Not that I expect an answer from Sandisk, but still would like to know why in view of Yahoo services yahooing down the drain, why Sandisk won’t issue a Sansa Connect firmware which will allow us to listen to free internet radio stations over wi-fi? Doesn’t Sandisk understand that none of the unhappy Sansa Connect owners will ever buy an MP3 player made by your company?
Again - I don’t expect an answer. You guys don’t answer posts and emails with questions you don’t like. It was just a rhetorical question.
I asked a sandisk rep the same thing myself, as well as did a little research myself, cuz, ya know, I kind like knowing things without have to call other people constantly
Yahoo pulled out leaving SanDisk high and dry with no options…
As for the firmware… Do you know how to program? I do, in several languages no less.
Creating firmware isnt as easy as you think, it takes months just to create, then the testing phase takes time,
As of right now everything is still in limbo. I have a Connect and like it just fine. So you loose the ability to sign into WiFi and DL music through Yahoo… Not like theres loads of open WiFis out there any more any way, Most are secured and with the new WiFi access protos being set in place, most Lappys wont be able to get on the hotspots anyway… Much less the Connect
But its still a kick arse player anyway.
I’d agree, if we were expecting them to develop an entire operating system from scratch, but that is not the case. Most of the functionality of the player does not need to be modified. TCP/IP stack is fine, encryption is fine, the music decoding is perfectly fine, catalog/database of artist/album/title/genre is fine. What we’re asking for is the firmware signature process and opening up all the code so the private community can develop for the player, adding simple Shoutcast streaming or Last.fm plugins. It’s not like Sansa is going to have to develop a way to do this, they have the signing process already. They aren’t loosing more money in doing it cause they are abandoning the platform and even paying out for RMA’s and exchanges.
And Public Wifi’s are not the point of the player. My own Private WiFi is all I’m asking for. There are plenty of open or usable encrypted Wifi’s out there if you get permission to use them. I personally could care less about “downloading music over Wifi” as the connect isn’t my repository of my music, a real hard disk is, but I’m much more concerned about the ability to STREAM (not store) music to the player, even if it’s from my own pc.
FWIW Rockbox.org is collecting information on the Connect. They have a Wiki page devoted to it that contains some technical info on the various software components of the player. There may be some hope that Rockbox will eventually be ported to the Connect as it already has been for the C200 and E200 Series players. It will be interesting to see what they would do with the wifi capability. I plan on hanging on to my connect even if Sandisk abandons it just to see what will come of this.
