Iliad Nonfeature List

Introduction

This page collects facts about Iliad features that were announced, but insufficiently, too late, or not at all implemented and/or delivered.

It is about facts. Not personal opinions. Not let's-bash-iRex. Try to stick to that.

It is also work-in-progress, that is, incomplete, possibly false, and lacking references.

Battery life

• Current State:
  • As of now, the Iliad can run up to 10 hours (references? ali has 8.5h when not doing anything).
  • With active stylus usage, it runs up to 4h (references?).
• History of Announcements:
  • The product box for the Iliad states on the back: "Very low power: You can read three hours a day for more than a week, from the Iliad without recharging the battery." [pdam, NB~I still have the box]
  • Until Feb 28, 2007, the iRex webshop claimed "You can read three hours a day for more than one week, from the iLiad without recharging the battery". This was widely interpreted to mean that the device could be running for over 21 hours without recharge.
  • Between March 1 and March 8, there was a 15 hours in the feature overview. What happened to that?
  • From March 9, 2007, the iRex webshop summarized runtime as "Fortunately, your iLiad will allow you to read and write for up to 12 hours* without recharging the battery. (footnote: *With current Software Version 2.9 and depending on usage pattern)".
  • On March 9, the iRex webshop still contains the "over one week" phrase.
  • In a forum discussion, iRex employee karel announced "we decided to introduce a larger battery that will ensure up to 15 hours of battery life*. This battery will be available in Q2, 2007 and can be expected to be incorporated in the 2007 model also due to be launched in Q2 (footnote: *Depending on usage pattern)". Furthermore, iRex employee Matthijs stated "the new 2007 model will not have different hardware [...]. There are minor hardware changes, but the bigger battery is likely the only real change people will feel. There will be NO software differences between the 'versions'." This suggests that the hardware that was sold on the "one week" premise runs strictly less than 15 hours.
  • In the same thread, also karel's announcement, it is said that "with the current hardware we expect only a minor increase in battery life ( /- 10%)". Together with the now-updated upper bound of 12 hours (see above), this supports the previous point.
  • The box from my first iLiad states: "Very low power: You can read for three hours a day for more than one week, from the iLiad without recharging the battery" - Riocaz (I can't find the 2nd box as that has been packed up for my move. But I think it said the same thing)

MP3 player

• Current State:
  • There are several third party audio players, but none from iRex.
• History of Announcements:
  • The Iliad specification leaflet lists "MP3" under "supported formats", with footnote "Will become on line available in coming months[...]".

Content

• Current State:
  • There is no direct way to download any content onto the Iliad, other than storing and preparing files on the user's computer. The "iRex Delivery Service" offers software updates only.
• History of Announcements:
  • Since Sep 28, 2006 (but likely even earlier than that), the iRex webshop announces some delivery of content: "Get new content: Automatic delivery option for news, books etc."
  • Since March 1, 2007, the Iliad product description contains "Subscribe to any of the international newspapers and receive your copy daily on your iLiad at the press of a button." In reality this seems to be limited to publications from the Yantai Daily Media Group, which seems to produce chinese newspapers only.
  • Since March 6, 2008, the NRC ePaper has been released in The Netherlands. This is the first Dutch newspaper offering a fully electronic version of their newspaper on a daily basis. The newspaper can only be downloaded using iDS.

Suspend mode

• Current State:
  • There is no way of putting Iliad into suspend mode.

Other points

• Did the support for DRM vanish before or after people started buying things?