You are wrong as Apple (and many other DAP companies) is only proving existing support to their old player and nothing more. Even Cowon doesn't spend much effort on releasing firmware to discontinued player.

You are also wrong that the list is 'completely ignored by iRiver' - When did iriver promised anyone to release a custom firmware based on someone's opinion? We are operated under the assumption that it might help, not it will help. I have been using irver for a long time now, and I never see iriver change much of its way on firmware release. In fact, iriver almost always release new feature on new player, but almost never release firmware for old player with any major new feature.

You will alway find people on ipod forum asking for Zune-like feature, and people on Zune forum asking for ipod-like feature - you can ask what even feature you want, but no one will guarantee you anything. Even if you have a player with both Zone and ipod-like feature, I can assure you someone will sure to ask a feature not to be found on both, than claim to be ignored.

Do you want to know why iriver is releasing so many player? They are not targeting you or me as their potential customer, but those on S.Korea and China. To tell you the truth, iriver probably has ten times as many users on both places than the rest of the world. They already become the big player there, and fullfilling those customer's demand is much more important than you or me on the other side of the world.

Let me just add that, this is not about flaming. My goal is to tell you that, we have choose to be the minority on the DAP war, and therefore the will be disadvantage. If you don't think you want that kind of products, than perhaps you will be better off with iPod or other brand of DAP. It is easier to change the lane, than to change the world.

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Point taken, but I disagree with your first claim that Apple doesn't support old products. I don't know about other companies, but as for Apple, I had an iPod gen 4 and well past a year after the unit had been released, they were still releasing firmware upgrades. iRiver abandoned firmware upgrades to the Clix and it hadn't even been out for a year. If there are bazillions of customers in China and Korea with Clixes, shouldn't it still be supported? It seems a little wasteful to constantly release new players, instead of improve the ones you have, thereby forcing customers to buy new things every 6 months. Then again, maybe that's what they want. *shrug*

Meh, this isn't worth arguing over.

I don't know why or how you have the impression that iriver has stopped working on firmware update cause the last update (v1.21) was released only three months ago in May. Also, clix2 was first released on February 2007, than made it to U.S. on April 2007. That is well over a year now. Both of what you claimed ("iRiver abandoned firmware upgrades to the Clix and it hadn't even been out for a year") is simply wrong.

Perhaps this isn't about whether there is an update or not, more about whether iriver has released a firmware with new features that you wanted? Through I too like to have new features added to my clix, I bought my clix for whatever feature it had on the time of purchase, plus I don't recall any one from iriver made a promise that they will keep adding new feature to the player, thus I'll expect none. If they decided not to release firmware with new feature but only stick to fixing bug, that's fine with me too. Personally, I will advise all DAP user not to keep any false expectation on any company, ever. Instead, you should stick with what already has been provided on the table, and decide if it is a keeper or not.

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as i understand Firmware only comes around when a company has an important product update or feature that's really useful, important or an enhancement to the product a company wont produce firmware at the drop of a hat because one person decides they want a particular feature on their player
as for firmware not being worked on, on older players there is a point to that as many consumers will upgrade to the newest model of mp3 and they'll toss their old mp3 aside it's not worth producing frimware upgrades if only a few hundred people are still using a particular type of mp3

So, at what point should they open the vault and let their user community evolve into a development community, so that the new features that users are looking for can be explored?

I won't fault iriver (or any other company) for winding down development on firmware for existing models, when they are obviously focusing on new products. It's great to see innovation and advancement of product offerings. But, if existing models aren't getting any attention anyway, why not make the firmware open-source and let the talented people who are capable and have the desire to implement new features do so. If the concern is having to support unverified/unsanctioned firmware, draw the line at officially released versions. Period.

I don't understand their reluctance to do this. Is there so much intellectual property wrapped up in the firmware code that there is some risk to the company in opening it up?

I would expect that cultivating a developer community would have the potential for a tremendous increase in the popularity of a product. Isn't this a win-win situation?

My clix fell a thousand of time, i travelled a lot with it and it's working like the first day: perfectly fine

It took me a while to get used to my clix too. The volume buttons are annoying and don't really want to work..but the clix is cute, small, audio is great, sorta tough, and its different from all the ipods out there. I like it

My LCD broke twice but iriver fixed it twice....

for such customers service, what can you say?

I've had my clix 4gb since the 26-7 of December last year.
It's been through hell basically
I've dropped it on concrete while walking to school, the screen sort of came apart but I was able to snap it into place and it's as good as new.
It's been in my school bag which has been thrown to the ground because I've been dropped by some guys in my year level.
I'ts been through a fair few drops and held out well and the music quality is amazing!
Oh, yeah, it's been through a tug-o-war and a couple of showers (rain) but I kept it in my sleeve.
I'd advise you to buy one, I bought this myself and never regretted it. Previously I had this mp3 and had to have two replacements in one year which was not a sucess.
Theres good and bad in each model, however the majority it seems agree it is a fantastic little mp3.