Outdated Android

#22

Do you have any suggestions as to how HiFi Rose could be encouraged to materially upgrade their software?

One of the problems of attaching specialized software to someone else’s operating system is that you may have to make very substantial changes to all of your specialized applications to be compatible with the current operating system version. For Eversolo this isn’t a problem because they started with the current version of Android. For HiFi Rose I suspect the answer is not that they can’t upgrade but that they could upgrade to the current Android Operating System -and then get all of the advantages that the upgrade would offer but that it would be too expensive in programming time to ensure that all of their existing applications would still function properly.Think of all of the messages we have seen on our computers…“This program no longer operates on Version XX of this software”.

I for one, would be willing to pay a subscription price to keep the programs current even though the initial purchase price is very high. It probably is an economically unsupportable model to indefinitely upgrade your user base for free without a continuously high sales volume. I sympathise with HiFi Rose but it’s a problem that must be solved otherwise the products will fall behind.

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#23

Yeah, I figured that you are not a software engineer.

They wouldn’t. They provide MusicKit SDK for Android. Qobuz, Tidal etx. as well. Device manufacturers use them to build device-specific apps that integrate (functionally and visually) with their devices. Unless the service itself becomes inaccessible through an old SDK and the new SDK requires a higher version of Android (highly unlikely for something that only requires making authenticated REST calls to get metadata, and stream some bits from a server… maybe if they decided to go to a different compression format that somehow can only be decoded on a newer OS version, but that’s somewhat unlikely) moving to a newer Android on a device like Rose gets you absolutely nothing.

Eversolo lets you side-load third party APKs of random programs, which is all neat and cool. I’d be curious to see what their support does once you load something that bricks the unit.

To summarize. Rose isn’t running apps straight from the Play Store. There isn’t anything related to music playback in Android 13 (II think that’s the latest) that would provide any improvements in Rose’s functionality or quality of audio playback. Upgrading the underlying OS, at least for now, would be just a colossal waste of time and effort by Rose’s software department, effort they should much rather spend on fixing existing issues.

#24

Does HiFi Rose access the third party music databases through a RESTful.api?

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#25

Well. Thanks for that. Makes a lot more sense now.

#26

Most likely. That’s what Apple Music et al expose for third-party integration. Most likely uses it for getting CD metadata when ripping as well.

You’re welcome.

While it might seem that upgrading the Android version is a low-effort process with some big benefits if you look at it as a user who just installs a new version on their phone when it becomes available, in reality it is much more complicated.

All the custom parts of the Rose would need to be redone (Rose , like other manufacturers of Android-based streamers had to rewrite the audio portion of the OS to allow anything better than 24/48 to be processed bit-perfectly), all the custom screens (that is all the screens, since Rose does not use stock Android settings pages or apps), and all the built-in apps would need to be at the very least validated to still work. They might work as-is. Or not. Audio portion is quite likely to require attention. Then you need to test everything, and redo things that broke.

And what would the benefit be? You can check the official list of changes at Android 14 features and changes list  |  Android Developers (substitute other versions for 14, although for versions prior to 11 you need to click on “All Android Releases” and browse from there). Yes, there are changes. Some performance improvements are nice to have, but Rose performs adequately for what it does already (not talking about e.g. speed of music scanning; the problem there is in bad algorithms, newer Android would not help much). The rest are things like cameras improvements, notifications changes, new areas in settings, media playback control in the notifications shade, better security controls, etc. etc. – all the great things to have on your phone, but quite useless for a device that uses a completely custom UI, does not have a camera, does not play games, has no cellular modem, and is really adapted to a single use case – playing music.

If/when Rose releases a new device, with some additional functionality and beefier hardware, sure, might as well go for a more current OS version. For now though 7 is perfectly fine.

#27

BorisM,

I agree that it would be a big software coding job to switch to the current (and future) Android versions. Not really necessary as you point out as most of Android’s apps aren’t used by HiFi Rose’s music applications and because RESTful is stateless and thus separates the Rose Client and the music service Server. I would argue that over a longer time period, it may become necessary to upgrade the Android version. I could be wrong for all the reasons you pointed out.
However, I think we would agree that while I think the Rose hardware is excellent, the software is only about 90% finished. It’s stable and runs with excellent graphics and sound quality but the decision tree organization is not as intuitive as it should be (bad algorithms?). It suffers from lack of consistent, logical organization and usability among and within the various applications.
How do you think we could encourage Rose to finish the software in a reasonable time period?

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#28

Not sure if the stateless nature of REST is really important here.

Eventually, it might be needed to upgrade the OS, but the only reason I could think of would be if the SDKs for servces Rose uses start requiring newer OS, and old SDKs stop working or lose features. Which is possible, if e.g. they switch to a different encryption/authentication protocol that’s only supported by the newer OS, but this is really highly unlikely because it will break a lot of devices that might be running plain Linux (e.g. Blusound) or QNX or something completely custom. Not something I would really worry about for the next few years at least.

For now, IMO, best approach is reporting real issues and asking for realistic new features, remembering the storage is not infinite, there are only so many apps one could fit into it. IMO, having Idagio would be neat. Initially I would just try to make sure that all the existing functionality works flawlessly. While a lot of things could and should be caught by internal testing, in reality bugs still sneak in and re only found in real world usage.

#29

BorisM,

Idagio is probably on their list as I understand the owner of Citech is a classical music fan.

There are more and more streaming applications out there like Idagio. This is one reason I would like to see more streaming portals for the RS130. It seems to me that HiFi Rose’s software was designed for a time when most music was on CD’s. Hence its emphasis on ripping CD’s and local storage. Now the CD business is almost gone and online bit perfect/ high res streaming is the new business model. Look at what happened to OPPO. They primarily made great CD products and now their CD business is gone. That focus by HiFi Rose must also change away from CD’s.

The RS130 is a perfect example of a purpose built transport/streamer. The software just has to catch up.

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#31

Would be good…

The more the better. Makes the device more marketable, too, although Rose does need to balance between effort needed to add a support a new service vs. how many new devices it might sell (for something very niche, probably not too many).

That I would disagree with very much. Yes, Rose can rip CDs, but that seems to be an afterthought added just because there is a USB mass storage connection (so a CD can be plugged in) and I am sure they would be super-happy to sell those CD readers, with their 1000% markup. But really… Rose isn’t even all that good at managing files you already have, takes forever to scan, and redoes the database whenever you add a new track.

Really, the CD ripper is one thing I would rather Rose not put any effort into. It’s probably safe enough to assume that people who can afford to buy a Rose device have a computer, or can afford one (and if they can’t, shouldn’t be buying an expensive audio toy in the first place :slight_smile: ), and a $300 PC will do a much better job of ripping disks (maybe add another $30 for dbPowerAmp or similar, if you want it to be easier) than any streamer on the market.

It’s very good at streaming though, especially with Roon.

#32

What it means outdate Android? I have being developing andorid apps since 2009 and there is notihng much to improve concerning audio/video except few improvements in the kernel space or adding some feature that are now needed for new A/V codecs. Choosing one version and make a custom build is a whole idea for oopen source community even to fork a whole version as did Samsung in the past. At the end, there is no “real” Android version implemented by vendors, all they do build fully custom surroundings and infrastructure based on new or the latest kernel release supported by Android team. Not Samsng, nor Sony havin clean Android versions on their phones thus makes no sense to break something working fine with any new update, as not much is chnging behind in every major (annual) release. Such wrong perception usulay comes from the end users having no clue how OS and infrastructure are build out of theory.

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