Update: iriver Wing still not ready for takeoff
You may remember that one of many new products unveiled by iriver at CES 2008 was the Wing, a little white clamshell featuring a 4-inch 800 x 480 touchscreen, flat QWERTY keyboard, wi-fi, 2-megapixel camera, and embedded Linux Kernel 2.6 (see 10 live photos).
While several devices have been released since then (e.g., E100 and W7), not a word has been spoken about the iriver Wing during the past 4.5 months. So I got in touch with iriver PR to ask for an update. I was hoping for a price point, press shots, and some information on availability. Instead, I was told that just about everything about the Wing, including its specs and design, are all still "tentative."
Though the news makes me wonder whether the Wing will meet the same fate as both W10s (the UMPC shown in 2006 and the PMP that essentially became the W7), iriver does seem to still be working on it. "Once we determine all final specs," the company’s PR person told me, "we will have updated photos." Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the use of the word "once" is much more promising than the word "if" would’ve been.
