Most of the supported players are quite old

[tempe]

Hi everybody,

I'm about to buy a new mp3 player and one of my criteria which model to choose is that it should be able to run Rockbox.

Now, as far as I can see, almost all supported models are outdated and hardly available anymore. Since newer players tend to be smaller, lighter, cheaper, have longer battery life and so on, the question appeared to me if it wouldnt be a good idea to focus on only a few new models with good hardware equipment etc.

Dont get me wrong, I adore everybodys work here and I know that a lot of people sacrifice a massive amount of their spare time with only little reward. I just want to start a general discussion on how this whole effort so many people put into this project is used most efficiently. Whats your opinion?

tempe

[TexasRockbox]

Read carefully, there is a port for iPod Classic (the current generation) well underway and developing rapidly.  There is also a port for Android devices that is also moving along swiftly which (I'm assuming) will allow usage with Android Tablet devices as well as phones.  Both of these are listed under the "Unusable Ports" section but there are builds/source code available for compiling and testing.

Edit: The Sansa Clip+ is also listed in the "Supported" category.  It is a current model and readily available.

[saratoga]

Now, as far as I can see, almost all supported models are outdated and hardly available anymore. Since newer players tend to be smaller, lighter, cheaper, have longer battery life and so on, the question appeared to me if it wouldnt be a good idea to focus on only a few new models with good hardware equipment etc.

We do focus on porting to new hardware, but usually its not new after the several years it takes to get a really stable port.

[gbl08ma]

As with any open source project, older hardware is better supported because it's cheaper and it's available for time long enough for open source drivers to be written and exploits to be discovered.

For example, running custom code on the iPod Nano 2nd Gen has only been made possible three years (if I'm not wrong) after the iPod started being sold. I think this is, mainly, because the firmware was encrypted (something that happens with most recent players, specially those from big brands like Apple).

For something actual that runs Rockbox I've been keeping my eyes on the Lyre project, but nothing really ready for massive production and "average-user" use has been developed yet. AFAIK, with Lyre we have a couple (?) open source boards that can run Rockbox, but you see, it's not something that comes in a nice box, with a nice headphones, a nice printed instructions manual, and all those things the 'average user' is looking for in a brand new DAP. Plus, like with any open source project, you really don't have any guarantees or guaranteed technical support, something the 'average user' seems to valuate a lot.


OOPS.. it seems two people replied first. Anyways, here goes my reply for whoever wants it

Is it true that most of the supported DAPs are old and are becoming difficult to find in stores (if findable at all)? Yes it is.
Is it true that no effort has been made to support more and newer hardware? I think I can say this is completely false.
Is it true that Rockbox is ready for use (stable) on these new DAPs? No.

Isn't it amazing how far we have got? With currently 45 targets for which a build is made every SVN change, support for over 20 sound codecs and the potential of every supported DAP maximized to much more than what they could do by default when you buy them in a store - I think this is amazing for an opensource project, and we shouldn't complain. Furthermore, with Rockbox you won't find many bugs, and those you find, will most likely have already a solution in progress (at least, this is true for my DAP).

The Rockbox Community has even created a page to help people willing to buy Rockbox-able players to choose:
http://www.rockbox.org/wiki/BuyersGuide
As shame, it seems to be really outdated. For example, it doesn't include a line for my iPod Nano 2G. But, check it if you haven't done so and see if it helps you.
It seems I'm finding my way to ask for write permission on the wiki, because I've already seen some things a person with spare time (like me) could easily update.

[torne]

Another answer: The well-supported players are well-supported because the code which is specific to that player is basically "finished" - it can always be improved, of course, but there's nothing major left to do generally. Their existence as supported targets has virtually no impact on the effort required to continue to develop Rockbox in general; little effort is being expended specifically to support them and it doesn't make anything else harder.

Most of Rockbox's code is not hardware specific, or is only specific to a particular architecture of processor.