new ipods - rockbox port proposal

[wesmo]

Hi,

Apparently according to macrumors.com and thinksecret.com, new ipods come out tomorrow (Sep 5, 10 AM). We should try and capitalize on all the Apple marketing who-ha by porting them to rockbox asap. To do so though, we would probably need the following:

1 -  Confirming specifications and features of the device and seeing if a new port is feasible/possible

Probably requires a dev or someone close to a dev to purchase a new ipod or two as soon as it comes out. Then analyse it very quickly. Or we can wait for the other gadget blogs and forums to do all the feature research for us (prob within a week or two)

2 - If feasible, purchase new ipods for devs - a pledge drive could be started

This would require devs to be prepared to work on the new ports and the number of new ipods necessary to be agreed upon - We could pimp the pledge drive through all the linux news channels and slashdot

3 - Follow the steps for porting - but attract new devs to accelerate the port

Through all the aforementioned news coverage, the pledge drive would definitely reach interested devs

4 - Follow up

If the pledge and port is succesful - repeat same model for new rockbox targets

Also, in the case of no rockbox devs being prepared to work on it, we can donate the new ipods raised from the pledge to ipodlinux.

Pros:

1 - Rockbox piggybacks on the new ipod marketing - reaches much more people quicker
2 - Rockbox works on a new target
3 - Rockbox community knows they can raise funds for future ports using the same model
4 - Rockbox gets more devs and more users

Cons:

1 - The new ipods may be too much of a resource commitment when we could be working on  bugfixing current targets
2 - The new ipods may have features which exceed rockbox's current features in certain aspects
3 - The new ipods are a bloody expensive entry point for anyone that wants to get Rockbox
4 - The new ipods may not even come out (perhaps we should consider this model for the new Creative Zen or the zune (due to the recent price reduction - now only $199 US according to engadget.com)

This is just a suggestion to try and get the ball rolling. Criticism is welcome It'd be nice to know what the devs & community think about it.

[Llorean]

1) This is not an installation question.
2) New ports happen by those owning the new players and really interested in them, it takes a LOT of time and a LOT of effort, and a lot of devs are more concerned with making Rockbox work well where it already is. It's not going to happen quickly no matter how much you want it to.

[wesmo]

ahh crap wrong forum - can u shift it to general?

[wesmo]

Llorean: thanks for shifting the thread - by starting something like this, I didn't necessarily mean in the blink of an eye a rockbox port will be created. But rather I hope it would generate more interest in rockbox

[GodEater]

We're pretty much fine with the level of interest we have already.

[Llorean]

Meaning "more interest is good, but promotion or wild attempts to gain interest aren't necessary"

[linuxstb]

It's also worth adding that any new ipods will almost certainly be protected from running third-party code in the same way (or possibly even more securely) than the 2nd gen Nano.

So any port would require cracking that encryption, or finding exploits - something that no-one (to my  knowledge) has done so far for the 2nd gen Nano.

And that's before any work is done to reverse-engineer the brand-new and undocumented hardware...

[psycho_maniac]

It's also worth adding that any new ipods will almost certainly be protected from running third-party code in the same way (or possibly even more securely) than the 2nd gen Nano.

So any port would require cracking that encryption, or finding exploits - something that no-one (to my  knowledge) has done so far for the 2nd gen Nano.

And that's before any work is done to reverse-engineer the brand-new and undocumented hardware...

is this the same with the ipod or was it just the new hd that they used for the 80gb version?

[linuxstb]

is this the same with the ipod or was it just the new hd that they used for the 80gb version?

I assume by "ipod" you mean the 80GB ipod video?  If so, then yes, it was just the weird firmware in the 80GB hard disk used by Apple which caused Rockbox problems.  Everything else was identical to all the other ipod videos.

[Bagder]

To help upcoming ports to happen to new players, feel free to buy lots of units and hand them out to interested developers.

Or just donate lots of money to the Rockbox fund so that we can buy units to willing developers.

(Although of course nothing of this guarantees a port to actually happen.)

[Yotto]

Don't forget to buy them for Rockbox Artists too so they'll make you WPSs.

[Llorean]

And clearly at least one should be sent to me so that I can be familiar with the ins and outs to provide better support!

[LambdaCalculus]

Engadget has an article up about the 3rd Gen nano and the 6th Gen iPod; here's the URL:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/05/apple-announces-new-ipod-nano/

The new nano looks like a squared-off iPod video to me. But it also boasts a QVGA LCD with an extremely high pixel density. Also, it seems that there will be 4GB and 8GB models available "by this weekend", as per the article.

[dcr693]

I for one hope that Rockbox doesn't work on the 3Gen nano, only because I just got a Sansa E series because Rockbox won't work on the 2Gen nano. But seriously, the new nano looks a great platform if only it could be hacked! If anyone wants to send me one, I'd be glad to design lots of WPSes.

[Llorean]

I hate to say it, but since the new iPod Nano is a QVGA screen, all iPod Video themes will already be the appropriate dimensions for it. :-P