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Qualcomm really did have their own Mirasol e-reader Update: No they did not

Update: this post is complete bunk. Here’s why.

Yesterday morning Pocket-Lint posted about a couple questions they asked Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs. Mr. Jacobs was supposed to have talked about an ereader that Qualcomm had developed internally. The ereader had been cancelled because he didn’t like the system.

We were getting ready to launch a low volume ereader product, but I didn’t like the whole system. I didn’t want to launch our first product and have it be something that we didn’t really like, so we basically decided not to launch it, and instead just focus on the next version of it.

Here’s the interesting part: This is the first I’ve ever heard of it. No one at Qualcomm has even hinted that the company were working on a device. It’s always been quite explicit that Qualcomm only made the screen component for partners.

I’ve spoken to Qualcomm people on several different occasions and I have a recorded interview. Every time the Mirasol screen was mentioned, it is always referred to as a component that Qualcomm sold, not one that Qualcomm were using.

I was so surprised that I waited until I had confirmation before posting. This ereader did exist, and it was cancelled.

P.S. It’s situations like this that show how emails don’t always win out over verbal discussions. If I’d been in the room i could have dissected Paul Jacobs' answers and gotten more detailed information.

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Comments


Mike Cane June 3, 2011 um 8:06 pm

Wow, that intrigues the hell out of me. What did he mean by low-volume? How would he have prevented the frenzy of people wanting to buy it? Did they have a license from Adobe for DRM ePub? Was the OS Linux? Did he not like the UI or was the holdup the color fidelity of the screen? Damn, I would really like to have seen that thing! I wonder if that demo unit you saw was an actual prototype of it? Did it seem like one?

Clucker June 4, 2011 um 12:42 am

Low sales volume relative to everything else they do.

cluck, cluck, cluck


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