Roadmap

This is what we’re working towards for launch. Nothing here is promised by a date, and nothing is called finished until it has run on a real iPod.

Launch features

Podcasts in Scrollwheel OS, put on the iPod from your phone, with your place kept across episodes. In progress.

Save states: Save State and Load State in the pause menu, and a Resume slot that keeps your place, and scores held in the game’s own memory, when you leave a game. Like every save in Scrollwheel OS, they go into a fixed file the app creates. The iPod only rewrites that file in place, with two copies so a cut-off save loses at most the latest one.
Link play: two iPods playing together over a cable between their docks, like a Game Boy link cable. It already works between two emulated iPods. A real cable has to be tested next.

Even out the volume between songs and albums, so a quiet track and a loud one sit together without you reaching for the wheel.

A look back at your listening, built from the play counts the iPod already keeps: top songs, artists and albums.

How long the battery lasts in Scrollwheel OS compared with Apple’s firmware and Rockbox, measured on real iPods.

iPod nano (2nd generation): Scrollwheel OS started by Rockbox’s own, unmodified bootloader. It will only read the nano’s flash until a safe way to write it is proven, and it never writes the boot flash.
iPod nano (3rd generation): Rockbox’s bootloader installed from the phone, then Scrollwheel OS.
iPod classic: installing Rockbox’s bootloader straight from the phone, with no computer, is a high priority. Rockbox’s own unmodified installer images will be used, a backup taken first, and the recovery steps documented before the first run. Scrollwheel OS for the Classic is well under way in the emulator.
iPod photo: Scrollwheel OS already runs on its colour screen in the emulator. Next it has to be tested on a real one.

Follow progress in the changelog.