Given the iLiad‘s more open approach than the Sony Reader, I’m hoping mightily that the former succeeds.
The screen most likely is better as well.
But is iRex Technologies making a mistake in pricing the machine for business rather than consumers at the start? Here’s part of a post by Peter Pollack at Ars Technia:
I can see where an eBook reader would come in handy on a commute, and students might find them very useful (my step-son carries a backpack with mass that I find nothing short of astounding), but it’s hard to imagine a situation in which a business user needs to carry both a laptop and an iLiad.
So what’s your advice to iRex? Any ideas how it can lower the price more quickly than it plans to? Should it encourage mass purchases by schools and libraries? Could that have an effect? In fairness to iRex, the reason for the current retial price of US$700+ almost surely is not greed. Rather it’s little details such as the costs of the display and other parts. Meanwhile, as shown by the publicity photo above, iRex is thinking even now about K-12 apps. That’s a good sign.
Related: Your questions for TeleBlog contributor Branko Collin, who will be visting iRex.
It seems to me that the iliad is a “test the water” device. Sony used this same concept: market a device that has lots of features and then listen to customers to see what features they actually use (and value).
From my point of view, they could reduce the cost by eliminating the WiFi option in it. From what I’ve read so far, it’s not valuable.
I wouldn’t mind WiFi, but I, too, could easily live without the feature. Good point, Ron!
Wifi is a bit useless the way it was implemented…if it were usable in a more open way…say to download email or access websties (at least those with static setup like wikipedia) it would be valuable.
I’m not sure about this whole business approach…I can’t imagine that there is a big market there at the moment…companies tend to wait and see before they adpot new technology. I also think that the device does not have the abilities it takes to interest professional customers…but that is just my idea…
What they should do? First of all they could tell us what they are actually charging for their device…that would be a start. The latest rumour/information was 540Euro, somebody supposedly was told this number from iRex…found this post on Engadget. Fact is, we do not know for sure yet. Around 500Euro starting price would be ok, very high, but ok. To get things going, they should release an SDK. Additional Software would increase the interest of both the general public and business customers astronomically. Larger number of order would mean larger production numbers and lower prices…problem solved.
Another idea would be to subsidize the device…I’d do it like this:
Take some publishers onboard and give them “advertising rights” something like the “Smart-Ads” thing the Gizmondo had/has. I wouldn’t mind downloading a batch of Ads every morning over PC/Wifi that propose books and magazines. I actually like the way Amazon.de handles stuff here..they analyse my buying pattern and suggest book I might like…and guess what…I actually found some interesting authors/books I would probably never have found without this “feature”. Doing this and then selling the Iliad in a cheaper “ad-powered” version should work fine, as long as the ads are not too many and actually in the lines os interest of the customer.
Does that sound good?
I think marketing a high-end device to businesses is a great approach for them. And with some better features, it also gives a high-end alternative for a few consumers.
But with a future market for consumer sales as a likely possibility, I’m surprised that they don’t seem more customer-friendly in their interactions with the public. Maybe they are just resource constrained at the moment.
At any rate, while they may not be targeting our sweet spot as e-book fans, I think they are taking a sound business approach, and it will benefit us all as people get more ideas about what a good e-reader device can look like. They more they succeed, the more the market opens up for good consumer devices as the technology advances.
I don’t know what their pricing comes from, but to me the wireless, big hi-res screen and stylus make the difference against jinke’s V8 (Sony doesn’t even count for me). If you cut down on these I’ll simply compare prices between the two and buy the cheapest.
If I had to cut something down (one or two features to choose), my preferences would be, in this order:
-MP3 (wasn’t this a dedicated ebook reader? This feature is contradictory and leads to the ‘hey, my PDA can do it too’ kind of thought. Later in the game, all ereaders will have it but for now, business target audience won’t need it and the average early adopter geek consumer has various MP3 enabled products already. So who in your current target market needs this really?).
-LAN connector (honestly, who would buy this device that doesn’t have wireless?). That’s 10 cents off and a one less hole to gather dust!
-Wireless
-Stylus
-Screen size/resolution
Also, I’ll say I want the device badly and while I can afford a 600+€ gadget, I will not spend more than 500€ on it. 500 Is very expensive already and 600 hits my ‘I could get a laptop for the price’ psychological boundary.
A sale with a mandatory subscription might be fine, but I live in Spain and probably it will take some time (if it ever happens) until iRex signs with a local paper. Same for every country where they mean to market the iRex. US is easier, with those nationwide newspapers and english being spread nationwide, but in the EU that’s a bundling deal for each country.
Finally, I think there is not enaugh stress on the benefits of the eink screen. The linked article speaks of it as a low-power black and white screen. This is a common misconception and I think iRex should place a huge banner in their site reading ‘no eyestrain even after 8 straight hours of reading, readable at the beach right under the sunlight’ or something like that. I mean, e-book readers are OLD, eink is the really new and different thing about the iLiad, they should emphasize it even more.
Hoorah, I finally met the Iliad in person. This morning I admired a preproduction model (touch-screen wasn’t working properly). A pity it was demonstrated by a non-programmer, so he could not answer a lot of questions.
I think I can agree with Ron Lauzon that Irex is testing the water. They have to device, and now are looking for ways to market is. The are talking to publishers, libraries (Dutch libraries are my branch) universities, law firms and other interested parties where a lot of printed matter is handled. Their are aiming at selling the device in combination with content. Although it will be available for individuals.
The Irex will have basic functionality, but more can be added like building blocks. As I understood also by third parties. Mentioned were the ability to read DRM protected ebooks (as well Adobe as Microsoft). If that really is possible it would be great. It is capable of webbrowsing, they just added a work-around to cope with popups.
Irex expects it can ship the first within a month, it all depends on the last software tweaks.
But you could do without the wifi part, it can download content from the web if you put it in the cradle.
My first impression of the device itself: The display was not really bright white with black lettering, but sort of very light gray. It is very readable even better in bright light, just as a book. The page-flip bar is easy to handle. It has a rubber (soft) feeling cover. If you switch it of, the last page is still on the display. The Irex people are thinking about blanking the display on switch-off because people expect that as the normal way of electronic devices.
@little talker: no…dont throw away the mp3 capability…so i can listen to my audiobooks…
There are fe things that you can quit, but I vote also for the Wifi, and using only a type of memory card could reduce the price a little..
Maybe a device like the chinese clon without the touch screen could have a market too.
Oh! and the MP3 will be out also. Today everybody who can afford the price of the Iliad, have a MP3 or an IPod. so the only use I can find is to the audiobooks. But I prefer using them in my Creative MP3.
Wow – great info and especially big kudos to RobBI for the hands-on review.
Microsoft and Adobe DRM capability would be welcome news since libraries over here often use this for downloadable e-books (using Overdrive & etc.).
After reading RobBI’s post, am intrigued again over the Iliad wifi possibilities. Has anyone heard anything about the Illiad and RSS?
I know that Sony specifically mentions RSS with their Reader. Beyond simple newspaper subscription, I would like to turn on my Iliad in the morning before work, suck up a bunch of feeds and read them on the bus on the way in. (1 hr commute!)
re: Marketing first to ‘business”: besides execs, remember this also includes medical, legal and tech firms, employees of which frequently carry around reams of paper and *huge* technical tomes.
There is a massive professional market out there which makes our e-book interests very small change in comparison. And for the right product, the pockets of these firms are very, very deep. I certainly dream of the day I can stop lugging around 10 lbs of tech books everywhere I go…. 🙂
-LAN connector (honestly, who would buy this device that doesn’t have wireless?). That’s 10 cents off and a one less hole to gather dust!
This is a foolish thing to say. I can’t imagine wired lan connectivity is very expensive these days. I for one am considering buying this device and have no wireless network, I’m sure there are others too. More importantly adding a wired lan connection allows you to connect the device to basically any PC that’s less then 5 yrs old.
I really want something like this. I could literally trade 30 lbs. of publications for less than a pound.
If I were king, I would remove the following:
LAN connector
WiFI
Compact flash connector
MP3 player
I could be very satisfied with using a USB thumb drive to read ebooks from or transfer ebooks to the local flash storage -IF- it were to reduce the price to… say… $300US. I realize that this is probably unlikely, so how much would I pay for it? I’m not sure, although I would probably be willing to pay more than most as I could use it as a tax deduction for business purposes.
I guess time will tell.
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