Comments on: iRiver Story firmware 1.71 + update

By: File Cabinets Office

File Cabinets Office — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 10:47:00 +0000

That’s the great article! I just pass ‘n read it, two thumbs up!

By: Del

Del — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 06:44:30 +0000

can someone please tell me if there will be an upgrade to make the iStory into a wifi or do we have to buy a completely new iStory?????
I do like this machine but seems a lot a problems if they not going to fix them…
I do not understand technology but I take it somewhere there are upgrades for it but not through their website, from other people making them… is this correct and should I use them??
many thanks
D

By: spgennard

spgennard — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:51:38 +0000

True, at least the kernel code is being merged and out of this we may well get a true open source version available.

By: spgennard

spgennard — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:50:23 +0000

My experiences have been far from perfect… they simply did not reply when I had a pdf that crashed the machine!

By: Ben Kyneswood

Ben Kyneswood — Wed, 19 May 2010 21:21:22 +0000

Hi
I wonder what experience anyone has had with iriver customer support. My Story’s screen started blinking then went blank. It wouldn’t come back on. I emailed iriver who sent me an RMA (return)authority code, and the address to send it to. I sent it, but heard nothing. Ten days later I emailed them, and they apologised for giving me the wrong address, and told me if it turns up they’ll send it back. Follow up emails have been ignored. This is terrible, no? What can I do?

Just before anyone states the obvious, I bought it from play.com, big mistake, with Jersey’s 28 day return policy, not the UK 1 year policy. I’m still though covered by iriver, so I invoked my warranty.

By: Hugh Stewart

Hugh Stewart — Mon, 17 May 2010 17:32:59 +0000

iriver have not (so far as I know) made the Story firmware open-source; they have simply made available the GPL software they have used in the Story (as required by the GPL)

In fact they are fairly honest in that the source they have published is as-edited by them, not as released by the original developers. On the other hand they have left out their own debug header file, so you might not actually be able to compile this “source”.

By: spgennard

spgennard — Tue, 11 May 2010 21:08:02 +0000

I have two thoughts…

I think it could well be positive way of trying to promote it or does it spell the end of it?

By: Lesley

Lesley — Tue, 11 May 2010 20:11:55 +0000

News from GoodEReader forums:

Iriver Story firmware to go opensource
According to Iriver’s site, iRiver has made Story’s firmware open source: http://www.iriver.com/opensource.html

Implications:

Pros:
We may finally see some real improvements made to the firmware by the community of users. BUT given the fact that it is not a product that has a wide audience, I doubt we are going to see any changes soon. Besides, where do we find the non-official upgrades?

Cons:
iRiver may be taking a less active approach in upgrading the firmware from this point on, leaving the upgrades to the community. The promise by iRiver’s management that there would be an English dictionary is probably not going to be fulfilled.

Comments, anyone?

By: rai come

rai come — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:43:21 +0000

@baka, sorry know nothing about any dictionary. @lesley send it back, reupdate to the old version, so you dont get any warranty problems.

this company is not really interested in the costumer, wifi is cool but if you cant read a pdf probably, then….i dont know, i will buy another ereader since the update probably wont come in my or the devices lifetime.

By: Lesley

Lesley — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 20:01:05 +0000

I have had my Story 2 weeks. I have upgraded to 1.71. Since then it keeps hanging/freezing after I read about 6 pages and then it needs up to 20 resets before it reboots. It freezes about 90% through the loading screen, same place every time then eventually loads properly. (Till next time!)

Also I set the date when I got the Story but it has reset since the firmware upgrade to 2009 October. Now I cannot set the date as it won’t accept input.

Do you think I have a faulty Unit? I cannot get a response from iRiver and I only have 12 days left on my 30 day no questions asked return to WH Smith. Not sure what to do.

By: spgennard

spgennard — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 06:44:23 +0000

I do too, the pdf view is okay but not great… some documents are others are pain to read unless you view in landscape mode… otherwise I am happy with it.

By: thomas

thomas — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 07:57:40 +0000

I did exactly what they said (instruction) and … there is still 1.61 ver. I hope that software manufacturer do something with pdf files , some of them are displayed properly (size) other not (needs magnifying glass) .In general I’m happy with this device but it required a lot software improvements

By: Ummae

Ummae — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 08:22:04 +0000

Story+wifi version will be soon in Korea(i apply some kind of beta test). there’s only one new feature that just.. wifi..

anyway..
Did you know the format of the dictionary in iriver Story? I’m very very looking for the format. If I know it, I will make the e-e dictionary using stardict source.

By: Doron "Doren" Katz

Doron "Doren" Katz — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 05:49:30 +0000

Thanks spgennard for pointing to my blog and for dissecting the HEX file to see what’s in it. I didnt get a chance to have a look at it.

By: baka

baka — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 19:27:37 +0000

@Ray Come, can you clarify the possibility and terms of english dictionary installing and fb2 encoding fix? I mean, fb2 is working OK only for UTF-8 encoding and freeze the Story on files with other encodings. Also, the english version of Britannica will be good point for everybody over the world.

By: Someone

Someone — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 17:14:10 +0000

Just bought a story for reading papers. Landscape zoom mode is a must for this application, as many journals are in a small two-column layout that is difficult to read at less than A4 widths. Being able to crop out the gutter print area would be very useful

By: Rai Come

Rai Come — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 13:19:11 +0000

But actually they havent updated no.6

By: Rai Come

Rai Come — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 11:47:34 +0000

@rcs yes thanks, but why is it they cant write that on their update page? and why namen it .hex, and not just .hex

Sad that they only have updatet no. 6 of my long list of problems. Here is my list, plus their answers which is 2 month old.

Problems to consider:

1. The Zoom with the four steps, should be possible to customize in settings, so I would be able to have it on medium/sec.medium/high as my own customized standard.

We are working on this issue.

2. Zoom in both versions does not work in landscape mode. Why?
We are working on this issue to upgrade the firmware in order for this function to work.

Right now we are working on:

-reaction speed of the buttons

-freeze problem

-Djvu viewer function to be added

-more functions to be added in the future

*Since we are currently working on a Touch Screen Wifi version of the iRiver Story, it may take some time to develop different areas of the Story.

3. The corner Zoom has to be easier in functionality, (sorry but to 80es software engineer loves his idea)
We are currently working on this issue for easier functionality.

4. When I have a book on my SD card and read in it, the Story does not save my Reflow and Zoom settings, this means that i every time I read a book from my SD card have to inter the settings once more. (sorry but that’s really crappy)

If you insert the SD card, book folder is created. If you want to keep the settings of the books you are saving, you must save it under this “book” folder. Further explanations about this issue are to come.

5. Why does the Story not recognize any book in the book section when i only have my books on a SD card, should recognize them. (have my books on diffrent SD cards, categorized)
This means that each time re-inter another SD card it shall remember where i was in the book and what Reflow/zoom i had, otherwise it wont be real to call it an expansion possibility.
This is a similar situation as question #4.

6. The Reflow display some pdf, very weird, exampled under:

Fred is fat and lives in a shel
ter while eating fish with his toes, and usually he sleeps with fresh herring under his pillow.
Unfortunate for the other resi
dents in the shelter, he is resisting any fish related arguments.

So it breaks the lines in some words, this is really not acceptable, please fix it.
This is due to reflow information not being put into the actual book file correctly. But we are still working on it.

7. Must agree with critics that it is cheap not to deliver a cover with the story.
Planning to take care of this situation.

8. There should be a possibility to set the story, to re-inter directly into the book you just read last time, so you dont have to g0 through the menu every time.

If you turn on the device while in sleep mode, it will continue from where you left off. The problem is that currently, it is not possible to go back to where you left off if you turn off the device completely. It is not impossible to obtain this function. Instead, customers can use the “recent book” function for now.

9. I can not bookmark pages in pdf’s.
That is because the book file is not under the “book” folder.

10. Recent book, should be resent books, if you are reading several at the time.
We are looking into that function as well.

By: rcs

rcs — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:12:57 +0000

Download the update form IRiver international site. Rename the file to ebook.hex.
Then copy the file form pc to root of the e-reader and disconnect.
The IRiver will the automatically update the firmware.

For what is worth I have on my weblog more items about e-books en e-readers.
I myself own a IRiver Story

By: spgennard

spgennard — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 20:22:46 +0000

You can use the instructions @

http://local.iriver.com/usa/lounge/loungeView.asp?selectPart=cateCode&findWord=02&sno=1003&page=1&cateCode=02

with the US now having the update @
http://local.iriver.com/usa/lounge/loungeView.asp?selectPart=cateCode&findWord=02&sno=1007&page=1&cateCode=02

–
Stephen