Pop’in in Taiwan

14 hours on a plane and thousands of miles later, I was on the ground in Taipei, Taiwan. On the packed 2-day agenda was checking in on the development of our custom ePaper screens and visiting the plastic injection mold facility. The purpose of the short trip was to accelerate development and manufacturing of popSLATEs.

Our screens are looking great and you can see some details in the pictures below. We were testing the refresh times and contrast ratios and everything was in-line with the specifications. Since we are changing the hardware and reducing the overall size of the case (specifically, we no longer need the extra length to support the Lightning connector), the plastic injection molds needed to be redesigned. I met with our team in Taiwan and walked through the design details. We reviewed timelines and compressed what we could without affecting the overall quality of the product.

I was soon on a long return flight to San Francisco and back working with the great team here. More updates to come soon.

Regards,
Yashar
Pop’in since 2012

popSLATE Supporters-

It has been way too long since our last update, for which we sincerely apologize. We thank you again for your continued support and for your patience as we make progress on many fronts.

We had been holding back on some big news until we had worked out all the details: the interface between the popSLATE case and the iPhone is now wireless, rather than hard-wired through the Lightning connector. This significant redesign, which has implications for hardware, software and mechanical design, offers lots of advantages to the user, but the trade-off is that our delivery date has pushed out by up to 4 months.

Here’s some background, which gets a little technical. To ensure consistent iPhone performance with use of 3rd party accessories, Apple limits the amount of current that can flow through the Lightning connector. For popSLATE, though, this feature translated into unpredictable image switching, which would have undermined the user experience.

Fortunately, the new architecture eliminates this issue. It also frees up the iPhone’s bottom connector ports to enable greater compatibility with other 3rd-party accessory devices (docks, chargers, head-phones, etc). Wireless Poppin’ also brings an intriguing new dimension to the user experience—fully-powered, off-phone use. Same popSLATE functionality—now unbound—for those of you seeking to really push the envelope of the second screen experience.

We are pretty excited about the changes above, but we very much regret not being able to deliver popSLATE on the date promised. If the delayed delivery date is not acceptable to you, we will gladly provide a full refund. Please email support@popSLATE.com with your full name and current address to request a refund. To our other supporters, we offer our thanks and assure you that the improved product will definitely be worth the wait.

Yashar & Greg
Founders, popSLATE
pop’in since 2012

Hello popSLATE’ers

Although the campaign is now over, there is no slowing down for the popSLATE team. We are furiously ramping up and have brought on-board some additional industrial design and hardware folks to bring popSLATE to you.

We would like to thank everyone who signed up to be part of the developer and artist community. We will be emailing you separately to kick things off. Also if you have not specified the color of your case please send a message to us with your preference.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter, @popSLATE, for frequent updates.

Best,
Yashar
CEO, popSLATE
pop’in since 2012

We have reached our stretch goal of 200K!

Many thanks to all of you for your tireless support throughout the campaign. You have been with us since the beginning, and your ideas and comments have been invaluable in shaping the future of popSLATE.

popSLATE’s philosophy is grounded in user-centered design and openness. Listening to our user community has helped us in creating our product and we look to you to help accelerate the popSLATE vision. We are spinning-off two user communities from this campaign to help popSLATE evolve:

Developers: Poppers who are excited to create novel functionality for popSLATE

Artists, authors, and other content providers: Poppers who want to create cool images and great content for the popSLATE marketplace

We’ll look to these communities for advice and inspiration beyond our campaign, and we’ll grow them over time. If you are interested in joining as founding members, please send your name, the group you’d like to join, and a 1-line description of your relevant skills/interests to:

questions@popslate.com

Thanks again for your amazing support and look forward to making 2013 the year of the pop.

Best,
Yashar & Greg
Founders, popSLATE
pop’in since 2012

Not One, but TWO popSLATE Referral Contests for the New Year!

Anyone in any country may participate!

Contest #1: “The Ringleader”

PRIZE: popSLATE Super 2-pack (Retail value $238)

RULES:
1) Pretty darn simple—the person whose referrals go on to purchase the most popSLATEs by Jan 15 wins.
2) Referrals must be through the social media links on our indiegogo campaign page located just below the video.
3) We will track referrals using indiegogo’s referral dashboard

Contest #2: “The Media Mogul”

PRIZE: popSLATE Super 2-pack (Retail value $238)

RULES:
1) Reach out to bloggers and media folks and tell them all about popSLATE
2) Each tech or design blog referral that results in a post = 500 points. Each blog must have at least 5,000 Twitter followers to count.
3) Each major media (e.g., TV, newspaper, radio) referral that results in a news story or article = 1,000 points. Examples include ABC News, CNBC, Fox News, CBS News, Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, NPR, Newsweek, Time, and overseas equivalents.
4) Send the communication (e.g., email, SMS, summary of conversation) to greg@popslate.com dated before the post/story/article and the URL of post/story/article to take credit for referral.
5) The person with the most points by Jan 15 wins.

Yashar
CEO, popSLATE
pop’in since 2012