Rockbox General > Rockbox General Discussion

how long do new ports take to roll out?

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BryanRasmussen:
I could probably have phrased the question better, but my situation is that I'm thinking of buying a new ipod, I could try to get a refurbished/used generation 5 or I could get a generation 6 and hope that Rockbox supports generation 6 by about the time that generation 6 is starting to be 'old', to properly ascertain the likelihood of that I should have statistics on how long that takes to happen - or I could just buy the version 5, although as I am in Denmark currently I have a hard time finding used ipods generation 5.

LambdaCalculus:
New ports generally vary in the time it takes to get one going from start to finish. It depends on several factors (but not limited to):

1) People who own a device that doesn't run Rockbox, but are interested in getting a port going
2) Available information about the hardware in a DAP, including CPU, LCD, storage medium, and more
3) Time, dedication, lots of hard work.

That said, all that has been done for the iPod Classic is just some very basic investigation. No actual work has been done. You're best off going on eBay to look for a Rockbox compatible device.

Llorean:
Personally, given the limited information we have about the iPod Generation 6, I'd say the earliest a port would be *possible* is 1-1.5 years, and that's if the encryption vanished tonight and we got a ton of extra info emailed us and all that was necessary was for people to do the work, rather than just the investigation.

Since instead all this info would have to be discovered, and the encryption needs to be bypassed, you're looking at somewhere between "longer than that" and "forever because nobody will get past the encryption."

OldiesButGoodies:
Think of it this way too, your new player may have new capabilities in its own firmware, but once you install Rockbox you'll very rarely use the original firmware. (I sure don't.) All older models that run Rockbox have nearly the same features as any "new and improved" models that will someday run Rockbox. Except for screen display sizes or other physical player features, there will be little to no difference between the year of the players that run Rockbox.

In short: This or next year's new and improved player + Rockbox is no different than one or two year old player + Rockbox.

Not much gain for buying sparkling brand-new.

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