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Everyone was wrong about Qualcomm’s e-reader (including me)

There was a hot story last week involving Qualcomm and the ereader that Qulacomm had supposedly cancelled in Q1. The story was inspired by a quote from Qualcomm boss Paul Jacobs over on the tech blog Pocket-lint. based on that quote, lots of tech blogs wrote a post about Qualcomm’s first ereader.

Unfortunately, there never was an ereader. I’m not saying any of the blogs were wrong. The quoted statement was actually said and the interpretations were valid.

Slashgear wrote a post which is a good example of reaching a wrong but valid conclusion. The title was "First mirasol ereader axed Qualcomm confirms", and the article goes on to say much the same.

I waited to exchange a few emails with Qualcomm, and even I got it wrong. I could show the email I worked from and you’d probably think that I wrote an accurate post. Well, I didn’t.

The problem here is that the Qualcomm people didn’t choose their words carefully enough. According the email I got earlier this week, the Qalcomm people never intended to say that there was a product. They were using ereader to refer to the component they provide, not the entire product.

This all comes down to semantics. When Paul Jacobs used "ereader product", his understanding of the word was very different from that of tech bloggers.

Anyway, I wanted to correct the story. I was one of the many wrong bloggers, so I could probably have simply forgotten about it. But eventually it started bugging me, and I had to post.

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Comments


Qualcomm really did have their own Mirasol e-reader Update: No they did not | The Digital Reader June 10, 2011 um 6:02 pm

[…] June 3rd, 2011 by Nate Hoffelder · 3 Comments · hardware news // Update: this post is complete bunk. Here’s why. […]


Mike Cane June 10, 2011 um 6:41 pm

So, basically, it’s just that the current screen wasn’t up to what they thought they could do. And they also thought that screen wouldn’t sell in volume.

Nate Hoffelder June 10, 2011 um 6:49 pm

I really don’t know.


Andrys June 11, 2011 um 3:37 am

There was, at one point, a cheap Chinese reader named that they were trying the screen out on, and I think they did not like the way it all worked together. I think you mentioned the name, at one point, in fact a few months ago.

But, as far as Jacobs' story goes, I read it as killing that particular screen version, after trying it on a cheap reader (shell?). They intimate, from what I could read, that they’re working on a better one, with Jacobs referring to a 'roadmap' sort of thing to the next step.

Nate Hoffelder June 12, 2011 um 10:09 pm

You were right. It was the screen, not the device. +1 kudos


Qualcomm Mirasol displays could compete with OLED screens in the tablet space – Liliputing June 11, 2011 um 8:25 am

[…] for the eReader space, Jacobs says the company’s already scrapped plans for the first version of a Mirasol display for eReaders since he wasn’t happy with it. That doesn’t mean we […]


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