I think that Sandisk just doesn’t want to do anything more with the Clip and didn’t plan to since when there were plans for the Clip+. This flatly contradicts statements by Sandisk itself here in the Clip forum in Feb. and March this year that a new firmware would be coming out for the clip “this quarter” (Sandisk’s words).
I think someone else here called this throwing the Clip customers “under the bus”. Maybe not that dramatic and I know that plans change over time, but this certainly is not honorable. And Sandisk says that it lives by customer goodwill.