Re: Accessing the internal disk of Digital Book Players
@Chris:
Finn tells me the Stream2 is using a freescale 580MHz single-core arm11 CPU. The Braillenote Apex used something from the freescale series, I imagine the Stream2's is weaker due to it being an embedded device. Put simply, network file browsing capability would probably make you wish they'd never implemented it in the first place.
Also, say all you want about Humanware, but they are a lot better than Hims as far as support is concerned, coming from personal experience. Sent me a free brand new Trek replacement after my original battery exploded, never mind the fact that my warranty is over. Pre-owned Blaze ET from Hims appears to have fried? Mainboard replacement would be on me and I wouldn't find out how much it costs till we get a quote, no doubt it wouldn't be under $100 from what I'm told.
Also, people who purchased a Braillenote Touch very recently are in line for an even steeper discount on the Touch Plus upgrade, and may even get it for free. It's early adopters that are hit the hardest ($1300 is the highest price one will pay for an upgrade). But early adoption is risky business in the tech industry nowadays, not just for assistive tech. The entire friggin smart home business is an early adoption nightmare (remember the Revolv system that was set to be a universal smart home hub? Well, Nest acquired it, discontinued (and bricked) the original Revolv. People got refunded the $300 they spent on Revolv, but now they had to get a new hub for all their smart home appliances that now no longer worked without a hub. So couple early adoption with Humanware's essential early adoption of Android as a hole, and you've got a logistical nightmare. Humanware jumped on the train when Android was still a maturing platform, 2013 to be exact. The Touch began development when Android accessibility was just beginning to improve, so while Google worked closely with Humanware on development, a lot of shit had to be expanded upon to make the speech and braille experience seemless. Midway through development, the chip that the Touch was based off of, Texas Instruments Omap4 board to be exact, had its support dropped (that's why the Galaxy Nexus never got Kitkat.) Humanware having already started development probably didn't have the budget to just scrap the device and start over on a new board. So they did somehow manage to get an extended support agreement with Texas Instruments, which is probably what actually led them to believe they could upgrade the Android version of the Touch past 4.4.2. Also keep in mind that at the time, 4.4.2 was the Android version that had the most stable accessibility framework. Now, that Android version is Oreo. Well that extended support came and went. So here we are in 2019, and the Android accessibility framework has seen substantial improvement, so HUmanware can now enter the new Android market. The Qualcom Snapdragon820 board is an excellent board for the Touch, it is running Android Oreo currently, and I am told it's definitely getting Pie soon. I even asked if it's getting Android Q, despite the horrifying isolated storage issue (I'm keeping tabs on it testing the beta builds of Q on my Pixel2), and they said working around Q's limitations and allowing filesystem access was on their radar.
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