Look at the firmware Creative released....

[Odie]

This post is copied/pasted from the one I posted on the iRiver International forum, just because I think it makes for interesting discussion. (original thread: http://www.iriver.com/community/disc...p?pre_idx=9480)

Creative have released a firmware updated for their Jukebox3 player (quite old now)

http://www.nomadness.net/modules.php...le&sid=726

iHP-120 users would kill for some of those small features!

Just look at some of these:

-> Adds support for up to 16,000 songs

...so why do we have a considerably lower limit?

-> Adds a Time & Date display

They can do it, why can't iRiver?

-> Allows continuous recording past the 10 hour mark with Wired Remote if sufficient hard disk space is available

WOW!

-> Displays queued playlists as groups rather than flat lists in the Selected Music screen

Queued playlists! We can't even queue songs!

-> Adds a new skin for the Now Playing screen

Skins! What a nice idea

-> Adds a new continuous recording feature where very long recording sessions are automatically divided into separate tracks

Another good feature!

- Odie
[...waiting for iRiver to blow us all away with a *huge* firmware update that includes similar features...yeah right!]

[yohan_nl]

About the clock / date feature, it's a hardware thing. I think Creative must have built it in already when they released the player, but didn't add it to the firmware yet that time.

[noheaven]

I agree it would be nice to see those features added!! We never know!

[Big D]

These updates have taken 2 and a half years. Hopefully we won't have to wait that long.

[Odie]

I never thought of it that way

[seadzz]

Folks,

don't get the iRiver meatball software guys started with clocks and skins. They tend to love the cute little features liken that and might redirect themselves on to them. We really need the r&d (rework and do-over) guys to effort toward getting the existing firmware to do everyuthing it should.

imho...I work with r&d guys all the time and they tend to want to pick the low hanging fruit first. tackling the tough issues takes brain power and focus....perhaps in short supply in korea or china wherever the work is truely being done.

sdz

[FlameGrilled]

I'd have to agree with the 'low hanging fruit' observation.

Long before i changed career path and went to work with my first love, audio and broadcasting, i was involved quite deeply in the construction and engineering of software and specialist purpose discrete computer systems.

Although it was tempting to do otherwise, i tended to avoid the 'low hanging fruit' and got to grips with the tough stuff, as it was the tough stuff that gave you future nightmares if they weren't A1 on spec. Myself, and an old collegue (Tony), who were kinda a deadly duo on projects back from our school days, were both that way inclined when it came to perfection - he was the code junkie, i was the guy who planned and kept the sanity and progress on track - with design roles as well.

Sadly, during those memorable days, i witnessed too many other projects we were isolated from suffering from the quick-win approach to tarting up a slighty imperfect build to make it passable. Gues which duo ended up fixing this stuff..??

Well, i hung in there another six months but Tony quit - he decided that if quick-wins were the name of the game, he was better off finding a new trade. I joined him, in his quest, six months later and decided to start taking our 'lab rat' perfection out to the world and help put the lessons learn't into making better out of the less specialist stuff.

There are style signatures in lots of stuff still built today that reflect the early effects of the deadly duo - and yes, the efforts put in were never reflected in the pay packet - but if money was the motivator, we'd have never bothered.

It's this, as another reason, i and the other two of the 'three amigos' are so harsh on the basic faults of the iHP - as if it had been one of our developments, it's be a heck of a lot more perfect by pre-release that the iHP is now. Sorry, i know that sounds a bit arrogant, but it's the plain truth.

No amount of gadgety cosmetic 'whistle and bell' features such as a clock or extra visualisations and such crap code space wasters wil ever be worth building, until you get the core essentials right - and that's what iRiver have to re-learn quickly before i spend cash on an iHP.

Relearn, yes - they got the core essentials right when they stuck to their solid primary market (the iMP series), but the firmware QC definately took a big dip in effectiveness around the mid-late iFP series and travelled further down the iffy road with the iHP.

I got no apologies to offer because of my thoughts, as i dont make a habit of apologising over harsh comments when the comments happen to be bluntly true in their nature.

FG