[Spirit FM] mikereidis:
Decisions are rarely final & the list is still tentative.

I recognize the GT-i9000 is 20% of sales overall, and 16% so far this month. That makes it 2nd, behind the GS2 at 30% and 27%.

- First disadvantage to supporting GT-i9000 is the ongoing speaker risk problem. If I support it, it would be correct for some to say "Spirit2 is dangerous, as is Spirit1". I'd really like to leave that chapter behind me. Despite hundreds of hours of effort I have no solution, although reports are rarer now, about 1 every 4 weeks instead of every 1 week. And I've given up on finding a full solution.

- Second disadvantage is that I'd prefer to support only "higher end" devices. Yes, it was high end at one time, but now they often sell in the $100-200 range; I've seen several used from my favourite EBay vendor for about $100. They sell Canadian store returns that sometimes have some flaw or another.

- Third disadvantage is little prospect of enabling digital audio functions such as record, Bluetooth, etc. I've felt one defining factor of Spirit2 should be that only devices that can support at least one digital audio function should be supported. Thankfully that also means it aligns with the "higher end" qualification.

And I can say "Spirit2 supports FM recording etc. on all supported devices".

Note that I've been on the fence about the GT-i9100, despite it's first place status in my stats. Now that we know FM record is possible, I added it.

Spirit2 is about being the future oriented version. GS2 GT-i9100 is the past frankly, GS3, Note2 and S4/S4+ devices are the future. So I reluctantly think about adding it, never mind the year older GS GT-i9000.

Spirit2 will likely be for JB+ only, not even ICS. ICS is the past. Spirit2 will be edgy, and more bug prone for a while I add new features. Spirit1 will be the mature app that I try hard not to break on existing supported phones.

Technical:

I'll continue to say that the schematic & block diagrams of the WM8994 audio chip seem to indicate that it's technically possible to digitize the audio FM signal and record it or whatever.

But I think that might require hacking into or modifying the kernel device drivers. It's an incredibly powerful chip with tons of features. Even the new GS3 and Note2 are using a WM1811, which is almost exactly the same. There are hundreds of ALSA controls on it (on GS3) and that doesn't cover everything. Whereas the standard GS WM8994 ALSA driver is very simple, with a mere 11 controls or so.

I can't get involved in kernel hacking, and if I did, it would be a "desperate measure" to get some much newer device working.

Conclusion:

So,... we'll see. I expect to have a debug type config option to enable "Unsupported devices". It won't be hard to make it work.

If I "officially support" a device in Spirit2, I expect to keep supporting that device until a year perhaps after the ramp-down of Spirit2, and ramp-up of Spirit3 perhaps, in 1-2 years. A year after means 2-3 years from Spirit2 start in 2013. As good as it was and still is, I don't want to officially support a device released June 2010 until 2015 - 2016.

I'll say I like my GS more than any other device from that era, such as the Desire HD. But my impression is that it's starting to show it's age running JB ROMs. And I rarely use apps on my phones, so I have no idea how much it slows in real use.