Quote:
Originally Posted by greenapple
Everything seems to go wrong since firmware v1.70. As it stands, Story with v1.71 is a defective product. Without any indications from iRiver, I don't think I want to go back to the older version. Some hardware will not tolerate firmware downgrade, and I'm not sure if Story is one of those.
I'm also not sure if the firmware has become abandoned ware, as iRiver has recently turned the development of the firmware to the opensource community. That is a worry.
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I agree, greenapple, it is a worry. Though from the
announcement on the iRiver website, it seems iRiver is hoping third-party developers might write auxiliary apps to run on the device, which they obviously hope will grow their customer appeal. (An integrated dictionary would be nice, for a start!) I'm not a programmer, so I don't know for sure, but I've been told the newest firmware and the open-source OS files all include APIs for the wireless network capabilities that are allegedly being beta-tested in the new hardware model(s).
I was about to say that iRiver has created a whole string of abandonware in its MP3 players, until I realised that's the nature of the industry: Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Palm, etc etc etc ... they all do the same. They stop developing firmware, and if you want expanded support for changing formats (even just to keep the device current and usable) ... well, you have to simply scrap it and buy a new device all over again. Logical as a business plan, maybe, but it doesn't seem fair to customers.
There's a fair bit of grumping going on, from what I've read, over Amazon and the Kindle. The first Kindle generation is no longer supported, so many people have been forced to buy a Kindle II, only to discover they can't transfer books they've bought and downloaded onto their Kindle to their new Kindle II; they have to be redownloaded from Amazon, and in many cases Amazon has either discontinued their availability as a downloaded, or has changed the price or other conditions, requiring the people who thought they'd bought the book the first time round to pay either a premium to make it available again, or to "buy" the book all over again.
No-one's as good as their word any more, it seems. Abandonware is the order of the day.