After 3 Years, Rockbox 3.0 Released 248
DarkkOne writes "Rockbox version 3.0 is out. Three years in development, it marks the introduction of many new players since the 2.5 release and offers software-based playback allowing audio of nearly any commonly (or uncommonly) used format on a list of MP3 players by Apple, iRiver, Cowon, Archos, Toshiba and Sandisk. Beyond this it is FLOSS, under the GPL v2 license (or later), and includes a variety of plugins such as games and simple apps. 3.0 is the first official release for any players not made by Archos and more or less marks the beginning of a much more regular release cycle for the software."
Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a relative newbie when it comes to media players and I kind of like just plugging my ipod in and letting it sync with itunes. Having said that the hacker in me knows I have an old ipod that I'm not really using at the moment.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this software?
Creative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any word on compatibility with Creative's players? They're a pretty big part of the PMP market and the next company that comes to mind (for me) after Apple.
Re:The one player missing from that list... (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly it's only now that the ipod has the screen the zune had when it was released, the Zune could have made a dent in ipod sales if the managers at Microsoft did not have their head so far in their rear you couldn't see their shoulders
Microsoft has a nasty habit of acting like they already have a monopoly in markets they are merely exploring.
I would consider this propensity a godsend, otherwise, you would see it only AFTER they drove everyone else out of the market.
Re:Rockbox is great! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you think out of the box ( in this case: Apple's straightjacket ) they will do their utmost best to block you from utilizing the product like you would want to.
They tried to do this with computers in the '80s, and it cost them most of their market share. Now they're trying to do the same thing with music players and phones.
Apple's success is largely due to the fact that they don't design for focus groups, they design for Steve Jobs, who generally has good taste. If your usage is close to his usage, then you'll be happy. The more your usage diverges from his, the less attractive they are.
Re:Anyone prefer this to the stock firmware? (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of us don't like the whole audio library concept in the first place. File hierarchies are great, thanks.
The best combination (Score:2, Insightful)
Go to buy.com and choose one of their recertified Sandisk Sansa players (I got one of the E series) and slap rockbox on that thing. You now have yourself a $40 player with $200 worth of functionality. No more worrying about losing or dropping it when it's so cheap.
You don't like "box of rocks"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Other poor names:
Image manipulation software: GIMP [gimp.org]. A gimp is a cripple.
Beatles: They named their band after a kind of insect? Some unlikely names don't stop success.
I am very impressed with the fact that the Rockbox team lists all the contributors.
Re:You don't like "box of rocks"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better than Stock. Why isn't it more widely used? (Score:5, Insightful)
I got an Archos Ondio flash-based player years ago, but after the newness wore off I found the usability sorely lacking. I was really disappointed. I heard of Rockbox fairly early on, but I figured the last thing I wanted to deal with was troubleshooting problems with firmware on my mp3 player, so I thought "not now, but maybe some day". A year or so later, I was finally so fed up with the Ondio I figured I'd give it a try. Man was I sorry I'd waited so long. The Rockbox firmware made the player much more useful, and it even added features that had not existed at all before (e.g. grouping via ID3 tags). To top it all off, I don't recall ever really running into any bugs in the firmware.
What this really leads me to wonder is, why don't some of these player manufacturers team up with Rockbox to make that the official firmware of their player? It seems like, with people inside the company to help with the hardware interface part of it, Rockbox would be a very solid choice, and the company wouldn't have to pay a license fee or write firmware from scratch. And, of course, they could even make the version on the player branded and incorporates whatever eye candy they please.