DR800S: Reasons for PDF-Zoom function (was: ePub bug?)

[SCION]

Originally Posted by Mr. Goodbar

...I'll be interested to watch how the iPad and other tablets do in the market. I personally don't want an lcd for my long term reading, but as a cheap portable computer it looks pretty nice. An ipad and an 800 would make a nice travel kit.

I'm with you on that. A tablet can be a nice complement to a dedicated ebook reader.

[SCION]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

It allows folders if you apply a minor tweak, see Unboxing iRex 800 and first impressions.

Thank you!

[Xenophon]

Originally Posted by cartesius

You're unhappy with your reader; but before you smash it against the wall ...read this.
[Great big SNIP]
Now that you know more, I hope your reader will survive

that was my 2 cent,
c.

Cartesius:

I'm well aware* of the many reasons why good reflow of PDF is extremely difficult. I wasn't complaining about my current Sony reader, but rather using my experience with reflow on that device to provide a bunch of common, non-professional-usage examples of documents for which reflow in its current state is not an adequate solution.

Somewhere way above in this thread, an iRex guy pointed out that they support (er... will support? I'm not sure) PDF zooming on their "pro" device. Various posters here (including me!) are trying to make the case that PDF zooming is really a sensible requirement on a "consumer" device like the DR800 (whether S, or SG, or whatever). Thus, my examples of various kinds of documents that a consumer would care about, that really need zooming in place of reflow.

I also note that at $400, the DR800 is priced for the hard-core ebook enthusiast rather than for the general consumer. And those hard-core enthusiasts have needs that are much closer to those of the "professional" types than to those of the "consumer." I really don't buy the "if you need zoom, you should purchase our pro device" argument. Not at these prices, anyway.

Xenophon

* I'm a software professional with >20 years experience, plus a mid-career Ph.D. Really, I do understand why it's so hard.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Somewhere way above in this thread, an iRex guy pointed out that they support (er... will support? I'm not sure) PDF zooming on their "pro" device.

Both. They already support it using the "old" PDF viewer that is currently available on the DR1000. They have stated that they will support it on the upcoming Adobe PDF viewer that will be put on the DR1000 with a firmware upgrade (which is the same viewer that the DR800 comes with now).

[OrcaBlue]

I think PDF zoom and annotation are critically needed for the Irex 800 to be competitive now and in the future. I personally read technical and business books. They usually contain charts, diagram and tables. With reflow, it would mess up the layout and making it unreadable. I have seen how reflow works, it make you loose what unique about each different book. It became basically a screen of text after reflow. Sometimes, after reflowing, I don’t even know where the page is within books. Where did the chart or diagram go? The text described a chart but I don’t see it anywhere. I have to go hunt for it. The reader is at the mercy of the reflow process. It does what it wants to do.

I usually mark up my books; hence, annotation is a must. What is the point of a stylus and a touch screen if you can’t annotate? Do I use it just to turn the page? For turning page, a button would do just fine. I am looking for a large screen device but yet still portable. I think DR800 fit into that criterion.

I am excited about the clarity of the Irex 800; however, lacking those two features has stopped me from pressing that checkout button from BestBuy.

As for business strategies, Irex should make these features available in the 800 soon. There are many large screen ereaders coming to the market this year from other manufacturers; Plastic Logic, Asus, Apple, and Samsung to name a few. If Irex have these features now, I would open my wallet and press that checkout button. Otherwise, I believe I can hold on until other future devices. By the end of this year, there will be more choices for the consumers. Hence, it is critical that Irex releases these features when it has the competitive advantage. The window of opportunity will get smaller and smaller as other readers start to emerge.

I also have little nieces and nephews. They’re in elementary school. Yet, their back packs are heavier than mine. Their text books are 5-9 lbs each. I don't know the exact weights of each of them but it roughly around 20-30 lbs for the entire bag. If Irex 800 has the PDF Zoom feature, I wouldn’t mind get each of them a reader to save their back. It seems that many college students are searching for that perfect ereader as well. I believe Irex can be “the company” that can tap into the college crowd. Be that “company” and everybody will love you.

Also, if you already have the firmware available, why wait until later to release it? Why make people wait? There is no better time than sooner.

[cartesius]

Xenophon,

I meant no offense, of course, you just happened to ask some questions I had the answer to.

c.

[catharsis]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Again, of course that occurred to them. They are already supporting it on their upper level device. The question is whether there is enough demand for it on the lower level device as well. It's not a technical problem, or a question of them able to form requirements. I'm sure they understand those issues a lot better than you want to give them credit for.

It's a business decision on the justification regarding what features they support on the lower level device and how many sales that will take away from the upper level one.

So you are basically saying the guys from iRex are greedy arseholes ?

[drl]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Again, of course that occurred to them. They are already supporting it on their upper level device. The question is whether there is enough demand for it on the lower level device as well. It's not a technical problem, or a question of them able to form requirements. I'm sure they understand those issues a lot better than you want to give them credit for.

It's a business decision on the justification regarding what features they support on the lower level device and how many sales that will take away from the upper level one.

I am sorry, but I can't buy this. To state that a device that is several years old, has poor battery life and features that are pretty much out of date in this rapidly moving area just doesn't make sense. If they want the DR1000 to be "upper level" they better come out with a DR2000 pretty soon, or the competition will leave them in the dust. We have color readers, other new screen technologies, more features etc. being offered that will make the DR1000 an antique very soon.

I bought the 800 and am very happy with it, however, it definately needs better navigation features in epub, dictionary support and better pdf features to even compete with "low end" products available or in the pipeline. If Irex is holding off on these features because they only want them in their premium device, I don't hold out much hope for the future of Irex.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by catharsis

So you are basically saying the guys from iRex are greedy arseholes ?

No, they're trying to differentiate between their various product levels. That's pretty standard business.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

Also, if you already have the firmware available, why wait until later to release it? Why make people wait? There is no better time than sooner.

Which firmware are you talking about?

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Again, of course that occurred to them. They are already supporting it on their upper level device. The question is whether there is enough demand for it on the lower level device as well. It's not a technical problem, or a question of them able to form requirements. I'm sure they understand those issues a lot better than you want to give them credit for.

It's a business decision on the justification regarding what features they support on the lower level device and how many sales that will take away from the upper level one.

You're suggesting that a company would design a reader device with a 8.1" screen and charge a premium price for it and yet consider it a "lower end device". You make it sound like it's on the level of a Sony PRS-300 or something. Besides which, with newer devices coming on the market for similar or less prices (such as the Que, Skiff, and the iPad), the DR1000 is effectively an end-of-life product at this point anyway, so iRex had better start readjusting their thinking about what their "high-end" product currently is. Regardless, it's a contradiction in targeted consumers to position a low end device with a high end screen and a high end price. Of course iRex intended people to do more than simple book reading with this thing - they put a big 8.1" screen on it, of course people are going to want to view PDFs on it that don't reflow well. Again, it is again just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen to have a person working for iRex actually ask people why they would want PDF-zoom on a device with a relatively large screen - that does make it sound like such uses just never occurred to them in their planning stage. If they wanted to target a lower-end user who would never want to put their reader to such uses, then why bother putting such a large screen on it and charging such a high price relative to other readers that are intended for the "lower end" consumer.

[OrcaBlue]

Originally Posted by Matthijs

There are no technical reasons not to support zoom on the DR800.

Shaggy,

I believe from Matthijs's posting there is no technical problems in implementing this for DR800. It is more a business decision. From reading some other post, some press release in UK mentioned that they "might" incorporate "annotation" in future firmware release.

My take is that they already have all the firmware needed to enable these feature this is not a technical problem but a business decision on their part. Every company does this.

They already got all these features figured out in the Irex Iliad.

[Mr. Goodbar]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

That's ridiculous. You're suggesting that a company would design a reader device with a 8.1" screen and charge a premium price for it and yet consider it a "lower end device". You make it sound like it's on the level of a Sony PRS-300 or something. Besides which, with newer devices coming on the market for similar or less prices (such as the Que, Skiff, and the iPad), the DR1000 is effectively an end-of-life product at this point anyway, so iRex had better start readjusting their thinking about what their "high-end" product currently is. Regardless, it's a contradiction in targeted consumers to position a low end device with a high end screen and a high end price. Of course iRex intended people to do more than simple book reading with this thing - they put a big 8.1" screen on it, of course people are going to want to view PDFs on it that don't reflow well. Again, it is again just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen to have a person working for iRex actually ask people why they would want PDF-zoom on a device with a relatively large screen - that does make it sound like such uses just never occurred to them in their planning stage. If they wanted to target a lower-end user who would never want to put their reader to such uses, then why bother putting such a large screen on it and charging such a high price relative to other readers that are intended for the "lower end" consumer. Your comments make no sense. Neither does iRex.

I think Shaggy was referring to "lower" in the context of their own product portfolio. The 800 is obviously targeted at a higher end consumer experience, but relative to the 1000 it's a lower end device.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

You're suggesting that a company would design a reader device with a 8.1" screen and charge a premium price for it and yet consider it a "lower end device".

Lower end relative to their 10" DR1000, yes.

Again, it is again just about the dumbest thing I've ever seen

It sounds like no matter what they do, you've already decided you're going to consider it dumb.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by OrcaBlue

Shaggy,

I believe from Matthijs's posting there is no technical problems in implementing this for DR800. It is more a business decision. From reading some other post, some press release in UK mentioned that they "might" incorporate "annotation" in future firmware release.

My take is that they already have all the firmware needed to enable these feature this is not a technical problem but a business decision on their part. Every company does this.

They are in the middle of changing their software over from an open source poppler based viewing engine to an Adobe viewing engine.

They already have those features today on the DR1000 poppler software. They are going to release the DR1000 Adobe software once they finish putting those features back in. The DR800 uses the Adobe software without those features (which is why it's firmware is out but the DR1000's isn't yet).

Technically once they get those extra features done, they could add them to both devices. They are still deciding whether or not to do so.

They already got all these features figured out in the Irex Iliad.

Completely different set of hardware/software.