Request Wishlist/Impressions ==> SDK needed

I see alot of potential with the EDGE but there are a lot of little things that need help mostly in the User Experience/UI realm. I strongly encourage entourage to open up the SDK as much as possible so those of us with the will to develop can fix some of these annoying things to realize the devices full potential.

Prioritized least of features/changes
ebook and journal application need serious performance improvements (hitting a button shouldn't take 6 seconds or more to register whats on screen).

Power management needs improvement (why does it get hot when in 'sleep' mode)

Boot up should show something as soon as you press the power button (power down should happen after holding the power button for 5 sec otherwise should enter sleep mode)

File manager (need to better use the external SD Card) allow the browser download folder to be set to this if available.

Gesture recognition -- should have a way to access the 'menu' without hitting the button.
Flashlight app -- so you can read at night/lowlight (others exist but why not have this included by default)

Simple 'printer' install on computer that allows you to print any doc to the device and have it sync via automatically next time the 'store' is accessed (or some other automated method). Alternatives include an app like dropbox or sugar sync.

Finally not really a feature request but a wtf: What is so special about the "RF stylus" why can't i use any other plastic stylus such as those used the nintendo ds/palm etc... I know i'm going to lose one and not being able to use the screen with anything else (i've tried plastic, metal, etc...) is seriously annoying.

I hope the edge succeeds as i'm like the feature set ... just want to see some rapid improvement

IB

SDK would be wondrous. It could possibly make this platform a killer in the academic market if we tinker with it.

The fact that you have to use the Wacom stylus might be annoying but this is one of the reasons why I bought the device. This technology allows the touch screen layer to be installed behind the Eink display. This is critical for a totally reflective display like Eink. Otherwise, readability and clarity of the screen will really suffer. Just go to Best Buy and check out the Sony 900 reader which has the resistive touch layer on top. It's horrible. Trust these guys. Your Entourage Edge is really well thought out. I think the development team has made some really good decisions.

Originally Posted by OracleFromChicago

The fact that you have to use the Wacom stylus might be annoying but this is one of the reasons why I bought the device.

I've used several tablet/stylus devices over the years, but this is my first experience with e-ink. From those who claim to be in the know with e-ink, OracleFromChicago's view seems to be the consensus. I also know that my tablet PCs that needed special pens worked much better than the one that could use any plastic stylus, so I'm easily convinced that the special pen gives me a better experience.

I'm also not sure why people have aversion to buttons. I like that there are physical buttons for functions that are common to most apps/screens that don't take up screen real estate. This may be a crappy analogy, and engineers feel free to correct me, but when we went shopping for a blender all the expert advice said don't get an electronic one - get ones with physical buttons for the different speeds. The rationale was that software is buggier than physical mechanics, and even when there is a physical problem, that's easier to get fixed as more people would know how to deal with the mechanics than the software. I'm not sure whether that extends to e-readers (or whether it's even correct), but it does influence my perception of machines in general, for better or worse. I agree that at first I was inadvertently hitting all kinds of buttons by mistake, but I don't think the presence of buttons over more gesture features is necessarily a design flaw.

I agree that it would be nice to not have to wait 10 seconds to know that the device is powering up. I've been mostly in the bright sun when starting up the machine, and it's very difficult to tell that the LED lights are on (especially if you have sunglasses on). The X logo takes about 10 seconds to be visible, and given that I've had power battery issues, I'm never confident that the thing has turned on. But, like you, I'd put that lower on the priority list.

I generally like what it does and how it does it - I'm with you, I'm hoping that speed and power improvements are coming as the device gets more popular.

Originally Posted by isaacb

I see alot of potential with the EDGE but there are a lot of little things that need help mostly in the User Experience/UI realm. I strongly encourage entourage to open up the SDK as much as possible so those of us with the will to develop can fix some of these annoying things to realize the devices full potential.
. . .
IB

Will enTourage Systems release an SDK for the enTourage eDGe?

https://www.entourageedge.com/suppor...cleid=20&nav=0

Article: Absolutely. We believe there are many great applications that people will create and sell that work with both displays. Since we are really the first to go down this path of combining these technologies and experiences, we feel the market is wide open for innovations and we want to see everyone innovate.



I hope this happens soon. The article was posted in January.

Yup, a SDK with an extended Geek-kit would be great. As the eDGe use the Marvel pxa 168 processor, a geek-kit with all the usable function calls and examples would be great.

The pxa 168 supports the following (among other things directly in "hardware"):
CPU rates up to 1.2Ghz
Video: H.263, H.264 BP and partial MP, MPEG-1/2/4 ASP, M-JPEG, WMV9, Sorenson, On2
Audio: MP3, AAC, WAV, WMA9, SBC, MIDI
Image: PNG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, JPEG
Middleware: OpenVG1.1, OpenGL-ES1.1

This together with the 512Mb of ram makes the eDGe a unique device.

Get some enthusiasts to get "dirty" with the code and start tweaking the platform, that could lead to some great advancements.

so with the SDK, we coule potentially overclock the processor, correct? (still not sure why enTourage dialed it down - battery issues, or something more serious?)

Originally Posted by mgm1979

so with the SDK, we coule potentially overclock the processor, correct? (still not sure why enTourage dialed it down - battery issues, or something more serious?)

I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me (Boris?) will jump on, but I think I saw somewhere the speed was limited by Android 1.6. Maybe 2.1 removes this limitation?

Ah, maybe efficiency is the reason. I thought I saw something about the speed possibly being changed (able to be changed?) with the 2.1 update. But, perhaps, that was just someone conjecturing like we are...

There does not appear to be a fan in the edge. Perhaps the internals do not have the heat dissipation necessary to support the higher clock rate?

I think this is the CPU/specs we're discussing:

http://www.marvell.com/products/proc...pxa_168_pb.pdf

That's a rather nifty, feature-packed piece of hardware. The edge/Android software doesn't come close to exploiting the capabilities.

you know, I was wondering about the heat dissipation within the eDGe...obviously its a small device, but I would think vents (at the very least) should be incorporated into the 2nd generation device to help alleviate these issues. (I think we've all noticed the heat, to some extent)

I've yet to crack it open to see what they may have incorporated in the way of heat sinks...but surely more can be done to draw the heat away from the processor.

The CPU is really good. Can't wait to see what it can really do.

About over clocking, The Nokia N900 has just been softmodded to achieve higher CPU speeds. That device is using an ARM Cortex-A8 CPU. Not quite the same as the eDGe which runs the Marvell pxa168, which is arm 5 compatible. The Nokia has now been run at 1GHz and stable at 900MHz, original speed is 600MHz. This was done through a recompiled kernel and also not done through a voltage hack. That could be one way of do it on the eDGe too.

But, hey. Why start discussing over clocking before we have seen what can be done just by optimizing the applications? I think first of all we need to see whats possible with the OS and applications. There is always performance to be gained with a bit of creative tweaking. But if that isn't enough...

I really need to get my hands on a eDGe, I emailed Entourage today to see if i can get some of my friends to pick one up for me, as I live in Sweden or how that can be solved.