Do big companies not care about such projects?

[TOTAL]

Having read here about recent Sansa Sport, I conclude the producers of the hardware do not seem to care about the Rockbox initiative. How irrational of them. Not that I mean to rant, but just a reflection: so much work being done which brings selected devices to the heights of usability - for audiobooks, no ipod/pad/smartphone or regular mp3 player even comes near. If it were not for RB, many devices would not have sold.
Haven't Sandisk ever contacted the RB Team to discuss the future development of the hardware they make? Apparently not.

Big thanks for Your great work!

[wodz]

I think you overestimate the impact of rockbox on device sales by huge margin. The said truth is that most of the time rb is nice way to retrofit older players and not the motivation to buy new stuff. Other then this smartphones took almost 100% of DAP market and we are not very good at accommodate to this situation.

[ZincAlloy]

I guess if a manufacturer was interested in Rockbox he could make it a selling point and generate a bit of press interest. I believe portable audio players still have their place. Some people don't want to listen to music on their phones all day because it uses a lot of battery. Others don't want to risk damaging their phones while working out and need really small portabe players for this (Clip Sport - ring a bell?). It has become a bit of a niche market, though. But that makes creating interest in the product even more important.

[404_user_not_found]

Don't forget that rockbox is like a hobby or pastime, not a kind of job for money and profit.

I believe portable audio players still have their place.

Music players should have a high usability and more comfortable interface for controlling a player. For example with smartphones there are no way to blindly control a player, quickly change a track, quickly pick a specific track, quickly change a volume and etc because you should use your touch screen all the time. Because of that I don't use a smartphone because it provides inconvenient interface for listening.

[gomezz]

I can do some of that playing music on my smartphone using the physical controls built into my Bluetooth earphones:  Play / Pause, volume adjust, track skip.

That said I prefer to use my Clip+ for all the reasons already mentioned plus when using it hooked up to my work van radio it would be less of hassle if it were to get stolen.  I prefer to keep my expensive phone and even more valuable personal data firmly on my person.

[saratoga]

I really doubt any company cares about people modding their firmware so long as they don't result in a ton of RMAs or people finding a way to steal DRM keys.