised to get back to me within a day or so. I'm still waiting.

And it's been more than a fortnight since I logged a similar request with the support e.mail at the "international" iRiver website. I've yet to receive any kind of response.

This is disappointing. I was courteous, and made it clear I was asking as an iRiver Story owner.

The Cover Story has already had the original version of the OS software and two separate updates since it was first released just a few months ago. Does anyone else agree that we can probably now consider the iRiver Story an orphan?

:frown:

[aprendelo.de]

Hi MacEachaidh,

i recently bought a heavily used iriver story (firmware 1.61, it had been used for 14 months as a try out device in a bookstore) It still works fine anyway. I'm still trying different formats and options. What i'm missing is the possibility to open .html files, a hypertext funktion and the ability to fill out forms. Maybe you've seen something. I'd like to publish my own ebooks as interactive stories. As a author and publisher, i'd like to explore the functions of the formats. I just installed calibre on my linux pc.
I'm wondering if there is something like googleanalytics for ebooks. Could it be possible to track every read page in a book?
Another thing: Here are my three versions of how Kubrick's match-cut between takes 106 and 107 in 2001 - A Space Odyssey should have been done:
http://www.frankfurtfair.de/books/retitled2.html
Bye

[greenapple]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

Well, an update on firmware updates for the English-language Story. And the update is ...

... bugger-all.

It's been more than a month since I posted a question on the iRiver blog asking for news on when the Story's firmware would be updated. There was a previous post on the blog promising that there was "more to come" in features on the Story, to be delivered in future versions of the firmware, so I felt it was reasonable to ask for a timeframe. But there's been no further news, no further updates, and no reply to my question.

It's been more than a month since I logged a similar enquiry with the support team of the iRiver distributor in my country. They promised to get back to me within a day or so. I'm still waiting.

And it's been more than a fortnight since I logged a similar request with the support e.mail at the "international" iRiver website. I've yet to receive any kind of response.

This is disappointing. I was courteous, and made it clear I was asking as an iRiver Story owner.

The Cover Story has already had the original version of the OS software and two separate updates since it was first released just a few months ago. Does anyone else agree that we can probably now consider the iRiver Story an orphan?

:frown:

Actually, iRiver hasn't made too many improvements in terms of usability in Cover Story, except that it's been optimized for the touch screen. So I don't wonder why they haven't thought about "fixing" the original, when they don't know there's something to fix.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

It's been more than a month since I posted a question on the iRiver blog asking for news on when the Story's firmware would be updated. There was a previous post on the blog promising that there was "more to come" in features on the Story, to be delivered in future versions of the firmware, so I felt it was reasonable to ask for a timeframe. But there's been no further news, no further updates, and no reply to my question.

It's been more than a month since I logged a similar enquiry with the support team of the iRiver distributor in my country. They promised to get back to me within a day or so. I'm still waiting.

And it's been more than a fortnight since I logged a similar request with the support e.mail at the "international" iRiver website. I've yet to receive any kind of response.

Well, I've finally received a response. This is all iRiver had to say:

1.71 is the latest firmware version for your Iriver Story.
Most likely there will not be a newer firmware version available.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm not too impressed.

[James_Wilde]

Boo!

But thanks for keeping on at them, Bran, so we finally got an answer.

[hernep]

Oh, bugger! Comics in landscape would have been a killer feature which I suggested to them.

Their customer support is global. I sent email to german support. They told me to send it to some "Global iRiver" support. I thought it be the american one. It was not. Americans told me to send it to iRiver Germany. Also, the iRiver website american had as signature was flagged as malicious page by Google. Finally I send it to webmaster@iriver.com. Webmaster answered my email. I felt I was racing at the Dakar-rally, a famous off-road rally.

Then, this is ebook reader. It reads books. I will survive. Phew!

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by hernep

Webmaster answered my email.

What did he/she have to say, hernep?

[greenapple]

Did you guys see the mess they made on their firmware page?

Two days ago, they posted v1.10 for Cover Story. Supposedly this firmware is for everybody who owns a Cover Story. Say you downloaded it and installed it.

Today, you see this 'notice': The firmware is strictly for Sweden.

Waaahh! What have you done updating the firmware? Is there any damage done if I weren't Swedish? There's no explanation, no notes to say what's happened. Can you go back to previous firmware?

This is the kind of carelessness iRiver is often noted for. It happened previously with the old Story, where they couldn't even name the firmware correctly such that the Story could recognise it. Didn't fix it for weeks!

LOL.

[James_Wilde]

Wonder what's special about Sweden.

[MacEachaidh]

Originally Posted by James_Wilde

Wonder what's special about Sweden.

You, of all people, have to ask?

Maybe some sort of special deal with the distributor there?

Anyway, I'm not about to replace my Story while it's still chugging along.
(Though the battery is looking worrying ... It's less than a week since its last full charge, and it's down to one bar already. I haven't done a lot of reading, but one thing I have done quite consistently is fall asleep and leave the thing to go into screensaver mode and then put itself to sleep. That seems to diminish the charge pretty rapidly, though I can't see why it should, if it really only uses power to actually rewrite the screen -- anyone else found this?)

(I've promised myself that the next one I buy will have a user-replaceable battery as part of its design.)

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

You, of all people, have to ask?

Just wondered.

Originally Posted by MacEachaidh

anyone else found this?)

Yep. Leaving it on runs the battery down fast. No idea why.